¶ Improving Mobility for Runners
So you're thinking about running but not sure how to take the first step . My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help . Welcome to Brian's Rompod . Welcome back to brian's run . For today we're diving back into our conversation with johanna barrett , a body movement specialist with a truly unique , unique approach to fitness .
If you haven't caught the first part of our chat , I highly recommend you give it a listen . It's packed with insights that you won't want to miss . Now a little fun fact I forgot to mention last time Jana hails all the way from New Zealand . So , yes , I had to get up bright and early to record our interview , but it was totally worth it .
In the first part of today's chat , we explored some really interesting ways on how to use a simple broom to improve mobility , and if that sounds intriguing , trust me it is . I'm excited for you to hear the rest of our conversation today . So I really hope you enjoy our chat .
And I know and also , the other thing is you don't need to have the , because I saw you doing on Instagram the one where you were doing it with a broom , doing the same exercises with a broom , so you don't have to buy all the fancy equipment , as it were .
No , you don't straight away , because it's a really difficult thing for me to introduce to people , because you won't find a steel maze in most gyms . And sometimes people kind of watch me and they think , hey , that looks kind of interesting , but I don't really know what it's going to feel like and they can't really experience the .
You know how the mace will load the body , that it has a heavy ball on one side , so it's a very . It puts a really different type of demand on the human body than a dumbbell or barbell . So yeah , I tell people , just grab your broomstick and just take it out , just try it .
Try it out , yeah .
Try some of the movements with the broomstick and that's quite popular , especially with the women . They're kind of like , yeah , we're going to switch our broomsticks for the steel mace and become feminine warriors just before we get on specifically the running , because this is a running podcast , as it were .
So I mean , was there any reason why you've you've you focus more on women , or is it just the way it worked out ? I mean , did you get many men who sort of came to you ?
yes , so I . So I have two businesses . I have a face-to-face business here in Wellington and I tend to attract quite a few men here face-to-face , but online I just focus on women and I fell into it completely accidentally because I think women feel more comfortable with other women , and especially because I'm 47 .
So a woman that is my age naturally will feel more comfortable with a woman who is also in her 40s .
Yes .
Or then a 20-year-old dude in the gym that has really no idea what it's like to live in a middle-aged female body , so I fell into it quite accidentally . Women feel very comfortable with me , but so do men , but I .
most of the men that I coach are also in their late 40s and 50s and right so I just tend to attract them so the let's say I'm a runner , and they , you know I'm looking for alternative forms of training , because I know you did say you do have have had trained runners beforehand .
I mean , what sort of advice on the strength conditioning , or even with the , the tack fit point ? You know how , how , what's the best way of getting started ?
so I would , I really want to talk about mobility , because you probably know , brian , that that most runners will get injured at some point of their running career and I think , like I remember , I was reading an article where it said that 75 percent of runners will get injured at some point yeah they're running career , and that's a horrendous number .
That is a very , very high number . So , and you know , I see I don't run myself anymore now , but I see runners everywhere new zealand is a real running country yeah , I can identify quite quickly , when I see people running what's missing in terms of their mobility .
So I think that what I would like to tell your beautiful audience of runners is you need to be doing systematic , targeted , daily ideally , mobility . And mobility is not stretching , it's quite different . So to explain the difference between stretching or flexibility and mobility , it's quite different .
So stretching is kind of when you're putting your muscles into like a passive stretch . So you're stretching your muscles and it's quite passive mode , which is great .
Obviously we need to have nice and flexible muscles , but it often puts a lot of tension and lots of load on the muscles and if you've already got knots in there and stiffness and tension , it's kind of if you imagine a rubber band with a knot in it .
If you're stretching it you're just tightening the knot , whereas mobility , it's a very dynamic movement and you need to support the stretch with strength .
So mobility essentially is really strength training for joints and tendons and you know connective tissue like tendons and ligaments , and that's usually where most runners have injuries right around the joint and usually the tendons and the ligaments .
