Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #216 The Secret To Pain-Free Running (and Walking!) with Helen Hall

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

Human beings were born to run. No sooner have we learned to walk than we’re breaking into a run – it’s just another gear. So why do so many of us struggle with running as adults? Today’s guest, Helen Hall, is the running coach I’ve been working with for the past 18 months and who trained me for my recent marathon. As founder of Perpetual Forward Motion Efficient Running Coaching her clients range from elite athletes to ordinary amateurs who want to run or walk pain-free, with greater efficiency and, most importantly, with greater enjoyment. It’s no exaggeration to say Helen has had a profound effect on my life. So I’m delighted to be able to share her wisdom with you in this conversation, which is relevant whether you’re an experienced runner, a novice, or even if running doesn’t appeal at all. We begin our chat by looking at the core principles to Helen’s approach. Awareness is everything and she teaches clients to really notice what their body is doing. Where is your head sitting? How are you using your arms? It’s only when you’ve noticed that you can begin to change. And changing means becoming more efficient – learning the adjustments that help you to move with freedom. Movement, Helen points out, is a ‘job share’. We need to be able to recruit as much of our bodies as we can to do it well. I can testify to this holistic approach. Working with Helen hasn’t just changed my running, it’s helped me to walk faster, breathe better and stand more comfortably. It’s made me aware of how past injuries and trauma can affect you for decades. I’ve even learned how the surgery I had for appendicitis as a child played a huge part in my experience running the London Marathon this autumn. And, this conversation contains my first real deep dive into that recent marathon experience, which many of you have been asking about. It wasn’t the race I’d planned, but it turned out to be the race I needed. Helen helps me unpack why I found it so emotional and explains why my physical struggles were a sign of progress not limitation. I hope this conversation conveys just how valuable I think Helen’s approach is. Whether running is for you or not, I know it’ll get you thinking about how you’re sitting or standing right now, and noticing how you use your body for the rest of the day. Find Helen's video series here https://www.helen-hall.co.uk/product/the-pfm-wujwum-series/ Thanks to our sponsors:   https://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/livemore https://www.blublox.com/livemore http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore   Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/216 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

The beginning of change is noticing, it's awareness. So as soon as you become more aware of how you do move, how stacked your body is, how effortlessly it moves, breathing improves, digestion improves. With better movement on the outside, you're getting better movement on the inside. So this is health. This is how we stay alive for longer and feel better and live more, right?

Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. I want to start off with a question. Do you believe that humans were born to run? Or do you think that the high injury rate we see in runners these days provides evidence that we're not? Well, my guest today certainly does believe that humans are born to run. And before I go any further, I want to make it clear. Today's conversation is relevant for everyone, whether you love running, you tolerate running, or have zero interest in running at all, because at its core, this is a conversation about efficient human movement. My guest is my dear friend, Helen Hall. Now, Helen is a movement therapist. She's a running coach. I would call her a detective

for the human body. She is the author of the brilliant book, Even With Your Shoes On, and she is also the lady who has been working with me to get me ready for my very first marathon, the 2021 London Marathon. Now, Helen is quite simply one of the best coaches in any modality that I have come across. She is the founder of Perpetual Forward Motion Efficient Running Coaching, and her clients include elite athletes, whether they be runners or footballers, but they also include ordinary amateurs, regular everyday folk who simply want to run or walk pain-free with greater efficiency and most importantly, with greater enjoyment. It is no exaggeration to say that Helen has had a profound effect on my

life, so I'm delighted to be able to share her wisdom with you in today's conversation. Now, we begin our chat by looking at the core principles to Helen's approach. Awareness is everything for her, And she teaches her clients to really notice what their body is doing. Where is your head sitting when you're moving? Is it in front of your body or is it nicely stacked over your neck and your ribs? How are you using your arms when you walk? It's only when we learn how to notice what's going on in our bodies that we can really start to change things. And when we start to change the way we move, we start to become more efficient. We learn the subtle adjustments that help us move with more freedom. Movement, as Helen likes to

point out, is a job share. We need to be able to recruit as much of our bodies as we can to do it well. Now, I can really testify to Helen's holistic approach. Working with her hasn't just changed my running, it's helped me to walk faster without even trying. It's helped me breathe better and it's helped me be much more aware and in tune with my natural posture. It's also made me even more aware of how past injuries and trauma can affect you for decades. In fact, I've learned through working with Helen how the emergency surgery I had for appendicitis when I was just a young child has influenced my movement patterns throughout my entire life and played a huge part in my experience of running the London Marathon just a few weeks ago. In fact, many of you have asked me to talk about my marathon experience on the podcast.

