This afternoon my 9 year old son had a chiropractor appointment and as we walked into his rooms Aaron (our chiropractor) asked my son "so what have you been up to" in his usual caring and engaging manner. With that my son rolls of all that he's been up to and says at the very end "and Mum & Dad's been getting me to do the wobble, - er slant board. Now Aaron knows what my son meant as I have in the past spoken to him about it. "Thats great" he says as my son hops onto his table.
Then as Aaron was gently adjusting my son, Aaron and I were talking about the Cool Impossible as I have just given him a copy as a gift with him having read my copy of Born To Run mid last year. Aaron thanked me for the book and apologised that he hadn't started it with me telling him knowing how he like Born To Run, once he starts it he won't be able to put it down. Durning the insuing conversation I spoke to Eric's belief in starting from the ground up and how foot strength along with glute, hip flexor, calf, quad, in fact the whole leg and core must be working together to support and balance you as you run.
Aaron then said, "use it or loose it, given our increasingly sedentary life style if we don't use our complete system the brain starts to shut down and loose the neural pathways used in the correct firing of all the leg, glute, stomach and stabilization muscles. It's call "Pruning", the brain starts to prune those parthways that are not being used. He explained when children begin to walk as they are so unstable they use every muscle they have in an attempt to stay ballanced and so firing and developing all of the neural pathways required to stand, sit, walk and run properly. As Christopher McDougall writes in Born To Run, watch a child run, how correct, how easy and how free they are, yes I know, that you know, I'm paraphrasing, because the neural pathways are all open, connected and firing.
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