So mobility will help with the stiffness , the tension , the aches , the pains , the discomfort we get either because of our training . So if you're running a lot and you're just doing a lot of repetitive movement , then that will introduce tension into your body .
Tension will become stiffness , will become a small ape , will become a big ape from an injury yeah , or lifestyle . You know we set a lot on some some of us have to for work . We look at computing inevitably . We have , you know , tight hips . We have slightly switched off glutes . We have , you know , kyphosis , that kind of slouched over shoulders .
Our heads very rarely sit perfectly directly above our spinal column because of the amount of time we're spending .
Yeah , especially now yeah .
Especially now , Especially now . So mobility will basically make you move well , without tension , stiffness and pain . So I think that is the number one kind of exercise modality that I would recommend to runners Mobility , restore the range of motion in your joints too your ankles , your hips , your thoracic spine and move well , Move , move .
Be able to access the movement that your body was designed to access .
Yeah , I mean , are there any specific exercises that people get started with ? I mean , you could explain , as it were .
So obviously , as runners , you need to focus on your legs the most . Yeah , I kind of think you need to focus on mobility in your legs the most and then focus on strengthening the upper body to be able to support you and have good posture while you're running .
So ankles is what I see the most , probably tight ankles , and if you see runners who kind of flick their lower leg outwards .
Oh yeah , I see that quite a bit . Yes , I do yeah .
You see that a lot .
Yeah .
But that's an elevated range of motion in ankles Right . You can't take the leg , the ankle , through the flexion . So in order to access the movement you're going to have to go around and flick the leg outwards or tight hips . You can recognize as well , because people just yeah , I'm , uh , I'm one of those because yeah we're sitting down .
You know you , you get the . The hip flexors get really tight yeah , they get really tight .
And then tight hamstrings too , because you know , for running you need that beautiful kind of recoil off the ground , so hamstrings need to be very elastic and be able to absorb as well as you are , you know , touching the ground and bouncing back up , so you need nice , flexible hamstrings too , and you know , stretching them statically doesn't really work on that .
So , again , mobility is just fantastic . So , yeah , focus on your mobility in the ankles and the hips and then focus on stability in the knees , because knees are another massive , you know , issue . Rural runners have so many issues with the knees . Right knees need to be stable .
You need to build the strength and stability around the knees yeah , because , because I know , like you said , runners are quite guilty of having very stiff ankles , especially if they wanted to transition to triathlon , where it's swimming , and there you need quite flexible ankles for a kick .
So and speaking Not good about toes , yeah , we should have wicked flexibility and mobility in our toes . You should be able to pick up a marble with your toes , but not many people can .
Oh no , you know , because of the shoes we wear like really pointy , stiff shoes , whereas our foot has been designed perfectly to be barefoot and to have amazing mobility and beautifully spread toes , because that's how our brain receives biofeedback as well is that ?
is that because of the , just because we wear the type of shoes you know we do every day , and I know sandals you're able to sort of grip more with your toes .
So because I listened to one of your opposite episodes , brandon , where one of your physio friends was talking about barefoot running . You know that anything about the build-up shoes which don't bend very well and they are so stiff , and you know they have all these technologies and stuff , it's like our feet don't need any technology . Our feet is designed .
The fiction it was . It's an engineering marvel . You know the whole arch and how it bounces and recoils like a spring inside your foot . It was made to run and we put it in these prisons all day long in these stiff , pointy shoes , and then we'll go for a walk and run . We have the you know , over-engineered shoes .
Yes , yeah .
I mean I'm lucky . I live in New Zealand and New Zealanders love being barefoot .
Oh , do they .
You see people in the supermarket with our shoes , even in the middle of winter . Like New Zealanders love being barefoot , but other countries are not like that .
Moving on to the , I've got here the Mastering the Ancient Warrior training . Did you name that , or is that something that was part of the TACFIT training methods ?