And in today's conversation, for the first time, I start to unpack the rollercoaster of emotions that I experienced on that very special day. As you will soon find out, it wasn't the race I had planned or wanted, but I truly believe that it turned out to be the race that I needed. Helen is an incredible lady who has had a profound influence on my life over the past couple of years. I really think you are going to enjoy listening. And now, my conversation with the wonderful Helen Hall.

with the wonderful Helen Hall. The best place to start would be to talk about running. A lot of people want to run. A lot of people struggle with their running. So I thought right at the top of this conversation, in your view, are humans born to run? I look at what happened when I was a young mum and my children were taking their first steps to great applause, to got to get the camera out, got to record it. And then realizing that they were running away from the tickle monster to no applause, it just happened. No festivities, nothing. They were just now already

running. And really, it makes me stop and think about when did it stop? Because they ran. Kids run. We just run. We crawl. Maybe if we don't crawl, we get up, we haul ourselves along the furniture and we walk. We put one foot in front of the other. And then the pace changes, sometimes to prevent toppling over and sometimes because we want to reach something quickly. And then we start to chase and it's just playful. We run. That's what we do. It's another gear. It's just another gear. So if you can walk, you probably, there's going to be somebody in the world somewhere who can't run even though they can walk. But generally speaking, if you can walk, you can run. And it's just what we do. If we need to get across the road quickly, we'll it's just what we do if we need to get across the road quickly we'll break into a trot if we need to run for the train we will run for

the train it's what we do it's just a gear so yes I feel passionately that we are born to run meant to run meant to be able to run all things being I mean, it's interesting to think about that. I think that's a great way of looking at running. All kids run, right? They run, they want to run. They're not running, generally speaking, because, you know, an adult is telling them to run. They're running for joy, for pleasure. So what happens then, right? Because in preparation for this conversation, I was looking on Google this morning about what percentage of runners are reported to get injured. And there's all kinds of stats kicking around there. One stat was 80%. 80% of people or 80% of runners at some point have been injured or are injured. So what happens then? As kids, as toddlers,

we run for pleasure. And then when we're adults, some of us can't run because of pain. And I think the, and even with all of the bells and whistles that are available to buy in the sporting industry, the injury numbers are not going down. If anything, they're going up. Because the last time I think in Born to Run, Christopher McDougall's book, I think it was something like 70%. So if it's now 80%, it's going up. And you think, why? Why is that happening? And I think the stopping is a big part of the problem. So the children at some point, and I think it's quite early, they stop. Because now running around the playground either isn't cool or running has now become a discipline rather than just another pace of excitement of, well, I want to get from there to there and I want to do it a bit quicker, so I'm going to go to run.

It becomes a discipline, a sporting discipline. And then as soon as it becomes regimented, I think the joy gets sucked. I think the joy gets sucked. And children then, because the team sports, I think, also play a part. So children develop at different rates, and some are more coordinated than others. And if you are slower in developing your coordination, and you're not chosen for the school team, your interest is understandably going to get lower. Yeah. And then these people, there's no incentive to get up and move and continue their enjoyment of movement because they can't join in with, you know,

the cool guys who have been chosen in the A team or the B team. And I guess then they sort of tell themselves I'm not very good at this you know this is not for me and then you know they go down a different path there's these crucial forks in the road where we can take multiple paths not just two and which path do we end up going down often depends upon those kind of experiences. And I think, yeah, I think it's a lot to be questioned in the school system, if I'm honest, about a whole variety of things, which we've spoken about, not just running. But one thing I've sort of really learnt with you, Helen, and I think I knew it already. I just think I've deepened my understanding of it, is that

if there's an adult listening or watching to this right now, and they're either a runner or they're not a runner, or they haven't run for a while because everyone ran at one point pretty much, I think there's this misconception that when I run, I get injured. Let's say after 20 minutes, I get knee pain. So therefore, running is not for me, or running is bad for my knees. That's the conclusion. But if we go upstream a little bit and go, well, hold on a minute, we can't say that running's not for you or that running is bad for your knees just because of that. The way I look at it, and a lot of this has been informed by you, is that, well, maybe your body is in such a state at this current moment in time where, yes, you can't run without having pain, but it's not running

that's the problem necessarily. It could be their structure or their biomechanics or their form. So actually, I now have the belief, because I came to you in pain, I came to you with a whole host of little injuries that were getting in the way of my ability to run. But I now believe that all of us can run pain-free if we learn how to do it. Yeah, and it's a funny thing, isn't it? It's the most innate movement, putting one foot in front of the other. It's what everything in our movement development takes us towards, from this born blob that doesn't really do much, to toppling around on two

little feet to then being coordinated on two feet. And it takes however long it takes to get that movement coordination organized. And then it is the pain element. People bump into themselves because for whatever reason, and there are so many of them, they're not walking efficiently. They don't even know how to put one foot in front of the other efficiently because they don't know how they're walking. And they bring the way that they're walking into their running with all the restrictions that are there already, but they pass under the radar of being unnoticed because there's no pain when they walk. As soon as you add running into the mix, you've got intensity because now the body has to mass manage both feet off the ground,

landing on one little tiny bit of foot and then pushing off the same foot onto the next one. So things that are running under the radar but are there then pop out with the running. So they were fine. They started their couch to 5k and now they're stuck. Maybe they reach 5k, but they can't go any further. Maybe they didn't even reach 5k. It's not the running. It's what they brought to their running that was the problem, but it was under the radar. Nobody knew because it didn't hurt to walk. Yeah. It's like that stress threshold. We've all got our threshold. And if we live underneath it and we manage our stress, we take active steps on a daily basis to do so. Often we never get to that threshold. So we never get to the point where we're,

