343: How Your Daily Movement Affects Your Running

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This is the real life runners podcast, episode number 343. How your daily movement affects your running.

Angie: 0:30

What's up runners. Welcome to the podcast this week. We are talking all about life outside of running. And I know sometimes when we talk about life outside of running, we talk about all of our obligations and stress and the way that that affects us and our running and our progress and all of that. And all of that is true today. We are looking at it from a different angle. We are talking about your daily movement outside of running because your movement. outside of your runs matters. So understanding that what we do when we're not running. Has a really big effect on how we feel during our runs on the progress that we're making on all sorts of aspects of our running so that we can use our daily movement and our lifestyle outside of running to benefit us as runners and just help us to improve our health in all areas.

Kevin: 1:25

This one fascinates me because my outside of running activity is very seasonal, like my movement as a teacher. Also, it kind of varies from day to day. Sometimes I give a test and I sort of stand at the podium and just watch the kids all day long. Sometimes I'm walking around campus, but then I'll have days where it's like, Oh, it's a, it's a week of vacation. And if we're not doing a whole lot, sometimes I'm at home and I don't move all that far. Whereas at school, my, my room is on one corner of the campus and the office is like the complete other corner. So I'm walking all over the place. So like my, my movement varies very much with my, my seasonal job. Yeah. And

Angie: 2:04

I think that that is. It's common for a lot of different jobs out there. And one thing that I often see, like when I talk to different runners or just when I see people on social media or whatever, um, ways that I'm connecting with people, there's a lot of people that have this idea that I got my run in today. That's all I have to do. And that. Is problematic for multiple reasons, and there's two big reasons that we're going to talk about today, because oftentimes when you think, well, my run, that's the part that matters. And by now, you guys know that strength training and mobility and all these other things play a big role in. How you feel as a runner and the progress that you make, but if you are someone that thinks that as long as you get your run in, that's all the movement. I really need to worry about today. You're probably someone that experiences a lot of soreness and a lot of achiness in your body, especially as you start getting older, you start to notice that The body's just sore and you're not making the progress that you want to. And so today we want to talk about two main categories of movement outside of running. Number one is not enough daily movement and number two is too much daily movement. Okay, and so we're going to break this down in a couple ways for you so you can kind of figure out where you are so you can decide. Maybe what changes or adjustments you would like to make in your daily movement behaviors to help you feel better on your runs and help you make more progress in your running and to feel less tired, sore and achy throughout the

Kevin: 3:39

day. Okay, so you know that I am, I'm completely on board with the strength training is not lip service. I'm all in on the strength training for running improvement and health and longevity and all the good things. Could you say the whole idea of I checked off the box of I've done my run and now I'm done? Could you replace that with well, I've done my strength session and now I'm good for the day.

Angie: 4:01

Yes It's the same box. Basically. It's like I got my workout in that's all I have to worry about great But

Kevin: 4:06

your workout might be 30, 45 minutes. So out of your 24 hours, you're like, yeah, no, I worked out pretty good for those 30 minutes. Now I'm good for the day. Yeah. And I don't

Angie: 4:16

think that we always think about this consciously. It's not like, okay, box checked. I mean, sometimes we do, but I also think that a lot of this is just kind of that unconscious because a lot of us will go off and do our runs first thing in the morning and then we'll go to work all day and spend the rest of the day sitting. I know that when I started working from home, I noticed a huge shift in this for me, because as a physical therapist, when I was working in the clinic, I was on my feet all day, right? So I would go, I would get my run in the morning or my workout in, then I would go to work and I would be traveling. So depending on what I was doing, if I was in the clinic that day, or if I was treating home care patients, whatever it was doing, I was in and out and I was moving all the time. I was always on my feet. Physical therapy is a very physical job. Um, When I'm doing exercises with patients or working on patients, and I'm, you know, in there doing some mobility work or stretch work or manual therapy with people, it was a very physical job. Um, went full time in real life runners in our online business and didn't have in person clients that I'm seeing on an everyday basis. And I was sitting a lot more. I noticed a big difference in how I felt physically. I

Kevin: 5:30

mean, like I was saying with the whole, you know, different seasons of my job, I know that I've got coworkers that come back off of summer vacation. And the first few days of school, they're like, my feet hurt. My back hurts because you're standing all the time. Like, depending on what we've been doing for like the couple of weeks leading into it, usually by the end of day one, my throat hurts because it's more talking than I've ever done. Is anybody who's ever, ever, anybody who's listened to the podcast for a while knows that if Angie and I are together, I don't do the majority of the talking. I talk, but on day one of school, I've got six classes and I just talk 45 minutes through going through like the basic things. There's a little back and forth and, and calling out names and stuff and trying to get how to pronounce everybody's names. I'm talking for a long time during that day, which I don't do all day, all the time over the summer. Yeah. So you

Angie: 6:25

notice the soreness and the achiness more in your voice because it's something that is abnormal when you come off of a summer at home with

Kevin: 6:32

us. Right. Whereas my feet feel fine because I'm probably not running as much because I had to get up in the morning and get to work that day.

