And we’re back!

Back at the edge of the cliff, speaking gently into the void and listening intently for an echo. To those returning, thank you for coming back! Did you learn anything? Did you google what scaphism is? To those who are joining for the first time, here’s the deal:

Each newsletter will cover three topics.

• One area of rehab or sports performance, whether that be theoretical or practical.

• One recommendation in the form of a piece of media that I think is in the spirit of the newsletter.

• One thing that’s making me happy. Doesn’t need to be related. I make the rules.

Andiamo!

Do you warm up before you run?

This is something I ask, and get asked, all the time. Oftentimes, I am trying to get a better picture of how somebody ticks and their psychology around training. When people ask me, I suspect they’re looking for a genuine answer.

When I’m doing the asking, almost everyone will sheepishly tell me that they just head on out and think of the first few minutes of the run as their warm-up. Doing a speed workout at the track seems to inspire these same people to do a dedicated warm-up. Why is that?

Ask anyone if they need warm up before they do some sprints and I have a sneaky feeling they’ll say yes. This may be a case of prolonging the inevitable (it’s astounding how much I can accomplish after announcing I’m going for a run), but it may also be an intuitive decision in regards to the demands of the task ahead.

Let’s start with static vs. dynamic stretching. A static stretch is what you did in gym class - sit on the ground, grab ahold of a body part, pull, and count to 10. Dynamic stretching is your butt kicks and high knees - quick controlled movements that are targeting specific muscle groups.

According to the current research, the benefits of static stretching include possibly increasing range of motion, increasing tissue length, and increasing hypertrophy (muscle growth!). Static stretching has also been shown to actually decrease strength and power performance.

On the other hand, dynamic stretching has been shown to increase performance metrics like vertical jumping and sprinting.

As always, there are a lot of opinions out there and a lot of research that seems to contradict each other. So what’s the answer to the original question? The answer to everything! It depends. If you are about to engage in an activity that is going to require you to be explosive, then it’s best to warm up rather than go from zero to one hundred. If you are going for a long run, or a lower impact/speed activity, then it’s ok to consider the first few minutes your “warm-up”. Keeping all of that in mind, here are my recommendations for warming up:

• Check in with how your body is feeling. My absolute favorite way to do this is doing pogo jumps. Take ten seconds to jump up and down like a bunny. Mentally scan you feet, ankles, knees, hips, low back, mid back, shoulders, neck.

• Mobilize the joints that you need more from. Open up the range of motion in whatever joints you’re about to rely on. Going for a run? Open up the hips and ankles. I love using bands and making this process more dynamic.

• Use dynamic movements for the muscles you’re going to need for the activity ahead. Running requires repeated hip extension and flexion. That means I want to hit something to wake up my glutes (glute bridges) and my hip flexors (high knees).

• Elevate your heart rate. Your blood is the shuttle system for the fuel your muscles are going to need, so let’s get that cooking ahead of time. This should happen naturally if those dynamic movements are truly dynamic.

Spend a few minutes ticking off those four points and you’ll be right as rain. If you want to do some static stretching, do that after the gym or on your rest days.

By the way, "warm up" is a phrasal verb that can be written as one word when it's a noun, or two words when it's a verb. The more you know.

Oh, and shame on you for thinking dirty thoughts when I was describing static stretching.

Beau Miles and the 24 Hour Marathon

The Venn diagram for Beau Miles strikes me as having areas that I find myself comfortable on the periphery of, but not fully identifying as. A ginger, a runner, and an adventurer, Beau is an Australian educator and filmmaker whose work I enjoy tremendously. Last summer, my brother Pete and I ran a marathon over the course of 24 hours. The idea was directly inspired by Beau and his video “A Mile An Hour”.

Beau’s perspective on what adventure means and his signature colloquialisms are refreshing antidote to the sometimes hyper-serious nature of content today surrounding what it means to be active.

What’s making me happy?

A poem recently came across my desk (pretentious) that struck me in a way that I am rarely struck by poetry, which is to say, enough to share it in this newsletter.

Reading

by A.R. Ammons

It’s nice
after dinner
to walk down
to the beach

and find
the biggest thing
on earth
relatively calm.

The month ahead

Rather than ruin the effect of Mr. Ammons work by assigning my own meaning to it, let’s be done with this edition of the non-newsletter.

For those of you who have I have not told yet, I am going to be out of the office for the next two weeks on a trip to South Africa. I will be checking my email intermittently while I am gone, but will do my best to be unreachable should I not like the look of said email. Monday, the 19th will be the first day back in the shop and it is already close to booked, so if you would like to get in for a consultation, let me know ASAP. In addition, please respond to this email! I read every response and your opinions help to shape the content. If there is a topic you want to learn more about or a recommendation of your own that fits the mold, send it my way. That would be very cool.

If you or anyone you doesn’t know a butt kick from a high knee, or has questions about how to rehab their way back from an injury, please reach out to me. I am always up for a chat!

As always, it would help me tremendously if you and every person you know followed me on my socials. I’ve been much more diligent about posting lately and slowly, but surely it is becoming less mortifying. Find me at @bksportschiro on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube and say nice things to me.

Talk to you soon,

Dean Hottum, DC, MS, CSCS, CCSP, ICSC

If you not interested in receiving this email again, or feel you were added to this list in error, and are having trouble unsubscribing, please respond with the word “unsubscribe” and I will make sure you are removed.