But I have researched the steel maze because it felt so right in my hands and so I researched the history and then I realized that not only primal humans used a steel maze-like tools to hunt and defend themselves , but in Asia , so in India and Persia , they used to train warriors with the steel mace . It's made from wood . Even the club bells come from India .
They're called Indian clubs and they made them very long from various types of wood . So obviously to make them heavier or lighter and it was Techfit and Scott Son , you know made it a little bit more user-friendly by making it out of metal and they are just one meter long , but the steel mace a little bit longer , and , yeah , it is a total warrior weapon .
They trained women and men , warriors and wrestlers two , three thousand years ago with the steel mace . So it's got a very long history and I think that somehow our dna and our bodies remember that yeah , so the steel mace is .
I mean looking at you now . It is over your left shoulder , is that right ?
yes yes so there's it's about a meter long metal stick . So now they make them out of metal .
Yeah .
And then it has a ball of steel at the end of it , and you can get that in various ways .
All right .
¶ Introduction to Steel Mace Training
A beginner steel mace is four kilos . That's where I start . All my clients , when they first begin their steel mace journey , start on four kilos . It feels very different to a four-kilo dumbbell . So often people make a mistake of getting the mace that's too heavy .
But four kilos is a very good starting weight and then you can go all the way up to 30 kilos if you can .
So the length of the steel mace . Is that always the same , or can that be shorter ?
I get my steel mace from one company and they are the same length , but different companies do different some sort of thinner , so there's a bit of a variation . Sometimes you can start on slightly shorter one with the thinner weight and they can get just a little bit longer .
But I personally think that when your body gets used to a certain tool , I don't want the dimensions to change . I want the weight to change , but I don't necessarily want the dimension , because clients are not only dealing with the increased weight , they are dealing with the altered physics and dynamics , and you know dynamics of the tools .
So I just ordered my mace were from a company that they make them the same length , yeah , but obviously different , different one so I mean , we've already talked about kind of like the advantages and of you know , because of the mobility and using sort of these types of using these types of implements and equipment and exercises .
So I mean , I know , looking at some of the exercises that you're doing , obviously I don't know what it feels like , but it's going to be very different to lifting a dumbbell or , you know , doing a bench press or that kind of thing , because the weight , from what I gather , the weight , is going to change throughout the movement . Is that correct ?
Am I correct ?
Yeah , absolutely so . Once you get it moving and when you're swinging it around your body , you're dealing with the traction and it's literally flying across the whole back . So if you swing it behind your head , it's going through a massive range of motion .
So it's going to load your body , yeah , in such complex ways , and but not just the muscles but the joints .
So what I found when I first started training with the mace and the club bells was how strong my joints and my ligaments and tendons became because you're using traction , because normally when you hold a barber or dumbbell , the weight is very close to you . When you swing a mace , the weight is over a meter away from your body , from where you hold it .
So it puts a massive demand on the whole body and the ligaments , the tendons and the joints as well , and it kind of opens the joint as well , because weightlifting is very compressive on the human joint , because you're generally just loading the body and then you're moving with it , whereas because we can use traction and we're casting the mace , you know , away
from our body , we're actually creating that lovely space in the joint , but we're building strength around the joint .
So I mean , if I did it for the first time , first couple of times , am I going to feel sore in very different places to , let's say , traditional exercises ?
yeah , and that is the reason why I start on very light maces , because I don't like make people sore . But there's going to be some feedback from your body because it is so different .
The training yes , so yes , sometimes people , people are often very surprised how difficult it is , considering how light the mace is , especially men , especially very fit men and strong men . You know where ?
I give them a four kilo mace , they're like you're gonna be joking , right yeah , yes , I bet yeah there's a bit of an ego there yeah , I know for 60 kgs and I'm like that's cool .
But you know , trust me on this , this is going to feel very different , and so it's a bit of humbling pursuit for a lot of people because I know that I was just an aside .