you know, blowing up or getting irritated or our back goes into spasm, right? Because we're, we're not getting to that point. And I guess it's the same thing with running. Running, spasm, right? Because we're not getting to that point. And I guess it's the same thing with running. Running, I feel from what you're saying and from what I've experienced with you, running has been my greatest teacher over the past 18 or 20 months because it has enabled certain imbalances to reveal themselves to me through you with your expertise, but it's, it's, it's allowed them to show up where it's like, ah, cool. I've now got an opportunity to look at the root cause of this. So instead of blaming the running, it's about looking, what is the real root cause of that? And I, but I wish everyone could have been through the journey I've been on. We'll get through, we'll definitely get to that during this conversation. But I want to make sure

this is not just relevant to runners, Helen, because I think at the core, well, there's two cores I see in your work. One is efficiency and one is noticing. And I want to spend a bit of time on them because if someone's listening or watching this and they don't think of themselves as a runner, most people are probably walking if they're able to. And I think those two principles that I feel underpin a lot of the work that you do are relevant to anyone who moves, which frankly is anyone who lives. So let's start with noticing. Why is noticing so important to you? If, so there's a beautiful quote by Philip Ball in Critical Mass. And he says, for without change, there's nothing to talk about. And when I read that, it was with reference to the second law of thermodynamics. But literally, I had to close the book, put it down and take a moment. Because that's what it's

all about. If we don't notice stuff, how can we change it? So the beginning of change is noticing. It's awareness. And so we get this underlying, something is going on with walking, but there's no pain. Then people want to, and I applaud everybody who just is giving it a go. They get off the couch and they start their running journey, but there's this underlying unknowing so far within their walking. Then to that unknowing is added every preconception, misconception known to Google or known to conversations about running, known to running magazines, where there are these ideas that are being promoted that definitely must have helped somebody

and more than one somebody, people. But people absorb what they hear, see, read, whatever Dr. Google says, and apply that to their underlying unknowingness with their walking into their running. And without noticing that their body couldn't even do that walking, then they're just, it's just a matter of time. How many repetitions, voluminous repetitions are going to have to occur before that tipping point occurs and they're going to have pain? So the beginning of everything is noticing what is going on in your body and what isn't going on.

I'm forever sleuthing for what Gary Ward suggests is the dark spaces and we're shining a light on the dark spaces. If you don't know what is moving and what isn't moving, how can you make any progress in creating more of you to join the job? Otherwise, you're leaving too little of your body to do the job all by itself. We should be job sharing. Everything should be moving. If we are moving, everything moves. Yeah. I mean, just for those people who don't know Gary, Gary has been a huge influence on both of our lives. Gary's been on the podcast many years ago. Gary was the person who I attributed to initially being the first person who really helped me get

rid of my 10 years of chronic lower back pain, which really caused me all kinds of problems. I had to give up sport, I had loads of time off work, you know, I couldn't get in the car, couldn't lift my kids. And without oversimplifying Gary's work, he helped me realize that actually my right foot wasn't working as well as it might have done. And literally with five minutes of right foot exercises per day, maybe less, my back pain went to the point where I could return to all the things at that time which I wanted to do. And that led me on a journey to getting to minimalist footwear, because I loved the feeling of feeling my feet and understanding what it was doing. And I know

you also like Gary's philosophy, Anatomy in Motion, but you also, I think, bring a lot of your other philosophies that you've learned over the years to the way you teach people. And I think one of the reasons I've resonated so much with your approach is it works. Human bodies work. So you just work with a human body in all of its glory and you can create change. Sorry to interrupt. No. Well, I think that's one of the things you you also say a lot is that human bodies are logical like and you what's so empowering when when I've worked with you Helen is that I always have confidence that it doesn't matter what the issue is you're just gonna have to show me why that's happening and a lot of people are walking around going why

is my knee always hurting when I run why is my hammy going at 5k each week? And you have some great tech knowledge available to you, but let's talk about that. But I think this idea that running is a whole body movement, walking is a whole body movement. I've learned with you that actually sometimes changing the position of my wrist impacts how fast I move or the pressure going through my leg. And you show me on the machine and I think, well, that's incredible. I had no idea. So I think a lot of people think it's just their two legs moving back and forth, right? But it's not that, it's a whole body movement. Yeah. So the upper body and the lower body cooperate. So the easiest way to describe it is exactly how I assess. So somebody is standing still, what's going on? Then they walk. What is the same? Nothing should be the

same. So anything that is the same stands out. And you can do this in front of the mirror. You could just stand in front of the mirror and just make a note, is one shoulder higher than the other? And then you can march on the spot. Does that shoulder stay higher? And then you can trot on the spot. Does it still stay high? Okay, that shoulder needs to be high. Why? Why does it need to be high? We need to find that out because that's going to affect, if you stay, to keep it really simple, if you stay with one shoulder higher than the other, the low shoulder makes it easy for you to land on that leg. Because we lean into the leg we're landing on, it gives all sorts of delicious shock absorption opportunity, just through the laws of joint mechanics. But if we're still leaning on that leg when we propel, that's a lot

