Russian folk systems and too much of a good thing…
13 June 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
The weather has been near perfect as of late down on the 155-acre farm I use for my cardio efforts when I don’t have the time or inclination to head to the deep woods. I walk/trot/jog/run a veritable maze of crisscross farm trails that mostly follow both sides of the roaring creek as it winds along, picturesquely nestled against the base of a series of steep contiguous hills. There is a particularly wonderful flat section that parallels a section of stream. It starts off as a soft trail that burrows a hole through dense, dark, covered forest before popping out onto a wide green lane lined with trees and fragrant boxwood bushes. The honeysuckle is everywhere and at their fragrant peak. The creek is loaded with trout – if you know where to look. Early morning mountain air is super-oxygenated, very dense. This is all dirt, not a hint of asphalt anywhere, this is rough terrain. Several sections are suitable for all-out running: great traction, soft footing and no trip hazards. I warm up thoroughly and completely before I arrive at the little human racetrack. I open the throttle and take it to the floor, safely and sanely. I have recently watching Sonnon’s “Be Breathed” tape and his approach to cardio breathing is unique: he’s been on a one man resurrection of the whole Zdorovye Russian “heath system” that was founded in the Ural Mountain a thousand years ago. One of the interesting concepts in the Zdorovye play book is the idea of “be breathed” - how best do we ‘fuel’ steady and sustained athletic effort?
While you exercise consciously controlling the breathing process can improve results. The ancient Slovak masters would say ‘let go’ of breathing, allow the body to ‘breath itself.’ It’s an odd and subtle philosophy, best tried using moderate intensity cardio; long slow jogs and power walks provide a good opportunities to put Be Breathed theory into cardio session reality. Can control of the breathing during hard exercise be ‘given up?’ The key is to relax muscles, relax them consciously as you move along – regardless the mode – the idea is to operate at a level where energy output stays slightly behind and below the body’s ability to keep up with the oxygen demands. This is quite difficult as muscles normally flex and fire at will when exercising – now we try to keep everything relaxed in order to keep from overloading and overwhelming heart/lung and arterial highways. Fresh clean blood carries oxygen and nutrients to fatigued muscles; toxins and waste products are carried away. Muscular contractions require oxygen and the fewer contractions the less oxygen needed, the less oxygen needed the easier for heart/lungs to keep up with accelerated demand. Over time and after many sessions working at it, you find that you can jog along using a wonderful low impact glide that allows you to float along, barely impacting the ground.
Consciously seek to relax each target muscle in turn. Maximize the range-of-motion: too many trainees barely stretch their stride and let the arms hang at their side uselessly. Do you stretch your stride, pump your arms and extend and lean into the effort with forward momentum? If you don’t you should – you’re not getting all the benefit you could. Move big and “talk” muscles into relaxing as you locomote. Relax the arms as you swing them large, you’ll find there is no need to tense or flex the arm muscles as we swing them. From an energy consumption standpoint, swing the arms like weighted clubs. The most fuel efficient way to move the arms is relaxed. Relax the upper back, that’s easy. The lower back is hard and relaxing the glutes while jogging along is harder still. Relaxing the waist is fairly easy and the upper torso easier yet. The final Zdorovye frontier is learning to relax the legs as they propel you. I like to do this on lush surfaces. When you are ‘being breathed’ the jogger is propelled along the surface, like some solar powered car, the lack of muscular tension means less fuel is required. Less tension means a reduced need for oxygen. Tensing muscles requires oxygen. Too much tensing creates oxygen debt as lungs struggle to keep up with increasing demand. When you learn to run totally relaxed oxygen availability exceeds need and this new capacity allows you to be able to jog along rather briskly, ad infinitum. Zdorovyre ‘be breathed’ no muscle tension state-of-being is exhilarating and counterintuitive: all these years I’ve “powered along” and find out late in the game that relaxed is easier and more enjoyable. I have been very fired up about kicking over this new cardio stone: I love discovering new things.
The downside was I developed a bruised heel from doing thousands of “higher” impact footfall reps. Too much of a good thing – I’ll be normal in another three or four days but need to shop for new shoes. Try new things to kick start exercise…the spring and summertime is the ideal time to really throw the aerobic activity into high gear. Don’t loaf on the sidelines; jump into the game. Just don’t go to crazy and injure yourself – and if you do go crazy and injure yourself, recognize it and stop digging the injury hole deeper!
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