I injured my wrist just by picking up a one of those big 19 liter water coolers thing and it was because I was just lifting it the wrong way , because he was on , rather than it being standing straight up , it was on its end and I was having to and I put a lot of pressure on my wrist and I I sprained the wrist and it was just so , you know it was ,
although it was just my wrist . I couldn't do . I couldn't even eat properly for the rest of the time , the rest of the day , and it was very , very uncomfortable , you know , and I couldn't sleep properly .
So it's always I mean this , I mean , if anything , I hope I like to to prove to the listeners , you know , okay , it's very good going running , improving your aerobic fitness and and whatever , and also doing strength training , but also is doing other forms of exercises that can help improve your ligaments and joints , because it's all part of the holistic , your
holistic fitness absolutely .
You know the mace like you're talking about wrists , but imagine bringing the mace behind your back . It's going to load your wrists so much in the full range of motion just in one when you're doing a bench press or something . So I think that what people have to think about is not just their favorite sport , but it's just life .
It's opening jars , it's digging up your garden . Yeah , the rubber shats . Those are not a very two-dimensional movement . They are often quite complex movements . If you don't build the strength in those ranges , it will lead to injury yeah , it always does .
yeah , as I've just proved , unfortunately . Do you have any anecdotes ?
or personal success stories of some of your athletes . Sorry , I'm going to talk about my awesome client who has an ultra marathon run .
Oh , yes , yes , please do .
Yeah , fabulous . So he picked it up quite recently and it's a phenomenal success . And you know , I can't even perceive the grit required to run a hundred kilometer race in a bush . That's a superhuman feat .
¶ Prioritizing Mobility for Active Aging
And so Fabs was training with me . He was doing the TechFit circuits and particularly focusing on mobility , because he had a strength and conditioning coach and a running coach specifically for his running and endurance . But he was really after the mobility .
And what's really beautiful with the steel mace is that it's not only giving you strength but it's giving you mobility under load because the movements are so complex .
It's actually got the mobility baked in so you can still do you know bodyweight mobility on top of it , but essentially with the steel mace doing a strength workout that has a lot of ability baked into it . So that's what he really enjoys .
Just another type , another kind of another piece to help him avoid the injuries and you know , once you get fatigued it's so easy to get injured right . So have the body conditioned and to be doing some very complex , multi-dimensional movements really helped him avoid injury and complement his other training , even strength training and did .
Did he do the event ? He's obviously . Has he finished the event or ?
he's doing events all the time , he's running all the time . It's insane , it's just unstoppable . Yeah , he's a little bit younger than me , but he's a phenomenal athlete .
It's very . I mean , the ultra marathon has really taken off . I think if ever there was one event for you know runners , now that's after COVID . You know that's completely skyrocketed . You know it's not . You know , you know , 20 , 30 years ago it was the marathon or whatever then , but now it's .
I don't know where people find time and and just the mental fortitude for that , for that level of discomfort and pain you know they're running through the night- yeah it's insane . Yeah , yeah , but then you know , I coach other runners I had . Who springs to mind is suzanne , who used to run 140 kilometers a week as a training he was .
She was a semi-competitive runner yeah and , but was absolutely plagued with chronic pain and injuries in her feet and her hamstrings . Her hips were tight . She was in so much pain that she couldn't even walk , let alone run .
So people like that , I just start with mobility and rehabbing their injuries and finding out what's causing the aches and the pain when are the weaknesses , where are the tensions , where is the missing mobility , weaknesses , where are the tensions , where is the missing mobility ?
And also assessing the movement patterns too , because some of us have not learned how to move our bodies in the optimal way , and so every suboptimal movement will introduce tension or injuries . Right , and she's running again . She's not running 140 kilometers anymore because she realized at the age of 52 that's probably a bit much .
Yeah , sometimes less is more .
Sometimes less is more , but you know she goes for fun . You know seven eight-kilometer runs and does a lot of mobility and does mace training and it's very happy . There's something incredibly rewarding about getting people out of chronic pain so dude .