of work. We should be leaning away from the propelling leg. So our shoulders are continually switching height as we run and walk. When you say propel, what does that mean for people? So the trail leg pushing off. So the trail leg. The leg that's behind you. That's behind you is pushing you forward. We get pushed forward from behind more than we really drag ourselves from the front. Because all of the big juicy muscles of propulsion are behind us. Our glutes, the biggest muscle group in the body, they are behind you. And they help propel you forward. But if we're leaning on that leg, then that's just a

whole world of extra work. So let's say someone just heard that and they thought, okay, I'm going to go and stand in front of the mirror and I'm going to notice what my body looks like. And then they walk and then they march on the spot and then they run on the spot and they just notice what happens. What can they do with that? Like if they're noticing, I mean, noticing is great, right? Because at least as you start to build in that awareness that, oh, wow, why is my left shoulder higher than my right? Which I have had for many, many years. Not that I knew it before I started working with you, but what can people do with that information though if they if they discover it so taking a shoulder as a case in point if they're then reached up with the high shoulder so they

just reached their arm above their head and just felt for how easy that movement was and then compared it to how easy it is for the other arm, the low shoulder arm, to reach above the head. So you're not looking for necessarily the same range of motion. That would be nice. But if you've got an asymmetry in the shoulders, it's unlikely. But you're looking for the quality of the motion. Because it might be that the high shoulder feels restricted, not the low shoulder. So just because it's high doesn't mean that's the problem. It could not the low shoulder. So just because it's high doesn't

mean that's the problem. It could be the low shoulder. But if it's the low shoulder, the asymmetry doesn't tell you where the problem is. Yeah. That's a key point, isn't it? Yes. It's like in medicine where the site of the symptom is not always the site of the problem so your eczema for example might be coming from your guts yes you know your migraine might be getting triggered by something that you're eating yeah so it's not necessarily a head problem it's you've got to find it what it is and i came to see you I couldn't run at that time

I don't even though I was doing the park run the 5k every few weeks with my son I don't think I could run more than 2k at that time without my hammy with my right hammy feeling my right hamstring feeling really really tight and sore but you helped me get rid of that. But we didn't really deal with the hamstring, did we? No, no, we, the pain area interests us in that we want to understand why the pain is there. So if we see asymmetry in a body, it doesn't mean to say there's going to be any pain anywhere. And I'm just going to pause you there. Asymmetry, so not symmetrical on both sides. Yeah. So you're looking left to right and front to back. So you can have a side view or a view from the front or the back. And when things are not stacked on top of each other, that's all it

is. It's just an alignment thing. It doesn't mean there's going to be any pain anywhere. But if there is pain, we need to understand why is the pain there? So if somebody is standing with their pelvis over to the left, which would lean their right leg in and push their left leg in the other way, so you'd be in this sort of slanty position. I'm exaggerating, of course. You could have pain in your left hip because you're pushing into it all the time. But you could have pain in your right hamstring because it's leaning away from the foot the whole time. So it's with the shapes that we make understanding, well, why is that pain there?

Is this something that is stuck in a long position? So if I'm leaning over to the left, my right hamstring is going to be possibly slightly long. And if it stays there, it never gets a chance to be short. So the point of that little example is, if stretching was going to be the answer, it's already long. And it might feel as if the hamstring is grateful for the extra stretch, but only because you're changing its status quo. But you're probably promulgating the problem because actually that hamstring wants to be shorter. The pelvis wants to shunt to the right to get that leg upright to make the hamstrings woes less.

And this is where I think this holistic whole body approach that you take is actually so important and will pretty much help everyone because what I see a lot of is, and I completely understand this and I'm saying this with full respect to the healthcare professionals involved, that often it'll be, oh my hammy gets sore, so they go and have the sports massage on the hammy and it might feel a bit better or it's sore and tight so they stretch it. But sometimes that's not the right thing to do. Well, they go and see a healthcare professional who does some work on the hammy. But often, like with me, the hamstring, I could see it on your machine, which I do want you to tell us about shortly, I could see very clearly, oh, of course, my right hamstring is taking the load of my entire body. So it's trying its best. So actually

stretching it may not be the right thing to do. It might be, it might not, but I needed your help there. And I kind of feel this is a really key point for people is that the site of your injury or your pain may not be the site of the problem. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It contains vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system,

something that is really important, especially at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. All of this goodness comes in one convenient daily serving that makes it really easy to fit into your life no matter how busy you feel. It's also really, really tasty. The scientific team behind AG1 includes experts from a broad range of fields including longevity, preventive medicine, genetics and biochemistry. I talk to them regularly and I'm really impressed with their commitment to making a top quality product. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually, they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs

with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. So often, more often than not, the pain area is the area doing the most work.

So we should treat it with love, right? That's trying its best to help us. Invariably, it's asking for a holiday. Invariably, it's talking to you. The pain is talking to you. Please get off me. Please. Can you get the other leg to do something? So when people come in and they say, you know, the doctor says, well, I mustn't run anymore. I say, number one, I say, okay, there's a word missing there. Don't run badly. Just don't be mean to your body. So not don't run ever again, just don't run meanly, badly ever again.