Angie: 6:40

Yeah. But you're still running. So your feet are still used to like being on your feet on my feet for all the time. But like, at least. Impact, right? Like a decent impact. Like that. That is definitely one thing that running does help us with is providing that impact so that your feet are more resilient. I wouldn't be surprised if your feet were still sore because you would be in different shoes all day. But we figured that part out a long time ago with the orthotics. So what we want you to understand is that your daily movement matters. Okay? So there's something called T. D. E. E. Which stands for total daily energy expenditure, and this is basically how active you are on a given day. So if you've ever tried to calculate your calorie like your target calorie intake for the day, if you've ever wanted to lose weight or change your body composition, you may have heard this term before. So essentially what this does is it calculates It assumes or calculates your daily calorie expenditure based on your activity level and usually it falls into four main categories so low activity, medium activity, high activity and very high activity depending on how low Much movement you have during your day, you know, are you a very do you have a very sedentary jobs? Do you work in an office where you're basically sitting all day? Versus are you a nurse and you're walking around on 12 hour shifts moving patients in and out of bed a very highly Physically taxing job right and then there's everything in between so you basically rate your activity level and it gives you what is known as your T D E E, which is your baseline calories. So not based on your running and everything else that you're doing, but just kind of your baseline calories that you burn with your normal daily activities. Now,

Kevin: 8:30

I have a question. Ever since I saw the outline and this abbreviation of T D E E, do people actually just pronounce this T D E E? Yes. That's how I've been pronouncing it for the last couple of hours since I read the outline. It really goes strong, like, uh, like you're cheering it on. Yeah,

Angie: 8:46

and if they didn't, they will from now on. Okay, great. Can you do that one more time for us? Tiddy!

Kevin: 8:51

I'm pretty sure it's industry speak. It's technical jargon.

Angie: 8:56

Technical jargon. I don't think you want to do it that way. That, that one sounds a little different. Um, so. That's one thing, one thing that we have to look at there. It's just energy expenditure. The other thing we want to look at is that if you have a very sedentary job based on, you know, what you're doing on the hours and hours. outside of your run. If you're sitting a lot, there's also structural changes that will happen in your body. And one of the most common ones that is pointed out, and one of the easiest ones to explain is the shortening of your hip flexors. So if you're in a seated position, your are are hips are bent, usually to about 90 degrees or so. And so the hip flexors are the muscles in the front of your hip, in the front of your thigh. And those muscles shorten because of the way that your hip is positioned. And then your hip extensors, which are in the back of your hip, lengthen. So one of the big things that That we can see, especially, you know, as a physical therapist is that people that have highly sedentary jobs, if they're say drivers or office workers or something like that is a shortening of the hip flexors in the front and a lengthening of the hip extensors in the back. And this can be problematic if you're sitting all day long and then you go out to run and your hip flexors are in this chronically shortened position, because when our muscles get shortened, then they don't, they're not able to produce. Force in the same way, and they're not as able to produce as much force, either if they are shortened or if they are lengthened when they're in one of these positions, they automatically are at a mechanical disadvantage.

Kevin: 10:37

And so, since you've got shortened on the front and lengthened on the back, every Everybody is in a mechanical disadvantage at that point.

Angie: 10:43

And so you're everybody, you mean all of the muscles?

Kevin: 10:46

Yes, yes. That's what I mean. I mean, all the muscles on board here, you were weak in the front, weak in the back, and therefore this is basically reduced power with every stride. So is the option kind of work on this before you go out and run or like. If you're in a position where you're stuck, like you're sitting all day long because of what the job requirements are, then I feel like either you're running early. And then you're going into this sedentary position, but if you're running late, are you just stuck with reduced power or are you going through, like, mobility work to beforehand? Yeah, the

Angie: 11:24

second one. The second one? Yeah, you're not stuck. You know how, I mean, you know me better than that by now. To, like, just say, like, sorry, you're stuck with it, like,

Kevin: 11:32

that's not I mean, it's gonna be reduced power, is my question, is Yeah, but that's not As you start running, like if you started running gradually, like kind of walked for a little bit and then picked up your pace and pick your pace, will you just naturally be able to gain more power as running essentially loosens

