Elevate Your Trail Experience: Prime Your Health and Fitness for Maximum Adventure

Moving Well with Mobility

Mobility is fundamental to all the movements and challenges you will face. Mobility provides the necessary feedback to the entire body for muscle function, balance, coordination, agility, performance, and endurance.

Strength and Flexibility are based in patterns of movement. These capacities are not just about a muscle or joint. Often limitations get missed when the focus is on one thing. It is not how we function, especially on the trail. It’s better to notice yourself in the activities you will be doing. And a good screen can help that.

One of the greatest gifts is when the body tells you it can’t. Pain is that signal. Normalizing pain, or thinking it will just get better, is detrimental to your physical capacities and your health. Pain shuts off signals for certain things to contract to protect – a protective muscle spasm, or soft tissue contracts to cast and immobilize an at risk area. This natural protective behavior of the body creates compensations to reduce the load on the affected area. And if gone unnoticed will lead to significant setbacks, injuries, unfulfilled desires and unhappiness, or potentially an emergency exit off the trail.

Pain-free movement is possible if one seeks proper assistance to identify what is being protected, what is not in sync with the requirements, or demand, of the the activity, what’s compromised, and what is the most affected means to get back in order. Many fall short when they only address the painful area – as this is often not the problem, it’s the area overworked because other parts of the orchestra of movement are not in tune forcing other areas to take up the load. As this may seem complicated, a well-informed trainer or therapist will be of incredible help if they understand what the requirements are and the way the body moves and functions in patterns.

Check out the videos below on Ankle Mobility & Hip Mobility

Stability – Balance in Motion

Core stability is a natural occurring coordinated function that is not purely based in muscle function. In fact, breathing dynamics of the diaphragm account for 50% of the spinal stability in all movements experienced on the trails – stepping up, stepping down, hopping, striding, squatting (relieving yourself outdoors), lunging, getting into a sleeping bag, cooking, etc. This harmonious natural action is faster than what we can think about how to stabilize. And proper sequencing and firing of muscles requires mobility as feedback, and suppleness in the tissues around the joints and muscles for full-body action.

Core stability is a dynamic function. It is founded in the neurological developmental patterns that got us off the ground as babies to children moving around – as we move from the ground, to crawling, to kneeling, to standing and to running. And funny thing is many children do this without being coached. The bummer is most loose connection to these innate patterns of movement that enable harmonious function, and therefore the result is over-bracing movements that compromise joints and spine, loss of smooth and supple motion, decreased breath capacity, and diminished sense of confidence and enjoyment on the trails.

To achieve your desired accomplishments, it is essential these core stability patterns and their functional capacity be naturally available. You will harness great power, have more economy of movement, extended endurance, and your mind will be more at ease knowing of the great capacities your body has.

Check out the Hip Mobility Video below

Breathing Enhances all Capacities

There is a physiological power in the breath. When one has good functioning breathing that can shift for the changing demands efficiently, then the entire body and mind function well. There is an economy of movement associated with breathing that gives you the endurance capabilities. This is possible at altitude, up long arduous passes, running up or down a hill (for joy and for escape), and during those starry nights.

Breathing plays a crucial role in your flexibility, stability, coordinated movements and load carrying capacity. Your spinal health is directly linked to how you breathe, and your breath affects your balance and locomotion power to hike, walk or run.

At altitude, your breathing will be impacted greatly because the external environmental stressor. If your breathing is already conditioned before your adventure, then the body’s mechanisms to adapt to altitude in the early phases will be more balanced. This will lead to more ease, with less stress response from the demand of thin air. Knowing about your breathing function and how to respond to breathlessness will give you great ability high mountain country.

Breathing is foundational to preventing undo stress and strains, progress and sustainable health and fitness during conditioning and during the adventure. Your breathing accentuates recovery, and provides and expanded capacity for the nervous system to adapt – this is resilience. When the breath is stable and calm, the body also relaxes, and recovery becomes a direct result of a restful body.

Check out the videos below on the Breath’s Power and Performance at Altitude.

Resilience for the Long Trail

Resilience is the body and mind’s capacities to adapt well to challenges and stressors. It is also important in how you minimize the accumulation of negative stress responses, or how to recover well from a huge stressor. The nervous system is in coherence with the body, and if it senses safety signals from the body, the mind will be more at peace to stay calm, relaxed and in place.

The body’s ability to recover its range of capacities and resources determines the longevity and confidence for long-distance activities. This has huge benefits for all functions including stability of body and mind. Key indicators of your resilience is how well you recover immediately following a big stressor, such as getting up over that high mountain pass. If you are capable of restoring a recovery breathing pattern, through the nose, the better the legs and spine will be on the way down.

Sleep in nature offers huge benefits. Sleep quality has a big role in the body’s capacity to recovery and be able to adapt to many challenges. It is a function of how the breath, body and mind were “used” during the day – breathing in the day dictates breathing during sleep. Recovery is a return to steady-state, balanced full body function. Breathing through the nose is the way to instill calmness to the body for rest, recovery and restoration.

Check out the video on Resilience below