#18 - Why Running Hurts You
Running is a essential movement for humans.
It’s the next step after walking. Once we shift forward into a flight phase where both feet leave the ground, we’re running.
Essential movements should never hurt us.
From the most simplistic perspective, we are a brain attached to a digestive tract.
The spinal cord serves to innervate and connect limbs that move us toward food and away form danger.
If we can manage that well enough to survive, we’ll then look for mates to propagate our DNA compulsively as much as possible.
To the extent we need to protect that mate and offspring to see that propagation through, we’ll maintain a physical capacity.
Then we die.
It’s not sexy, but that’s pretty much it.
That’s what our bodies are built for at the lowest level.
And that’s exactly what they should do perfectly. If we can’t move, digest, or reproduce, then something is wrong at a fundamental level.
Natural selection would have weeded out the genetic faults in the programming, so something must be interfering with the hardware development.
Shoes. Sitting. Sedentary lifestyles. Toxins. Etc. The list is long.
But our bodies are resilient and can handle disruptions to some extent. We are not the descendants of weak, dumb, or incapable humans.
The biggest problem keeping you from running is relying on technology early on and skipping the basics.
We’re stuck in a chair when we should be learning to move.
And then when it’s time to play, we’re stuck in organized sports with shoes and rules.
Then things start to hurt and we blame our bodies.
But pills, products, and procedures will never fix what is lacking from a deficit of play.
Running hurts you because you aren’t doing the basics.
Skipping. Jumping. Bounding. Crawling. Rolling. Running backwards. Bouncing.
Spending 30+ minutes on a pristinely flat, hard surface with super shoes on is not it.
There’s a reason you run so much and still feel stiff, inflexible, and fragile.
It’s because you are.
And that’s only speeding up the aging process.
Want to fix that? Start over. Fresh. Learn to move. Learn to play. Learn to live.
Your body is amazing and will come back to life, but you need to give it that chance.