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Intelligence on the move with a unique fitness coach
Roy Palmer MSTAT NDT(INPP)
My philosophy to fitness Fitness and performance: my own story
One of my ambitions in my late teens was to run a marathon and for many months my life revolved around achieving it, to the extent of overlooking one vital aspect that seemed so obvious with hindsight. I followed a strict diet and training timetable but made one big mistake - I neglected to assess my running technique because in common with most people I assumed I knew how to run. Each day on returning from work I would put on my running kit, warm-up and head off for my run. I eventually achieved my ambition by finishing a marathon in 1984 but not before aggravating a condition that would frustrate me for the next ten years. Shortly after the marathon I began to experience back pain whilst running which became gradually worse until I felt some level of discomfort in most of my activities. At the time I blamed running so I promptly gave up and moved onto martial arts to satisfy my need for physical activity and competitive sport. I consulted a fitness coach and took advice on exercises to improve my condition. For a while this seemed to help but as I progressed in karate I began to experience difficulties again. The decision to change sport turned out to be misguided as the culprit was not the running itself, but how I ran. This problem was waiting to happen and existed before I began training. The build up to the marathon accelerated the condition due to more vigorous activity, changing my sport was not going to solve this problem as this time it was how I applied myself to karate. For my back pain I received treatment from an osteopath on a weekly basis for about six months. The benefits would last for several days before the aches and pains returned. I went on to consult a physical therapist and chiropractor with much the same result. Thanks to the treatment I received from these therapists I gained a welcome relief from my symptoms but the cause of my problem was a little closer to home – it was me! As soon as I left the treatment room I began to undo the results achieved by the therapist as I resorted to my usual harmful habits. I also had been using these habits to do the exercises as advised by my fitness coach - serving only to re-enforce the poor habits. After a number of years of this cycle I had reached the point of being prepared to try anything and this is how I came to hear about The Alexander Technique. I read an article in a newspaper and was intrigued by what it had to say. I promptly found a teacher in my area and booked a course of lessons. Soon after starting I began to appreciate the different approach required to address my predicament: instead of complaining of my back hurting me I began to ask ‘what am I doing with myself to cause this pain?’ Later I came to realise that the back pain itself was just a symptom of a more fundamental problem – I had lost the ability of natural movement partly due to, paradoxically, my preoccupation with exercise and sport. Whilst I had thrown myself into every new sport with enthusiasm and vigour I had not considered whether I knew how to ‘use’ my body well enough to be able to do this. This had not been assessed by my fitness coach who could only assess whether I performed the exercises correctly but not how I moved generally. Participation in a new sport put additional stress onto my body as I continued to use myself badly whilst attempting different or more complex techniques. An added complication was that the more I used myself in this way, the worse my condition became, as my movement deteriorated through repetition of poorly executed moves. Each training session helped only to consolidate the habits that were at the route of the problem. In short I became more proficient at moving badly and was totally oblivious to the degradation until the pain began. Through Alexander lessons I began to unlearn bad habits and eventually returned to running and started again. I began to appreciate my teacher as an expert fitness coach able to assess my performance and make changes at the most fundamental level. For the last ten years I have continued to experiment with The Alexander Technique and fitness and found just how much can be achieved by first learning how to do less and not more. It has opened up a whole new perspective to how I approach my training and fulfill my role as a fitness coach by adding some much needed intelligence! What is The Alexander Technique? Considering its been around for over one hundred years, this remarkable technique is still little know. Yet its ability to work at the most fundamental level influencing behaviour makes it a vital skill for anyone taking their performance seriously. Running in The Zone: a personal account When all of your training comes together for that perfect performance there is little to compare to that experience. Take the pain and frustration out of building a successful website with SBI!
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