So the pain is on one side. Invariably, the pain is on one side. Invariably, the pain is on one side. Even when it becomes both sides, it started on one side and one side tends to be worse than the other. I have never come across anybody ever that has equal started and remained the same time and the same intensity. the same time and the same intensity. It has a bias to one side or the other, invariably. And I say, well, okay, stop running. Let's just think about this. Where is the logic in this statement? Are you hopping? You are running. The other knee's fine. So why is this knee complaining? It can't be running because the other knee is fine. There's no logic in saying it must be running. It is the activity that tips you over the balance. If you don't have the pain when you walk,

okay, there is a tipping point. So now we have some intensity, some volume of intensity. Invariably, it only starts when I'm doing hill drills or speed work. So there's an intensity that that knee can cope with for a certain amount of time, and then it can't. There's kind of a spiritual parallel here, isn't there, where we move away from problems in life. We find something irritating or let's say someone leaves a comment for us or whatever that triggers us. And we have a tendency to move away, go, oh, that's irritating, isn't it? We don't want that. When actually, it's a gift. It's a gift to go, oh, what is it within me that is getting triggered by that comment or by that action? And when you sort of truly get that, you put yourself,

you give yourself a sense of control. It's like, okay, it's not about them. It's about, I can work on something in me. And the way you were describing that there, I kind of saw a very similar parallel with movement and our bodies. It's like if your ankle or your knee or your back or your hamstring is giving you pain, lean into it, not literally with a stretch, but go, okay, great. I now have an opportunity to discover something about my body that I didn't previously know. Yes. Yes. It will teach you. Pain is one of the best teachers. So when I work with somebody, invariably they might be running along and the pain starts again. And I say, okay. So they will know why the pain is where it is by that time. Okay. Where is your

shoulder? What is that hand doing? Whatever it might be. Where is your ear what is that hand doing whatever it might be where is your ear okay so we're working on the problem so you can't just hack into the system and change the way you move you have to find out why you're moving that way put stimuli in movement stimuli in to change that situation but then whilst that is all happening in the background, we have to start to chip away at old habits. So we have the work of movement stimuli getting into the body, shining lights on these dark areas. But we also have ways in the actual action of running to notice these habits that just creep in when you're not really thinking about it. And then the person will know their way in to help themselves. They will apply it and they'll take the pain away because the pain was telling them that there was too much going on on that

area. The weight was in the wrong place, but they knew how to get out of that scenario and they take control of their problem yeah it's the pain teaches them yeah the pain teaches them and actually what you do and you're too modest to um sing your own praises so i'll sing them because you you know you really you really are incredible like i've what you know, for me, it's not about running actually. And we'll get to my marathon journey later because a lot of people want me to unpack it. And who better than you to do it with me? But my work with you is actually not about running. Yes, we run. It's about efficiency. It's about me understanding my body better. It's about longevity because I know now from

all the work I've done with you, my body moves better than it has ever moved before. So I walk better. I walk so quickly now without even trying, right? Vid used to say, why can't you walk quicker? Like I struggle to keep up with her, but I had all these restrictions I didn't know about. Now that they've been freed and released, I effortlessly walk more. And for me, this, why I invest so much time and energy into movement is because good quality movement is necessary for our daily lives, but it's necessary when you're 70, 80, 90. Look around at a lot of people, how they walk. I see my mum who I have to help care for. I think I really don't want to be like that. And so if I can invest in my body, get more efficiency now, I'm going to be a healthier 80 year old, 90 year old, you know. And for me,

that's the really exciting thing. This goes beyond running. I mean, what's your view on that? You know, people would call you a running coach. I think that is far too reductionist a term for you. But what does that make you think of do you do you accept that term or would you frame it slightly differently um i don't uh i struggle with labels people ask um what i am what are you i mean i don't know what i am i'm a helen hall uh i'm i'm i'm not an ist of any description my educational journey has taken this lovely meandering, a bit like this river flowing here and I go off on little tributaries. And I just, if I can't answer a question, I'll seek to learn to find the information

so I can answer the question. So I coach running. Yeah, sure. I assess running. I assess movement. And I implement change into that movement. I analyze stuff. I sleuth movement. And I coach running. And I guide people towards being less mean to their bodies. So the training programs that are ubiquitous and people have, there's a lot of opinions out there and that's all fine. And my opinion is, generally speaking, that we are just not kind enough to our bodies because we're not really knowing of what our bodies can do, want to do, are able to do. So if we take it back to the beginning

about whether or not we're born to run, and we move from walking into running, and it's just another gear. If we accept that putting one foot in front of the other is an innate movement in us why would we need to learn to walk better so you talked about you've discovered you're walking better but that is even that alone is so interesting because why is it that people do need to learn to walk better? And it's simply because they haven't noticed how badly they've started to move. Not bad walking, but movement. And it's not that I teach anybody how to walk there's no right or wrong way to walk but are you bringing your entire body along with you in that walking gait is everything is the timing

on point is one leg and the other leg doing the same job is the pelvis only rotating one way so you have one and a half strides rather than two strides? And then taking that because everybody walks before they run. We can't be Forrest Gump. We can't run everywhere because it's too much intensity. So we have to be able to walk well, to walk efficiently, to walk smoothly, to be able to then transition that into running with the same mechanics that we have for walking, just with more intensity. So it's very important for people not to think that they have to learn how to walk properly. It's not properly. It's just more effectively, more efficiently using more of their body, which then instantly translates into running. Yeah, but that's this underpinning philosophy for me, Helen. It's efficiency and it's noticing.