So on that first session , it is more about your kind of doing this consultation , trying to assess what they've done before , what they're doing now and then maybe just doing a couple of the exercises and and how you know how they look .
Yeah , so yeah , yeah , so that's what I usually do with people . I mean , at the moment probably , I would say , 70 of people that come to me come with some kind of chronic pain and injuries oh right usually very active people .
I get lots of crossfitters , power powerlifters I mean at the moment I have a martial artist , I have powerlifters and weightlifters , a lot bodybuilders , so people like that that are incredibly strong , incredibly active , incredibly committed to their sport , but they just , as they are aging , they're getting the chronic , the chronic occurring injuries .
That's really spoiling their enjoyment almost to the point and surface as well , and sometimes they have to give up altogether and I think there's nothing more sad than you having to give up the sport you absolutely love .
You are having issues with your shoulders or issues with your knees and you're staring down a barrel of surgeries and the thing yeah , very good point to show people that oftentimes you can actually solve it as a preventative thing .
So would they . Is the advice to them . Is that a case ? Is it kind of in addition to when they're doing the training , or rather , is it they do ? Maybe one day a week they do their mobility training .
So or you know , as I said , you know , is it just something that okay , you , you know , you do your running and then you do maybe a bit of , you know , 20 , 30 minutes strength training and then you do the mobility as well .
Yes , so so anyone over the age of 40 who is not doing daily just for your running , but for overall aging and quality of life . Everybody can find 10 minutes . It is so simple . You can do it in your pajamas , in the corner of your room . You don't need any equipment . You are just moving your body for 10 minutes a day .
And I often tell people think about it as saving for retirement . So all of us are putting some kind of deposits into the bank and saving for our retirement . Mobility is exactly that and that's how I want people to look at it .
You are making continuous small deposits into your old person's mobility bank very good , point very good point 70 , 80 , 90 and you , you know , are you struggling to get in and out of a car ? You're struggling to get on and off the floor ? I have people in their 50s who can't get comfortably down to the ground and then get up .
Or if you can't get in and out of a chair , you know , those are very basic things , but I see people in their 50s and 60s who can't do that . Yeah , if they just did 10 minutes of mobility at least five times a week , they wouldn't be in this situation .
So mobility every day , regardless of what you do , you know , if you're a runner or if you powerlifter or you just do a bit of a gym training , mobility is an absolute non-negotiable and so people can look those exercises up on yeah , absolutely . I six day free , completely free mobility challenge on my website where you get six 10 minute videos .
The five of them are specifically targeted to a certain area of the body and the sixth one is head to toe mobility . If you do that five times a week , the chances are that you will not get injured as often . All right , you maintain your , the functionality of your body and you will age like literally like a fine wine , without any issues .
And it will help you with your sport as well . And often injuries are sometimes inevitable and they do happen , but mobility also helps you rehab those and you will rehab them much faster because while you can't strength train and run because you are recovering from an injury , you absolutely can do mobility so you will recover .
You're still working on , you know how your body moves and the quality of your movement and pain-free movement , so it's a wonderful modality to to rehab from injury as well yeah , yeah .
I mean I think that point of of you saying that we are so focused on especially the over 50s in terms of thinking about the financial benefits of , you know , going down for the pension , but if you're not around to to to reap the benefits of whatever financial savings you have when you come to retire , then you know .
So there needs to be , if anything it needs to be some kind of maybe government policy , you know , in a way which was the simple that literally like people can avoid so many doctor's visits and physiotherapy and chiropractic yeah and and also pass .
If they only just did 10 minutes of mobility , it's , it's mind-boggling . I mean I have clients who go to doctors for hip pain but a client who who went to a doctor because she's had hip pain for 18 months really bad hip pain and the doctor told her to not sleep on it and gave her painkillers .
No no .