Angie: 11:47

things up? Yes and no. Okay. Um, more so than at the very beginning. Yes. Like running will naturally loosen some things up. That is true. Like they always say that the first mile is a liar. I definitely felt that on my run this morning, and my body was not into my run this morning. And I just kept reminding myself, the first mile is a liar, just, just get to the second mile. That's all we need to

Kevin: 12:10

get to. The first mile of my run this morning did not lie. If anything, the first mile suggested it was almost better than the second mile. Oh, that's unfortunate. Yeah, things went downhill from there, and the first mile was not good. And sometimes

Angie: 12:21

that happens too, right? But yes. to answer your question. You definitely want to do some mobility work and some dynamic warm up before your run to help address this issue because it is an issue. And if we kind of go back and even one step further. And say, okay, what is it that we can actually do to try to address this from becoming a bigger problem? Number one is that dynamic warmup before your run, okay? You definitely want to do whatever you can before you run to kind of loosen things up and try to balance things out and activate some muscles appropriately. The other thing you want to do is look at your activity outside of running. Again, right, think of those movements unrelated to running. How many times a day? Are you currently getting up and just literally standing up because if you just simply stand up for a minute or two every hour versus just sitting for hours and hours on end, that makes a really big difference. And this can be getting up to go to the bathroom, getting up to fill up your water, getting up and just standing and doing a little bit of standing stretches for one to two minutes can really counteract a lot of the these issues that I was talking about and help to prevent some of that adaptive muscle shortening. All

Kevin: 13:37

right. So I have a question for, for the physical therapist, doctor side of you. Um, if someone has a job that they're super sedentary, they walk into the clinic, you're, you're back in, in clinical work. Can you literally see from, from just poor posture, them standing there? Are you looking at somebody? You're like, you probably have a job that you sit all day long.

Angie: 13:58

I don't usually think it that, think that way, like, but yes, there's a lot of things that I can tell from posture.

Kevin: 14:04

Like, what would be some keys on this thing, of, of looking at me, of I'm sitting all day, because I can see you eyeing me up here, of, well, this would be in, in this position, like, are you sticking your butt out behind, like, you're kind of like leaning forward, almost like you're trying to still be sitting, even though

Angie: 14:19

you're standing? Sometimes a lot of times it's not that obvious. I mean, sometimes it can be that obvious, um, where people just have extremely poor posture, but one of the biggest things that we see is what's called an anterior pelvic tilt, um, which is essentially like sticking your butt out. Behind you and increasing the arch in your back. So it's not that your shoulders and like everything is like bent forward. You're not bent forward at the waist, but like if you were to stand up right now. So if you guys are in a place where you can stand up and kind of test this out. Essentially, if you stand up and just arch your back, you can feel how your hips move forward. Right? Versus if you, like, tuck your tummy and, like, try to tuck your tailbone, like, down and under you, you feel the difference? Oh, yeah. Am I describing that okay? Yeah. Okay. I mean, you can kind of see me doing

Kevin: 15:06

Tucked up and

Angie: 15:06

under you. That, that is more ideal, right? And so, like, The anterior pelvic tilt happens because the hip flexors that are attached to the front of the pelvis get tight and literally pull your pelvis in that direction. So people end up with a lot of lower back pain because they're putting the lower back in a shortened and scrunched position. Like just, like you can feel

Kevin: 15:26

it. You're way curvier than you're supposed to be while you're standing. And I think that I kind of do something similar with my feet if I've been standing for a long time. Like sometimes when I stand my feet, well my feet have a tendency of falling towards the inside, so I naturally counterbalance this and will stand on the outside of my feet like I try to overdo this. This would sort of be like beneficial of if you feel like your back is arching too much of trying to go out of your way to sort of tuck your hips underneath you. to sort of like counter that periodically.

Angie: 15:57

Yeah. I mean, that's one thing that you can do is definitely do some pelvic movements to help counterbalance the tightening and the shortening of the hip flexors. But, but there's a stand up, right? And ultimately, but stand up in, and then like you just said, tuck your, your hips underneath you, because if you just kind of stand up and keep your. back super arch. Is it better than sitting? Yes. But is it not giving you the full benefit? Also? Yes. Okay. Right. So like, if you kind of just stand up and kind of like arch your back and then tuck your hips underneath you kind of like tuck and tuck and flare, um, that can be a really helpful movement for you to kind of counteract some of the, the time during sitting. Excellent. So what we really want you guys to understand here is to think of the movements. That are necessary for your daily activities, because some people like, well, what should I do? Like I can't just get on the floor and start doing bridges or start doing pelvic tilt or doing these things. That's true. I mean, you could like, you could bring like a yoga mat. You could do other things. Like there's lots of options. It just might be a little awkward for you. But what I want you to think about is. What movements are necessary for your other daily activities like this is the mobility that we really want to think about and that we really want to be doing every day because these are functional movements. And I think that For most of us, we want to run so that we can be stronger and more mobile as we continue to get older and so thinking thinking about like getting up and down out of a chair, getting on and off the floor, getting in and out of a car. These are daily movements that require a lot more mobility and motion than running does. And so if we're only thinking about mobility as regards to running, we're missing out on More than half of the movements that we need for our daily life.

