Gina Jackson Personal Fitness

Three things happened a few weeks ago on my Halloween run around the park.

For the first time this season, I started and finished a 40-minute run without stopping, limping or putzing with cramps in my toes or pinches in my feet or aches in my knees. When I finished the run, I noticed how full, grounded and firm my whole foot was connecting to the shoe and the pavement.

I am not a marathon runner, by no means. I don’t regularly run anymore so imagine my surprise with leisurely and comfortably gliding around the lake and pushing the completion of the workout of two much younger individuals in my path.

I noticed in my peripheral vision, a young guy barrelling up behind me to pass me on my second lap. I noticed his braces and what looked like sprinters shoes. I noticed at my time check (10 min) he had stopped running and started walking. As I passed him, I urged him on, “Come on Shorty, pick it up!”

He smiled a full mouth of braces and took the lead again. Yet, again, I had to push him along midway around the track. Turns out, it seems he was out there enjoying the balmy weather and wearing the shoes - not because he was practicing to join the track team - but because “they look good” was his remark as to why he was wearing the black shoes reminicent of Michael Johnson (minus the gold - as in color of the shoes or medal potential).

Now the interesting part about this dialogue with Mr. Young Braces, is I knew I was a)lot older and b)my body had a lot more wear and sure, c) I had a lot more experience and wisdom (I encouraged him to Google Michael Johnson so he could learn a little history about the history making olympic winner that he had unfortunately never hear of) but I also had a lot more glee in my run than he did!

Now I attributed my glee, effortless work and painless run to spending a few hours Body Rolling my legs on Sunday, the day before this run. It is a fitness regimen I am practicing that stimulates bone first (at the origin of a specific muscle), works thru the tendons and connective tissue and finally works thru lengthening muscle at the insertion of the muscle to the next joint.
Pain and discomfort in all of our activities are generally caused by compression at the nerve endings, tightness and contraction of the muscle. Body Rolling, a montage of massage, stretching and structural integration and realignment, helps one de-compress by lengthening and loosening the spaces between the joints and muscle and freeing the pressure, pain and sensitivity of the impacted area.
The fun part of the discipline is that it is done on small balls.

Yamuna, the creator and director of the program, is a petite, yet fiesty woman that says, “It takes balls to get in shape.” I’ve been working on the balls on myself for four weeks, a few hours a day (in training) on Sunday. The release and relaxation and freedom in the body is evident the next day, as evidenced by my running story above. Adding the discipline to your weekly “self-care” will reduce and likely eliminate the need for pain killers, chiro adjustments and massage.

Anyway, back to my Mr. Young Braces, I finished my two mile run with a smile and left him catching his breath with the advice to get some new sneakers, cause if you are going to run, do so for the results and the release it gives your body, not for looks.