And she fixed it in three weeks with immobility completely gone , like not a trace of the pain at all in weeks . So yeah , I wish more people knew that , because I'd love people to think about how they actually want to live the last third of their life the 60s , the 70s , the 80s .
If you can do a lot because aging as much as growing old is inevitable , you don't have to become a decrepit person that just aches all over and has a lot of injury and can't do a lot of things . That's got nothing to do with aging . I mean use this physical decline obviously , yeah , but you , you know , you see people .
I mean I served with a 75 year old on his birthday just the other day . I mean it's a choice sometimes . It's a choice , it's a commitment and it's a choice yeah , that's , that's .
That's . That's very good .
Uh , very good point , because it's although I know we know this is a running podcast and we've talked about the mobility exercises , but I do think , at the end of the day , and like we both agreed on that it's , we know , I mean , I know , I mean my father has dementia , but you know , in later years it's about that my wife's father , you know he's not as
mobile and I know that gets him down because he was a very active man . So , and then you've got the two sides of the coin .
You know , when you are getting older , it is about your mental , cognitive health , but also about your , your physical health , and just to it , to try to get , to prepare yourself for that , means that you are going to enjoy , you know , your later years much more so , because not having that , you know , can be a strain on your , your family , because it's just
like you know , I know what my dad was like when pre-dementia and it's , you know it's , it's quite sad , really . So so you know , you , you , you want them to be the same person all the time , but that doesn't happen , you know , you know yeah , yeah , I'm sorry to hear about your dad .
Yeah , and some things are inevitable and they will strike us disease and conditions , but I think it will be incredibly empowering for people to know that there is actually a lot you can do . You don't just sit back and see what fate brings you . You can actually proactively take charge of your health and your well-being .
And you know , exercise has been linked to improve cognitive and brain health , because there's actually enzyme we make in our muscles while we exercise . They are so nourishing for our brain . So then , I think that we are perhaps the brian . You know , we are the generation now that is just getting research and more information about these things .
You know , my grandmother didn't never exercise .
Right .
You know it wasn't the thing .
Yeah .
You know . And so she had horrendous osteoporosis and spent the last 20 years of her life constantly breaking bones .
Oh no .
Okay , which just was really sad , and she was completely a healthy person . But at the end she just got so tired of the fractures that she died at the age of 86 . But there was nothing wrong with her . There was no disease . She was not on any medication .
If only someone told her to just do a little bit of strength training and it doesn't even demean the gym and the way and just do some squats and push-ups at home . It doesn't have to be complicated and a little bit of mobility to maintain , you know , balance and just good movement would have prevented all of that well , I've really enjoyed this chat .
We come to the end of the podcast and I think we've covered a whole gamut of issues and and I do really , I , I am . I do apologize , yeah , no , I got your name wrong at the beginning , but anyway , no , no , he's a mistake and they're gonna need to speak . Is there any ?
I mean , I think the main takeaway from this is , like you said before , is just to take 10 minutes , maybe going through some form of mobility exercises . You can either find them on your website , if not , you know doing looking up on youtube , because I think you know if you agree with me ?
¶ Maintaining Mobility for Active Aging
That is kind of you're investing in your future , is that right ?
Absolutely yeah , and it will be said to you know , you have a lot of runners in your audience and there's no reason why you can't still be running when you're 67 or 80 . You might not maybe be doing ultra marathons .
No no , and that's maybe okay too , but there is no reason why , physically , you should not be able to go for a jog three times a week around the block if it brings you joy .
So getting old doesn't mean giving up on the things you love , and if you can just put a little bit of effort into keeping your body moving well , then there's no reason why you can't do the things you love and live your life to the fullest for as long as you possibly can .
Yeah , okay , well , thank you very much and thanks for going to come on the podcast . As I said , what I'm going to do is I'm going to sort of split the podcast in two , so because you know , I think we've done an hour , if that's okay with you , and then we'll .
Yeah , it was a wonderful conversation . Thank you so much for having me on the podcast . I'm really grateful .