Kevin: 17:45

Oh yeah. I mean, a hundred percent the movement of trying to get in and out of a car. Like those are movements I'm never going to have to do when I'm running. Like that's going to be a real involved trail run. If you're trying to ever be in a position of that move to get into a car and then swiveling, like once you sit down, like even. Post like race where I'm super uncomfortable, I've backed into the car and then still had to try and somehow fling my legs 90 degrees over. It's uncomfortable to realize just how much movement is actually involved in that process.

Angie: 18:16

Right. And if, but if you were to go out and run for another mile, you have enough mobility to probably do that. Yes,

Kevin: 18:23

but not to swivel myself into a chair. Exactly.

Angie: 18:27

And that's the thing is like when people think about strength and mobility, they often think of it. at specific to running, which is important. Don't get me wrong, right? We want to do functional strength and mobility movements to help us as runners. But overall, when we just kind of look at daily movement and daily mobility, running is a very small amount of motion as compared to a lot of the other things that we're doing in our daily life. And so So if you're only focused on running and if you kind of do your run that day, check the box there and then spend the rest of your time sitting, you're not getting all of the motion that you need in your daily life and you're going to start losing available range of motion. Like there are older people that cannot get up and down off the floor anymore because they haven't done it. That's it. That's the reason they can't do it anymore is eventually you. It's use it or lose it. The use it or lose it principle basically says if you don't do it, if you don't use those muscles and use that available motion, your body's going to decide, okay, that's not really important for us anymore. We're going to conserve energy because our body. Loves to conserve energy and we're going to push things around. Things are going to tighten. Things are going to weaken and we're going to do, you know, that's why a lot of runners are fine when it comes to running, but then they have difficulty in other areas of their life.

Kevin: 19:50

All right. So with that in mind, I'm not going to reorganize our attic. Because the range of motion that I need to do in order to put up and down like Christmas and Halloween and Easter decorations, I think is really the most range of motion I get all year long. So I'm going to keep things exactly the way they are for my health and

Angie: 20:09

longevity. I think that, isn't that the opposite of what we're talking about? Are you just being sarcastic here? No, no,

Kevin: 20:14

no. Like that is massive range of motion. Yeah. And so if I don't period, like if I put the boxes in a very. Cause I, I could totally rearrange how they are so I don't have to move and climb all over things. The way that I have to get to them now, I really have to kind of move and twist and contort my body. You're saying this is a win. Yeah.

Angie: 20:32

You're saying that you're going to keep it that way so that you will still have to do this a couple of times a year. Yes. That's what I'm saying. I gotcha. Okay. Perfect. And that's fine. A couple of times a year, but I would argue that it's more important what you're doing on a daily basis. And in order to. Maintain the mobility that you need in order to do that so that you don't hurt yourself on those three times a year a couple Of times a year that you're climbing into the attic and contorting your body in all different ways All right, good argument. I think of this as trying to keep your house clean, right if you Decide you're going to do like a weekly cleaning or a bi weekly cleaning or a monthly clean, or maybe you have someone that comes and cleans your house, you know, periodically that will keep your house relatively clean, but there's a lot of things that need to happen on a daily basis to just keep it relatively tidy. Otherwise it's going to just be a complete mess and those. Weekly cleans or biweekly cleans, you're gonna have to spend a lot more time cleaning during those times if you just kind of leave everything like I just look at my counter like the amount of things that are on the counter like if you just never did dishes and you did dishes once a week, the amount of time that you would have to spend doing dishes is insane. Like this happens with laundry too, right? Like some people have One laundry day a week, and they spend hours doing their laundry. Other people like to kind of spread it out throughout the week and just do a little bit of laundry on each day. Neither one of those is right or wrong, but you, you kind of get my point here. If you are. Only thinking about strength and mobility in regards to running and you're kind of neglecting other areas of strength and mobility and other areas of daily movement, then when it like you're going to start losing those things and in order to kind of get back to where you want to be, it's going to take you longer and you're gonna have to put a lot more effort forth to regain that lost mobility and strength.

