Core Conditioning: The Enemy of the Walrus

The last brace of days have been polarised in their levels of activity. Tuesday not only saw me leaving my runners in the same position they had been fitfully kicked off into on Monday, but also bore witness to me making my merry and athletically aspirant way to the house of a good friend for a full body massage. The friend in question has recently qualified as a masseuse and I was happily offering myself up as a test dummy. The same friend has agreed to give my newly occupied legs a weekly massage to placate my thouroughly affronted muscles and prevent any industrial strike action among them. My masseuse is possesed of deceptively oxen strength and I was left with the feeling that I had been rolled over by a buddah and drawn slowly through a clothes wringer. (Yes these were positive sensations) Top drawer stuff, my weekly leg massage is a ritual I will happily grow accustomed to.

Yesterday was grasped by both horns as by 7am I was tearing down the N11 towards Wicklow to visit and exercise the previously mentioned equine. Her current temporary digs are a field full of polo ponies. [The irony of her being moved to a polo facility to save money is not lost on me] Polo ponies are like the jocks to the thoroughbred’s geek. They are trendy, muscly, arrogant in their pack while mine is long legged, awkward, devoid of friends and forced to eat her lunch alone. The physical activity gleaned from my early morning outing wasn’t overly strenuous but was a prelude for the evening helping.

Back to the running. Last nights prescribed dose was the 7 x (2 min run/1 min walk) as dictated by Jack Daniels, High Priest of Running. I left the safety net of the grassy park and took my show to the big boys playground i.e. Dun Laoghaire Pier. I was anticipating hardship as the pier is mainly concrete which, as I have mentioned based of the information fed to me by my boards.ie adviser, is three times harded than tarmac. The pier has been under renovations for a few light years at this stage  and to stop myself looking at my stopwatch during the 2 minute run stints I admired how the glacial smoothness of the concrete reflected the orangey light from the pier street lamp. That led me to thinking about how that smoothness was in contrast to the pebbledash-effect broken concrete that I used to rollerskate along as a child. That in turn led me to wishing i was rolling instead of running but by that point my two minutes were up and I could fall gratefully into a quasi-brisk walk. There is definite call in my one woman training camp for the purchase of some manner of motion-friendly music dispensing device. The ipod shuffle could be an apt purchase considering that is exactly what my jog degenerates into when I am on the wrong side of lethargy. All in all though there was a detectable increase in stamina on the run. Nothing major but a defiinite decrease in the percieved ordeal of sustained running.

And now to the subject matter of today’s title. Over the course of my research into this “running” phenomenon. I had heard tell of core excercises to improve the runners efficiency. Now I am not unfamiliar with the idea of core conditioning. Many’s the night I have sat until the small hours watching loop after loop of info-mercials about every concievable unnneccesary gimmick to come out of the bin at the US patent office. The core conditioning gym ball with its super-extra-bonus-never-fail-guaranteed-abs DVD was one of these. Your core is basically your mid-section, torso, midriff or jelly-bomb as i like to call mine. I think they stopped calling them abs and started calling them the “core” because abs had been done to death and this was a new marketable concept. I love a good marketable concept. Only my lack of a credit card has prevented me from owning The Magic Bullet Mixer, THe Magic V Chopping System (which I subsequently bought in Dunnes a year after the ad for about €7) and Proactiv Skin Solution to name a mere few. My nightly pounding of the pavement made me a little more aware of my jelly bomb and its chronic inability to hold my upper body in place in preparation for each landing on the ground. I sort of feel a bit like two floors of a building with only one supporting column that is balancing on a load of ballbearings. I need to pour concrete between the ballbearings and build more supporting columns. (Yes. A building that can run. It is my metaphor and I shall make it as ridiculous as I like). I didn’t have to search long before I found what I was looking for on the internet and I faithfully copied and pasted something called Beginner Core Streghth Routine for execution after my run. It was posted on Runners World by a Chris Carmichael and went like this:

1. Prone Core Bridge
Lay on the floor on your stomach. Lift your body off the ground, supporting your upper body with your elbows directly under your shoulders and your forearms flat on the ground. Keep your body in a straight line from your shoulders to your heels and hold for 30 seconds. Work up to holding for 60 seconds or longer.

2. Side Plank
Lie on your left side with your legs, hips, and shoulders in a straight line. Prop yourself up on your left forearm so your elbow is directly under your shoulder. Lift your hips off the floor to create a straight line running from your right shoulder down to your right ankle. Place your top arm along your side. Hold the position for 30 seconds, then lower your hip to the ground. Switch sides and repeat. Work up to holding for 60 seconds or longer.

3. Elbow-to-Knee Twisting Crunch (or Bicycle Crunch)
Start out on the floor, on your back, with your knees raised and your hands interlaced behind your head/neck. Curl your left elbow toward your right knee, bringing them together over the center of your body. Return to the starting position and repeat with your right elbow toward your left knee. Continue alternating nonstop for one minute.

4. Reverse Crunch
Start out on the floor, lying on your back with your arms by your sides. In one smooth motion, bring your feet up off the floor and crunch your knees toward your chest while pressing your hands into the floor. Crunch far enough to raise your hips off the floor. Lower your hips back to the floor and uncurl your legs until they are straight, with your feet one or two inches above the floor. Repeat nonstop for one minute.

I’ll draw you attention to the use of “beginner” in the name of the routine. Suggesting it was supposed to be easy. Without dredging over the anguish of these exercises too much let me just say that regarding exercise 2 The Side Plank, making a piece of rope stand up vertically, using only the power of my mind would have been easier than keeping a straight line from  my shoulder to ankle for 10 seconds, let alone 30. And with reference to exercise 4 The Bicycle Crunch, can you imagine a walrus touching its left hindlimb with its right forelimb while lying on its back. No i didn’t think so. Despite these anatomical setbacks I am going to pursue with these tortuous exercises three times a week regardless that they make the 2 minute run stint feel like sitting on a cloud surrounded by puppies. This fact alone indicates they are much needed exercises.

Not designed for bicycle crunches

That brings me almost to the end of this post. Oh i forgot to add that the next few days will see the arrival of the natural predator of the exercise regime; the Big Weekend. Friday night will see me go to a film opening followed by a quick stint in the theatre to see a play befopre rejoining the film people to celebrate said opening. And Saturday night is the proposed celebration of my birthday. There is a run propesed for Saturday and then another not until Monday.  The Exercise Regime by its very nature is fast but the Big Weekend has stealth and can deliver a killer blow to the Exercise Regime when it’s happily grazing unbeknownst to the menacing threat of the Big Weekend. Only time will tell if willpower shall prevail. Until then amigos…..