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Viewing entries tagged with 'Sports Injuries'

On the 100th Anniversary of Bay To Breakers: A TCM View on Running

Hae Min on 15 May 2011 | 1044 Comments | Tags: health, medicine, running, barefoot running, fitness, massage, sports injuries, health advice, TCM, chinese medicine, acupuncture

I am not a runner now, but before I started training in martial arts, I ran for over ten years almost daily. I started in high school when my friends started doing it to get into shape. I hated it at first. My lungs hurt, my stomach hurt, my face would get really hot, my body seemed to be saying "yuck!" but I kept at it because I was convinced that running was something that fit people did. I started out jogging really slowly and going for 15 minutes at a time. Eventually I worked up to 20 minutes and so on, until I could easily run 45 minutes to an hour. That seemed like the optimal time for me. I never ran with the track team. It almost didn't even occur to me to go fast or to run for time. I just liked the motion of it, trying to get my body into a better rhythm and connect with the ground in the smoothest foot exchange possible. I was also taking dance classes at the time, so I was hyper-aware of posture, stretching, and the importance of not heel-striking as I ran. Eventually I was hooked. I ran every day, sometimes twice a day, rain or shine, wind or hail. I usually ran first thing in the morning, but sometimes I was foolish enough to run in the midday sun. It felt exhilarating. 

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Stretching vs. Warming Up

Hae Min on 5 November 2008 | 27670 Comments | Tags: Stretching, Warm Up, Sports, Research, Sports Injuries, Dr. Xie Pe Qi, Bagua

When first introduced to Dr. Xie Pe Qi, the lineage holder for Yin-Style Bagua Zhang, I was repeatedly warned not to stretch in front of him. Having been a dancer and a student of Northern Style Long Fist, this surprised me; I was used to doing an hour of stretching before every class. Before Dr. Xie began the Bagua Zhang seminar, he invariably caught someone stretching and went into a long tirade in Mandarin about how it was useless, makes you tired, and weakens your muscles. If he were still alive, Dr. Xie would be pleased to know that science has corroborated his opinion about stretching before engaging in sports or physical exercise.

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