Kevin: 22:20

Yeah, and so some of these like simple movement patterns where you're like, Oh, it shouldn't be that difficult for me to get down onto the floor and back up off the floor. If you haven't done it in a long time, suddenly that is I've put off laundry for the last three weeks. Oh man, that is going to be an awful lot

Angie: 22:36

of work to do. Right. And then it becomes even. More of a vicious cycle because when you do it then it hurts and it doesn't feel good And so you don't want to do it again, right then you then we tend to avoid it instead of leaning into it Which is really what we should be doing like any movements that are painful. Uh, like Taking away an actual tissue injury. Like if you're just stiff and achy and sore, when you're like moving into certain movements, we should be doing those more often. Like that is a sign that our body needs those things more because the more we do it, the stronger and more mobile we'll get. And the more that thing will feel normal to

Kevin: 23:12

us, right? So movement is. Good and so many of us have jobs where we don't I mean I I walk around during school But one of the biggest things and and this is especially important as I'm like, oh I want to get into these ultras and be running on trails. I Almost never move laterally Ever. Like, I move in straight lines on smooth sidewalks. You should

Angie: 23:34

start just doing, like, side shuffles up at the front of the classroom. Like, like, uh, MC

Kevin: 23:39

Hammer. Maybe post surgery, and I'll get back into side movements. For now, I'm just gonna continue moving in straight lines. But, I think if I do start side movements like MC Hammer, I should get Um, new pants, I have some, I

Angie: 23:52

have some that you can borrow jackpot. Yes, absolutely. All right. So that's our category of not enough daily movement. So if you find yourself in that category, we've got some ways to help you improve daily movement, um, at the end of the episode. The part number two is you're someone that has too much daily movement. And I say too much with a bit of a grain of salt because it really depends. And sometimes it's not that like, there's not a judgment on it. Like too much doesn't necessarily mean bad in this case. And I'm going to explain why, because basically when I think of people that are doing. a lot of extra daily movement outside of their running. It's it's two categories. One, they're just always doing extra, but it's also that they're not getting enough rest. And so that leads to a lot of tiredness, soreness and achiness. So we need to account for that daily activity when we're, when we are calculating recovery, that is necessary. Right? A lot of people think, okay, well, if I run this amount, then this is the recovery needed. But what do, what do your daily activities look like outside of running? And are, are those also So, necessitating extra recovery and fueling and those kinds of things. The

Kevin: 25:05

extra recovery from your titty, right? Because you have so much extra, I don't know, E, that you've got to actually put in some more rest, some more fueling, like both sides of it. More fuel coming in and more actual planned downtime where you're like, all right. I have a very active lifestyle, so my run and what I'm doing during the day, I really need to make sure that I'm getting sleep, that if, if there's a chance where I could be getting recovery, like it's the opposite of the first group, is these are people where it's like, if there's a chance that I can stand up and walk around, I should take advantage of that. This group is, if there's a chance that I could be sitting, maybe I should take advantage of

Angie: 25:46

that. Exactly, because it's important to also understand and, Is this a normal thing for you or is this abnormal? Because there's, we can all fit into this category sometimes and some of us more than others. So I mentioned earlier, there's the nurse that works 12 hour shifts in the hospital. That's moving patients in and out of bed. All of us can agree. That is a very. Physically taxing job, a very manual labor intensive job, also very just emotionally intensive and, um, psychologically intensive. And, you know, like you're dealing with patients that need help, right? So there's a lot going on there when you're a nurse. So, but this is a normal thing for. for nurses that work this way, right? So they get their runs in and then they go work 12 hour shifts. And a lot of the nurses that we work with don't usually put a run on their 12 hour shift days. They, they manipulate their schedule so that they're running on their non working days. Um, or they're just doing easy runs or things like that, but it's because we need to take lifestyle and daily movement outside of running into account when we're planning out their training.

Kevin: 26:56

And if, if this is your regular lifestyle, your body kind of adapts to making sure that it's, it's using your calories to support all of your activities. And so like, that's what you're saying, like, is this a normal or an abnormal activity for you? If this is your job and you've been at it for a while, your body's like, okay, I understand what normal activities are and your normal activities are on your feet for 12 hours and you also throw in this run and there's strength training and it's going to adapt and adjust and and figure out appropriate fueling for this and it may be you. If you're not fueling appropriately, this could lead to an increased chance of injury, but your body is generally going to figure out how can I get to this level? It might just make you tired all the time because your body is going to get to a point where it's like, all right, we are running low on fuel and we're just always running low on fuel. So I need to make sure that that we just kind of keep everything nice and calm. Yeah. And

Angie: 27:58

I think that. It's very important to take this into consideration when you're figuring out how much you should be eating and the rest and recovery that you get. That's really where, what it comes down to is don't only think about your running, also think about all the other things that you're doing in your normal daily life. And then on the other hand, if you aren't someone that has a physically taxing job, maybe you are someone that fits more into category one, where you have a more sedentary job, or you don't have a lot of daily movement and daily activity outside of your runs, but every now and then you do, right? Like every now and then, um, You need to, you go out, you know, on Saturday you go out for your long run and then you come home and your wife had gone to Lowe's that day and purchased 20 bags of mulch that you have to spread out in the backyard.