Yeah. Like I really feel if I look back on our last 18 months together, there's so many different things I've learned about myself. Yes, physically, but also emotionally. And maybe we'll get to that later in the conversation at this time. But I think they're the two biggest things i understand my body better now yeah which is why despite a challenging london marathon day because of what you've taught me and because what i now know about my body i was able to manage my entire body around the last 16 miles when I could barely run because of my groin.

Yeah. I don't think I could have done that without the knowledge. And it is efficiency. Like you've not, I just walk and run faster and it feels easier. Like, because it's about efficiency.

And one of the things I feel very proud of with the work we did together is that you allowed my training to fit around my life. It didn't overtake me. I'm probably under-trained compared to what a lot of people do for a marathon, but I don't think that's the reason why I had a tricky day at all.

I really don't believe that. But this key point I really want to get across is noticing. And the example I want to use is last time you came to the house, you went for a run with my brother. So you didn't go all in detail like you have done with me, but you've transformed the way he runs from spending 30, 40 minutes with him. And it all came down to head over shoulder, over hips. Do you have the forward head position or not? And what was interesting, he said to me,

mate, I didn't realize that I was running inefficiently, but when Helen showed me what to do, and then we ran for a bit like that, and then she said, go back to what you're doing before, I could just feel how sluggish and how inefficient it was. So I think that's the magic in your approach is you allow the individual to start noticing themselves. So I want to talk about noticing. I want to talk about head forward posture. And I kind of want to frame it around, is our heads being forwards the number one problem that you see these days so i continually say with so much enthusiasm because it is the beginning of everything getting better if your head isn't on right nothing great is going to happen if you don't know where your head isn't on right, nothing great is going to happen. If you don't know where your head is, nothing great is going to happen because it is heavy

and it is sensory headquarters, no pun intended. This is our most precious commodity. All of our movement coordination is organized so that we don't face plant. So if that head is off its perch, the muscles are hanging onto it for dear life. So if I just move my head there, I can turn my head this much because there's so many structures now hanging onto my head, which is not perched effortlessly on top of the spine. And for people listening, Helen just put her head forwards.

So the typical sort of head forward posture that many of us have these days, and her rotation was completely limited when she tried to move her neck from side to side. I forgot that this was, yes, not just me looking at you. So then I put my head on right. So I just park it where it feels most wobbly. So I'm just sat here and I can just wobbly wobbly it about and it just feels easy. And I can turn my head and I've got just this much bigger range of motion. And if you do that standing in front of the mirror, you will find you will have more movement everywhere in your body. A head that isn't on its perch is being hung onto by a whole swathe of soft tissue, which limits the joint rotations,

which limits your movement, which seems a bit sad. Would you say, because there's obviously so many complaints people have with running, but also walking and just movement in general. But if, you know, if someone said to you, what is the number one problem you see in the 21st century with people wanting to run? Yeah. Is this it? Yeah, it is. Without a shadow of a doubt, my job mainly entails getting rid of the elephant in the room. Case in point, there was a young footballer, career-threatening injury. It was lockdown.

He couldn't, nobody could move. It was the first lockdown. And it was suggested that I might be able to help. So he reached out and he said, send me some video. And I, it was the elephant in the room was a forward head of, um, it was epic that he was actually able to stay upright and not face plant. His body was working so hard with that forward head position. And, and I said to him, him, has anybody mentioned your head? Because maybe I was wrong. Maybe his symptoms were nothing to do with his head. If somebody had

already dealt with it, then it wasn't that. So people come to me, a slight digression, people come to me, I'm generally last resort, but they come and there's all this wonderful evidence already that's happened. So all the work that's happened already isn't wasted because this is all evidence that, okay, well, that hasn't helped, that hasn't helped, that hasn't helped. So, okay, let's stay away from all of that and make sure we do something different. Otherwise, we know it's not going to work. So I just needed to make sure that nobody had mentioned this elephant in the room because it was extraordinary. And I said, anybody mentioned your head position? And he went, oh, yes. And I went, oh, okay. Okay, great. So did you do something about it? And he went, what do you mean? And I said, well, did your team physios help you with your head position? Oh, no, no, it wasn't. No, no, it was my wife.

And so it was, okay, okay, you should listen to your wife. Yes, let's deal with this. So his wife had noticed the forward head position. Yes, yes. And this guy, he hadn't been able to take a single running step despite several surgeries. And within two weeks, he was running. And when he went back, they were saying, oh, you're running better than we've ever seen you move. Yeah. And all we'd done was popped his head back on place where it was meant to be. And I just want to add here because, I mean, I love this stuff, Helen, because it's like you said, you know, people don't know where the head is.

