PATHS

We all have ultimate goals and there are multiple ways to achieve them. Running isn’t the only goal, but it is easy to represent what the Paths are, so bear with us and read on for a minute.

For someone who is new to running, 10km seems challenging and maybe even impossible. However, humankind is a strong-willed machine that can soldier through many obstacles and pain just to prove a point and achieve a goal.

It is possible to march through a high level of discomfort, physical pain or injuries just to cross that finish line at the end of that 10k race before crushing down. I use this term because it is coming. If we don’t respect our biomechanics, we don’t learn to move with intention and to respect/protect our body, it is only a matter of time before it happens.

So, before jumping into a 10week running program we need to clarify something. Training programs work best if we know how to do the things that the program tells us to do. Any running program will tell us to run for certain periods of time or distance at a given pace whatever number of times in a week. What running programs fail to teach us is – and it’s not the program’s responsibility to do so! – is the most basic and fundamental idea, which is how to run.

We are not talking about fitness levels but biomechanics. Someone can have the best movement mechanics for running, yet the heart isn’t trained enough to support the activity – so we find a running program that will improve our capacity. It is that simple. But what if someone doesn’t have any idea of what series of movements should happen while we run?

That’s when the paths come into play. In this series, we teach specific movements. Once we know what running consists of, we can run. Until then, we need to learn the necessary requirements of the specific movement. What to stabilize. What to move. How does it feel. In what position to keep the body at. How to identify dysfunctional patterns. How to improve mobility. And how to apply this all.

You see, every movement has its requirements. We could use the first pull up, the ass to grass squat or the handstand as an example. Doing a lot of something that we don’t know how to do is like a round of Russian roulette. The goal in the Path is to teach the practitioner to move first and then a program will take care of the rest.