ESTABLISH HEALTH FIRST
As you evaluate and start to establish your priorities for the New Year I encourage you to pause and ask why you are wanting to do something. It’s easy to want to jump right into things - for example start running to prepare for a marathon.
In your enthusiasm don’t skip the preparation needed for a good baseline of health. Is the purpose about running, or taking care of yourself? After all, why are you wanting to create new fitness goals in the first place if not to become healthy?
TENSION CAN MASK DYSFUNCTION
I had a friend who went to a CrossFit gym multiple times a week and ran regularly in preparation for a marathon. They were unaware of how much dysfunction they really had. They trained regularly and pushed hard, so they must be in good shape, right?
Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Excessive tension and a lack of sensitivity and awareness can cause us to be unaware of what our internal state really is. They were struggling with their training and had regular injuries. Frankly, they were a wreck.
WALKING COMES BEFORE RUNNING
I encouraged them to back up a step and instead try walking first. I asked them to just casually walk the distance they were running. No time constraints, no pressures, or worries of any kind. Just walk and listen to how their body felt.
When they attempted the walk they reported back that it was horrible. They didn’t even get halfway through and their body hurt so much that they had to stop. If you can’t even comfortably walk a certain distance, does it honestly make sense that you would be able to run that same distance without some sort of price to pay?
BUILD HEALTH - THEN PERFORMANCE
If you want to start running, then let's get the legs healthy first. Start with regular massage to the feet, legs, hips, and spine, plus regular walking. Take the time to remove excessive tension, improve circulation, and get the joints healthy.
Once walking can be done easily without creating pain or soreness, start alternating walking and short distances of running. Slowly replace walking with more running until you are running the desired distance.
This approach will take longer to develop. But once you reach your desired goal it will truly belong to you. Just because you stumble across the finish line doesn’t mean the process of how you got there was beneficial for you.
FOCUS ON THE PROCESS
Part of what makes changing your health so difficult is we suffer through a process towards a goal that is too far away. We get distracted and define success by whether or not we finish the race in a certain amount of time, regardless of the actual physical cost.
Instead of enjoying the process of getting healthy, we accidentally take something that was supposed to be good for us and turn it into something that is destructive in order to achieve a very narrow and superficial goal.
I think the trick to being consistent and patient is to learn to enjoy the day-to-day process of improving our lives. The process in Konstantin’s course can help you build quality time with friends and family. Enjoy the feeling of getting out of bed when your joints are pain-free. To feel empowered and to improve your health, get the course now and rebuild yourself from the inside out.