Kevin: 28:44

That definitely happened. That 100 percent happened. I think you then also made me film exercise videos afterwards. I

Angie: 28:50

may have done that. I think that I, the first round of our program, I think I had you film some exercise videos. a couple of days after a

Kevin: 28:58

marathon. It was three days post marathon. Yeah. Like I ran a marathon on Sunday and it was like Wednesday evening. You're like, do you have time to film some videos? I'm like, I cannot stand up. You're like, all right, we're going to bird dog.

Angie: 29:11

Yes. Okay. Well, that's on your hands and knees. So I took, you know, you couldn't stand up. Perfect. Right into account there for you. So,

Kevin: 29:18

but the, the, the option here is. Maybe you have a job where you are not used to being on your feet all day long, but now you've done your workout. Your body's like, okay, long run, I'm going to fuel for my long run, except you fuel from your long run. And then you are literally doing hours of physical yard work, or you're up where it's cold. And oh my word, there's three feet of snow on the ground and I would like to go somewhere today. So I have to shovel out so I can actually move my car. Or maybe I'd like to see a sidewalk. So I have to shovel for hours. That's exhausting. And you try and put that on top of a workout. This is now an out of the normal experience, hopefully.

Angie: 29:57

Yes. Well, and even if it's on the rest day, this is the other thing too. And we've talked about this one before, right? If you have it on a workout day, that's one thing, right? You're already refueling also take into account this activity level in this movement and this physical labor and make sure you're eating more to help replenish. But a lot of times people will do these types of things on a rest day, right? Saturday long run. I can't go out and shovel snow. I'll do it on Sunday. Sunday is my rest day. But if you're going out and doing three hours of shoveling snow, that's no longer a rest day. Right. That is now a workout. Shuffling snow is hard work. Laying mulch, doing yard work, that depending on what you're doing, like that can be really hard work and that's no longer a rest day. You need to build in more recovery on top of that to help you not get injured and not just get completely tired and sore and achy and burnt out. So you can understand why if you're not fueling more, if you're not giving yourself extra rest and recovery, then. you can end up tired, sore, achy and possibly even

Kevin: 31:01

injured. Yeah. I mean, saturday long run and sunday yard work is really just screaming monday rest day. Like that's what that is, is monday rest day. People are like, oh no, but I've got to get in my tempo run on monday so that I can get in a speed work later. No, you don't know. You need to make sure that your body is actually rested enough so that when you go and you try and hit a harder workout, that you can gain some benefits from that. Trying to squeeze in a run, even if it's an Easy run on Monday. If you do an abnormally out of routine extra stuff on Sunday, long run Saturday, and then a whole bunch of work on Sunday that you're not used to, you're gonna need to take it real easy or off on Monday so that your body can actually be prepared for what's coming up on the rest of the week and not just like, well, it's Monday. So I do what I always do on Monday. Maybe, since you didn't do what you always do on Sunday, you should change what you always do on

Angie: 31:57

Monday. Yeah, and I think that, like, this also kind of leads into one other category, which is people that Do extra just to do extra because they think that what they're doing isn't enough for some reason, like maybe they're following a training plan, but they think they need to get in extra strength training work or extra core or extra runs or extra walks or extra time on their feet because it will benefit them. It doesn't always benefit you. Sometimes it does. Sometimes that's a good thing. Other times there's just this law of diminishing returns where no matter how much extra you're doing. Like, it's not going to help you, and in some cases, it's even going to push you backwards and help make you move in the opposite direction.

Kevin: 32:41

Well, yeah, I mean, for the chance for like a 1 percent gain, is it worth the extra frustration and increased risk of injury? Like, sure, there is the potential for a return coming back on it, but the potential return is so small, and the potential for Negative repercussions is so high that it's the risk reward balance is just completely out of whack. Sometimes it's a rest day and some extra

Angie: 33:04

snacks Yeah, so if you are someone that found yourself in category one and you feel like okay, you know what like you're right I do need to get some other daily movement into my Schedule that's important some examples For daily movement that you can do our number one relaxed walks. Okay, if you have an animal like especially a dog, this is a great time to take your dog out on an extra walk. The dog will love it. You'll get a little bit more movement in your, your You know, walking and running while they're similar are different movement patterns. They're different. They utilize different muscles in different ways, um, but they are very complimentary and beneficial for each other. So a relaxed walk is a great idea if you need to get in some extra movement.