I now know where my head is. Like, I don't think I did two years ago. I kind of, I think I'm pretty good with my body. I think I've got a really good awareness, I think. But even if I did, it has been, you know, upgraded a hundredfold over the past 18 months, which is, you know, I can really see even when I'm out walking now and that I feel I've got a new joy of movement. I love movement anyway. I love it now. I love going for a walk, but not in the way that I used to. I used to love going for a walk two years ago, but now it's an opportunity for me to, yes, switch off, get some relaxation, but also move efficiently. And that goes, people say running is boring and it is, there's so much to think about. How could it possibly be boring? There's things to see and things to notice

constantly. It's a constant body scan and it's not a boring, that sounds onerous. It's not onerous at all. You had the skill at the, when it got tough and it was tough for a long time for you in the marathon, you had the skill even when it was hard to not make it harder. So in learning about your own body, if you're not going to look after your own body, who is? You have control over your own body. And if you learn about it, when things get tough, you can make it as easy as possible. If you don't learn about it, you can easily make things much harder than they need to be. So at the end of the Ironman, we swim a long way, we cycle a long way, and then we run a marathon. And it is continually surprising to me to see people bent, shuffling, head down,

it's hard, everybody's tired. But in that fatigue, they are making things harder. And if they just knew how to arrange their body parts to make it less onerous, they would complete that marathon section, the end of the Ironman, more easily. It's like a car, right? Isn't it? Let's say you're on a long journey. It's probably not the best analogy, but I'm just trying to look at it a slightly different way. Like if your car, if your back left wheel has got a puncture and you keep trying to push through with it, that last leg of your journey is just going to take longer. You're going to be doing damage to the car. You're not going to be moving as efficiently. If you stop and pump it up and actually make sure all four wheels are symmetrical again and you know got the same

tire pressure it's going to effortlessly finish the last leg of the journey I guess it's it's a nice analogy it works doesn't it yeah it really does so those are spark plugs so I call those spark plugs so people will they'll be running and they'll they'll think there's this is another misconception uh or preconception. I think it's a misconception that people push through pain. You're to push through pain, you know, run through it. I think it's probably more likely to be your body saying, you know, can you get off? Can you stop moving like that?

What can you do to help that body part along? So instead of pushing through through you go into a walk rearrange yourself and then people i work with will always have a go-to movement that they can't they know that that's their their little uh their pump up their their puncture kit so they can apply that little stimulus to breathe life into something that's tiring quickly because it's still maybe recovering from an injury. And then they can crack on again rather than stopping and pulling it, which is what people tend to do. Yeah. It's not stop running. It's stop running like that.

Yes, like that. And it translates into everything. You know, people go into the gym, don't stop squatting, but stop squatting like that. Are you aware that you're drifting one side or the other? You know, are you paying attention? People look in the mirror, but they see what they know. It's just the same as what Hugh said on the conversation about the marathon, the organizers. Yeah, a few podcasts ago, yeah. the organizers podcasts yeah and and he said people believe what they see people also see what they know so they'll be looking in the mirror and they will only see if they're doing a squat maybe the barbell on their back or at the front they're going down they're not seeing necessarily the direction of the squat or the bit of their body that pushes first to get

back up to standing. But once you see it, once it's been pointed out to you, you can't unknow it. You can't unfeel it. You can't unsee it. And if I may, yesterday with the children, they nailed it. So yesterday, your daughter exemplified it so beautifully yesterday when she took control of her head once she knew where it was. She felt different. She preferred it. Once the central nervous system has found something better, it enjoys better, it won't want to go back to where it was.

I just filmed her. So as soon as something, we use tech all the time, as soon as you use a visual, it hits home. Because if it's pointed out to you, you can't unknow that. You can look in the mirror and not have a clue that your head's tilted over until somebody says, and then you'll always know your head's tilted over. And she was magnificent. Her running was tricky. It was hard work. She wanted to go further. And I showed her, her head was over to the side. Can you see that your head's over the side? Okay, yeah. And we're already working on that. And then she picked up three ways of knowing where her head is as she's running. And she reorganized her own head whilst running. She PB'd, she went further than she's ever been,

she could have gone further, it was easy. I couldn't believe it when she came back and said, Daddy, Daddy, I've done 5K or 6K. I was like, what? You've just gone and done 5 or 6K? She's like, yeah, she had a big smile on her face. I mean, she's only eight years old. I don't think she's ever done 5k before. And she knew when her head went back, because there's a habit going on there, when her head went back, she didn't like it. She didn't, just like your brother, she didn't like that feeling. Noticing, awareness. She had noticed and it was, so she would correct she would instantly correct it would go and she would

instantly correct you know for me home that's the beauty though even if you never saw anushka again right which i hope doesn't happen but let's say that never did happen she's already learned something that i think will help her for the rest of her life. You know, oh, I now know what my head's not in the right place. She felt it. She embodied it. She experienced it. What's better than that? That's, you mentioned training plans and reading blogs and reading these sort of various things about, you know, the 10 common mistakes runners do or, you know, whatever those sort of classic blogs are. And they kind of work for some people. Yeah. But they don't work for everyone.

