The participants in London Marathon were from all walks of life and they got to run it for many different reasons. Some people started running for losing weight and later they got “hooked” on the endorphins produced during exercise. Endorphins are natural painkillers and create euphoric feelings this is why they are also called “feel good” chemicals of the brain.

As the weather dramatically has changed to better since the Marathon, I can see many runners outdoors, which inspired me to write this entry.

Running is the cheapest exercise (make sure your running shoes are good, though). It is good for everyone who does not have low back problems or knee problems. If you have aches or pains in the aforementioned areas, it is good to find out first what is causing them. A check with your physiotherapist is a good idea before you embark on a running programme.

Building up the muscles:

If you only have the aches due to weakened muscles, it is good to do some work on those muscles first. The best exercises for core muscles (in the abdominal and lower back area) you can learn in yoga or pilates classes. You can strengthen your quadriceps (in front of thigh), as well as gluteals (in the buttocks) and respectively your lower back just by walking the stairs. You step with a flat foot on the next step and this way your body weight is taken up the step by your quadriceps and with the participation of your gluteals.  This is how you train these groups of muscles without having to go to the gym. If you feel this exercise is very easy, you can start taking two steps at a time. Later, you can add some weight to your body weight, a rucksack on your shoulders, for example. Of course, you can start running and do the stairs exercise at the same time, just make sure you begin with small intensity and progress gradually. You need to feel you are putting some effort when doing it, then it would be beneficial. Once the exercise feels too easy, it is time to add more intensity (more stairs, more weight or more sessions). Remember: Everybody in a normal health could run a Marathon, but it sometimes starts with just walking.

Muscle wasting:

I was glad to see people well over sixty entering the massage hall after the Marathon, with strong looking muscles and no injury, apparently they had trained wise. But I also remember very vividly one thin girl, who had some deterioration of the muscles on one leg and she said it was due to an injury, that happened a month prior to the Marathon. In order to heal it, she had stopped practising and her run on the actual Marathon was the first one after a month break! The willpower did it for her, and I was happy she didn’t have another muscle injury during the Marathon. But it could have easily happened as she had some muscle wasting on both her legs.

In my long practice I have observed many people from different age groups, who had some level of muscle wasting. A few causes for that could be listed, but for shortness, I can just say: the culprit is stress, especially when it is prolonged.

Stress and exercise:

Many stressed people think that by heavy exercise they can counteract the stress in their life and this way they would achieve balance. And then they wonder why after going three or more times a week to the gym, or to run, they still don’t lose the fat, don’t  seem to be building up muscles, still have the cravings for sweets and still feel stressed. This is because too much exercise can add to the stress and then the body reacts by secreting even more of the so called “stress hormones”, the ones that help us deal with stress, so people still feel stressed.  Although the stress hormones are good for us, secreted when we need them, having them constantly circulating in the body could be damaging. Cortisol is the well- known reason for the slimmers on diet and exercise to get to a point when they cannot lose weight any more, while keeping the fluid retention, and not building muscle, perhaps even losing it, despite the right for the purpose diet.

De-stress first:

I always advise my clients: take de-stress and detox first before you enrol on an intense exercise programme, never mind you are otherwise healthy. And, while you are on it, keep having some treatments to maintain stress levels low and the detox process up to speed.

Most of my treatments are good for this, but especially Manual Lymphatic Drainage (with added ear acupuncture optional). MLD helps speed the liver to clear the waste. After they have done the job, the stress hormones turn into waste, left to stay in the body for too long turns them into toxins. When your liver is clogged and you start intense exercise, it creates waste with a higher speed. Your liver is already slow, how could it became faster when you load it further? This is what MLD can do for your liver and your whole body – free it from some toxins, speed up the lymph flow so the new waste could be processed faster and then the muscles will work better, the whole body will function better, your make regular and smooth progress.

Detox helps:

Also, the season people normally embark on an exercise program is usually Spring, when weather is changeable and the bugs are around. When we get attacked by an infection, our immune system needs lots of strength and energy to fight it, so during such a period rest is a must. Extra fluids are needed and the food should be easy to digest: predominantly carbohydrate with easily digestible proteins (hence the chicken soup), lots of ginger tea with lemon.. If you still have to go to work, just do the bare necessity and then rest, forget about your exercise programme for a while. If any fever, wait until it is gone, then have my MLD treatment. Your immune system has killed lots of bugs, which form a bigger than the usual load of waste and MLD treatment would help the excretion and prevent them to turn into toxins. Resume your exercise programme starting from much lower level of intensity comparing with that prior to illness.

Well-done ME!

I am so proud of myself that I managed to go and provide massage for some of the London Marathon runners for Cancer research! Never mind the chill!

It was such an inspirational event!

I worked in a hall with twenty five massage tables in it and perhaps forty enthusiastic massage therapists, most of them bright young things, knowing their trade and demonstrating the best of it!

It was humbling experience meeting so many people from all walks of life, who had just finished a 26-mile run, arriving at the massage hall limping or with stiff cold limbs telling us they were “All right” and enquiring if we had painful hands massaging so many people in one day. Yet they were the actual heroes of the day! They have raised 2 million for Cancer research!

I am only glad I could join the team, it was a team work with so many others doing the many small things which made this so well organised event happen! Myself and the colleague I paired up, we stayed and worked after most of the other therapists had packed and gone. We treated the last arriving marathon participants yet they had been running for over eight hours! So, it was a marathon for all of us!

WELL DONE US ALL!