Kevin: 33:50

Yeah, no, a hundred percent agree that walking is definitely different exercises after doing that for hours and hours back in December, walking feels different. Okay. You've got one here. Time lying on your stomach or side. And I can envision myself doing this in the middle of the classroom. This seems like a good time for downtime of just mid lesson, let's all just lie on the floor. But I can see the benefit of it. Is my students are sitting all day long. They sit in 45 minute increments and they're not supposed to move. They're a little fidgety cause you know, they're teenagers, but they sit and then they go to the next class and they sit and they go to the next class and they sit. They could use some movement also like they could use some ability to actually stretch themselves

Angie: 34:31

out. They can. And that's one of the reasons that it's beneficial that they only have 45 minute classes because they're able to get up and move and walk. Even if it's only for. minutes in between classes, that's a good thing. It's a good reset for their body, both physically and mentally,

Kevin: 34:47

especially if they did get, get to go up or downstairs, like it's, it's even more range of motion because you're doing stairs, but also just for the entertainment benefit. I feel like halfway through class, everybody should just lay on the floor and, and go into like Cobra position so that they flexors.

Angie: 35:03

Exactly. I mean, and for you, it would be more standing instead of Sitting like if you're at school, that would be like, you could give yourself your students a standing break every 20 minutes, like just one time in the middle of your class, they would appreciate it. It would be good for their bodies and for their minds. And even just 30 seconds of standing up and stretching would actually help them to refocus. That would be a good thing. And tuck their hips underneath and tuck their hips. But yeah, so one of the things I did write down is lying on your stomach or on your side. Like this is something we. Spend so much time sitting. Just think about your daily life. Go through your day hour by hour, you know, from the time you wake up. If you wake up at 6 a. m. What do you do right? You get up out of bed, you go into the bathroom, you get ready. Maybe you make breakfast and you sit down to eat breakfast and then you are, you know, make your lunch or whatever you get out of of, um, the house and you sit down in a car, then you drive to the office. However long you're in the car, you get out, you walk into the office. Then are you sitting all day long, depending on what you're, what you do for your job. And then you sit back down in the car to drive home and then you come home and you sit down on the couch to watch TV, you sit down to eat dinner, like look at the amount of time you spend sitting versus standing and then look at the amount of time that you spend with your hips in that flex position with your, with your knees kind of bent up towards your, towards your chest in that seated position versus the amount of times that you're, Legs are out flat, legs are out straight. Like it makes sense that our hip flexors would shorten. So yes, spending some time lying on your stomach is very beneficial. And if you're someone that has low back issues, this can be problematic if you just kind of go cold turkey right into it. So what I would suggest would be to put a pillow under your stomach so that you can comfortably lie on your stomach for a while and then just gradually make that pillow. smaller, like maybe at first you might need like a cushion almost, right? If you're, if you've got really tight hip flexors or really tight lower back, you can start with like a fatter pillow and then gradually decrease the size of that pillow until you're able to just lie on the floor for maybe five, 10 minutes. It doesn't have to be a long time, but you're just allowing those hip flexors to stretch out and spend time with your legs straight. I mean,

Kevin: 37:17

I think I kind of joke about laying on the floor of my classroom, but I feel like There's a lot of jobs that people could do that they might already be the odd person at the job that gets up at like 5 in the morning and goes off and runs. So you might as well also bring a mat or a towel and lay down on the floor and make your hips feel better. Like, if you're already that runner. I say go all in. and also just stretch out your hip flexors. You could also just stand and tuck the hips and you can do a lot of the exercises while standing. Like you could, you can lean side to side, essentially like reach up and over. I'm thinking like literally the, the stretches, some of the stretches cause some of them were real bad that I did in grade school PE, but some of these stretches. were good stretches for little kids to get up and move their bodies in all sorts of

Angie: 38:08

directions. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that would be, you know, along the lines of some gentle mobility exercises. Like he doesn't have to be. A big thing like you can stand up and just kind of like bend your knees like do like little mini squats if you want to or what I like to call tap outs where it's like essentially a single leg squat where you just kind of like you bend one knee and you tap your opposite foot like out in front of you and then you tap your opposite foot out to the side like they're little mini squats. That's going to help to improve your strength, your coordination, your balance, your stability. And that is all going to help you as a runner. It's also going to help you in just your normal daily activities. But you know, to your point about bringing a mat and just being the weirdo at work, I mean, you could also just do it when you get home. Okay, fine. Yeah. Like you could, you could do it in the morning, you know, when you wake up, if you have a couple of minutes, you could do it in the morning at home and then you could do it. In the evening when you

