“The shoe cannot make up for what the body is incapable of doing. The structures of the body must be trained to reduce the force over as many joints as possible using the elastic properties of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Coleman Horn, former designer of Nike shoes, put it best when he said, ‘The best a running shoe can do for you is not hinder your gait.’ Choose footwear that will allow the foot to act naturally, to work with the body to reduce and then produce force.” – Excerpt from Athletic Development — The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning by Vern Gambetta
Everybody wants to defend their story.
*Defending* your story is just human nature and that makes it okay or normal (for now!).
The running magazines have been telling you the same stories on stretching *and* injuries month after month for many years.
*Every* month that you buy the story (and the magazine), they go back to the drawing board and ask the same questions differently.
I imagine the meeting goes something like this:
Somebody in the front of the room asks, how can we tell the same story in a different way while continuing to defend our original story on stretching?
Meanwhile, everybody in the room desperately wants somebody in the front of the room to pick their answer *first*.
Eventually, somebody from the back of the room says, let’s add a rope (a prop) to that supine hamstring stretch *and* then tell the consumer that the stretch is active (not passive!?).
Nobody in the meeting cares about what the science says about stretching *and* performance, they are only interested in telling the story.
They are looking for permission to be more normal, by defending normal.
I don’t know about you, but I have absolutely no interest in defending normal.
I will be the first to stand up and say…
I got it *all* wrong for the first eight years of my career.
I could not have been more wrong. (emphasis added)
I bought the story on tight muscles, trigger points *and* stretching… hook, line and sinker.
(Perspective)