Kevin: 38:58

get home, I mean, I think the takeaway is you don't need to go crazy with it. A little goes a long way in this like think about how much time you're sitting and then when you're standing Be conscious that you're standing with appropriate posture and maybe add in just a little bit of movement It feels good. It feels good to do a small amount of movement It doesn't need to be like a 10 minute core routine that you're taking a break for like you can just move your body

Angie: 39:23

And those 10 minute core routines are important, but that's not what I'm talking about here when it comes to like adding in some extra daily movement. Um, the final example that I would love to give you is to get a standing desk if you're able to, you know, if you work at home or if you work in an office where maybe your boss would be open to this idea, you can get a standing desk or you can even get Um, uh, essentially it's not an attachment, but it's something that you put onto your desk that converts your desk into a standing desk. A lot of workplaces are much more amenable to these types of, um, you know, workplace like ergonomic improvements to help ergonomic, that's the word, to help you, you know, be, be more. Active, like, you know, maybe you're even somebody that your boss will let you have one of those standing treadmills at your desk. I don't know. I mean, there's all sorts of options out there. You know, I know when I recognize this in myself, I invested in a standing desk because it's really important to, you know, be able to not only practice what I preach, but also make sure that my body is feeling good for My daily life and so that I don't get so tight and like Kevin said, you know, just little side to side swaying movements. I just constantly like moving and if you're a mom, you remember or even a dad, I mean, I guess you, you did this a lot to like when our kids were little. And you held the kids, you were always moving, like you were always swaying in some direction because it's just part of what helped keep the kid calm. So, keep the same thing in mind now, you know, like just kind of get up and move your body, sway a little bit, side to side, front to back, like do some hip swings, like I do hip swings when I brush my teeth. I know you guys always think I like to do calf raises when I brush my teeth, but I haven't been doing calf raises as much. I do hip swings when I Before my runs because, um, our girls have a bigger bathroom than us and I brush my teeth in there in the morning. I did not know this. I do hip swings in the morning in there. And then I also do mini squats because it helps to loosen up my knees and my ankles, um, before I go out and run. That's

Kevin: 41:25

fantastic information. I did not know that one at all. Yeah, that's because you're sleeping. I'll take your word for that one because, because that's a good one. Um, I am. Going to actually push back on the stick a treadmill under your desk. I feel like that is a slope where you are going to slide right into person number two of doing more for the sake of doing more of, well, I got my run in, but I want to make sure I stay active during the day so I can just, I can be doing my work, but I'm also going to be walking nonstop. I don't think that you're as productive as you could be. Sitting at a desk or standing at a desk for the first part. And two, I don't think it's necessary. I feel like the movement, I think that like what we've gained out of this episode here is the movement does not need to be a lot. And walking does not necessarily give you a huge range of motion. I feel like taking a couple of minutes and doing some some very light mobility work in different directions is Probably more productive than saying, all right, for the next hour, I'm going to walk while I do my work. It depends.

Angie: 42:28

Okay. It depends. I mean, if you're someone that's training for an ultra marathon, like think about the amount of time, time on feet, right? Like it all depends. Like, I, I definitely agree that it could slide into the too much, um, movement. things. Um, but I do think that it could be beneficial as well, maybe less so for us as runners, maybe, you know, the, the standing treadmill desk would be more for, uh, more sedentary population. That's not as active. Sure. Um, but it's, it just depends on like what your goal is and what your daily movement is, but yes, in general, you know, cause like even if you're like, Like standing, you can just kind of do like, um, marching in place where you're like getting your knee up high and then swinging your leg back behind you to kind of stretch out those hip flexors again. Like there's a lot that you can do without needing to be like a formal exercise. So hopefully this episode has really just brought some of this to light and made you think about what are the daily movements that I go through. And how active am I outside of my running and my strength workouts, my official workouts of the day, you know, like how much movement am I getting in on those other times and how can I either increase my movement if I find myself on the low end of, of the outside movement or maybe decrease my movement. Um, and get some more rest if I find myself on the high end of

Kevin: 43:47

movement. Yeah. I mean, I think that's really the goal of this thing is just figure out where you are and which direction things should go for your overall

Angie: 43:55

health. Exactly. So, if you guys found this episode helpful, please hit that share button, share it with a friend, share it to social media so that we can help more runners to feel better, run longer, run faster, and achieve their goals. And as always, thank you for joining us. This has been the Real Life Runners Podcast, episode number 343. Now get out there and run your life.