Yeah. And in my experience, they work best for the ab initio, so the first timers. So when people are taking up a new distance or a new discipline. The really a nice story exemplifying this, I think is a girl who went with her boyfriend to New Zealand to do Ironman New Zealand. She had done a classic distance triathlon, which is, so the run at the end is a 10K as opposed to a marathon. So that's, you know, everything is shorter. When they got there, because it's New Zealand, there were still spaces to sign up. So she had

not trained for an Ironman. Her boyfriend had trained for the Ironman. And she just thought, well, I'll just give it a go while I'm here. I'll just, you get to see a little bit more of the countryside. So off I go. And she did amazingly well, staggeringly well, to the extent that, oh my goodness, you need to do Ironman because this is your sport. And then she trained for it. She followed a training program for it. She never, ever achieved that same time. She got slower and slower because she arrived fresh, uninjured because she hadn't put her body through the mill. I always say it's always better to start on the start line a little bit under-trained

than even a teeny tiny bit over-trained. You don't want to be fatigued before you start. So she hadn't trained for it. It was a huge event. You know, she did it in just over 11 hours, which is, you know, that would be a dream for me. It's still a lot of movement, continual movement. And she was never able to replicate that with training because the training

put her body into a state of fatigue and continual, you're just always trying to catch up with yourself. So people in the first, if they follow a training program that might be online and it worked the first time they will do it again and then the injuries tend to start happening because it worked the first time because they were already in a state of under training because they hadn't done anything and then the second time they build and now they're doing it following by rote rather than following it noticing. What do you mean by rote? By rote there. So if it says, and this is again through experience, they would race on a Sunday, race day was Sunday, hill training day with the club is Monday. and they would hill train on a

Monday because that's what the club does even though they'd raced on the Sunday and nobody's body can do that with any consistency and not struggle to recover because the the muscle fibers that we use with that kind of intensity take a minimum of 48 hours to recover. And that's only certain people. It's between 48 hours and a week. Now, I lie at the other end of the scale. So it would take me a week to recover from an intense session. and so people are training through the week still recovering from that which they have done the work that they have done not realizing that their body is still recovering because they're managing well

it should be hard shouldn't it it should hurt shouldn't it we go for the burn don't we well these are stories yes and that have become truth yes and And if we say it often enough, we'll believe it. But Helen, through the work I did with you, right, about two months before the marathon, we must have run together or covered together 20, 21 miles. Yes. Now, there was a nutrition issue, which I was learning about how to fuel my body for that sort of distance.

But there was no body biomechanical issue. I didn't have pain anywhere. My body didn't break down. And the next day, I didn't feel a thing. I didn't stretch afterwards. I didn't hot bath afterwards. Because I was moving efficiently. And one of the things I love that you've taught me is that the body is a, what do you say, a self-massaging? Self-generating, self-organizing, self-manipulating. It does it all. We are a self-sustaining organism. Yeah. And so for me, that was an incredible learning because conventional wisdom is you're going to be sore after that. You need to do loads of recovery after that. You're going to have to stretch. Again, I know that works for some people, right? So I'm not at all criticising that. I'm going, in terms of my own experience, I was like, after

nothing. We did our walking warm-up. We did our walking warm-down, as you always encourage people to do. I didn't feel a thing the next day, nothing. And that was in barefoot shoes as well. Right. So this is challenging a lot of these kind of, I think, misconceptions that are out there. Can we just for a moment, take it away from the elite athlete because Ironman, you know, triathlons, marathons. Okay. A lot of people I think who listen to the show might not be interested in that. I know there's some quite sick people who listen to my show and they might go, you know, yeah, what's this got to do with me? Well, I think efficiency of movement has something to do with everybody. So even if someone, you know, for someone their marathon literally might be a walk around the

block. I've got patients who struggled that much. Maybe they've got issues with fatigue or fibromyalgia. You know, going around the block is their marathon, right? And they deserve just as much credit when they achieve their marathon as the kind of people we see on Instagram or on TV. But in advance of this conversation, a lady who follows me on Instagram has been messaging me and you know, I get so many messages, it's hard to keep up with them, but I just happened to be able to, it popped up and I engaged and she replied. So we had a really nice interaction. She lives in Australia and she loves running. And she's heard me rave about you and Gary before. So she's picked up your book, you know, even with your shoes on, she's downloaded your barefoot audio tracks and

she loves running but one thing she said to me really made me sad actually she said you know what I'm I have a fear and anxiety about running and I said why and she said she sort of hinted that um she's carrying a lot of excess weight she says i think i'm going to be judged i feel clumsy i feel heavy i feel thick um i don't have the beautiful poetry in motion that i see online and i felt that was just so sad that you know i've never met this lady i've just had a few dms exchange with her but i thought wow she wants to run she's really motivated to she's scared of being judged when she runs she's scared of judging herself when she runs and that that line not the beautiful poetry and motion runner. What would you say to that?

Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits

that are holding you back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour. I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve our relationships. There are of course many different ways to journal and as with most things, it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three-question journal.

In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three

question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. Running is such a great leveller. I have been passed by so many bigger, heavier, by so many bigger, heavier, older. Just to mention Ironman one more time, I was beaten on my first Ironman by three hours by a guy three decades older than me. So when you movement, movement is a leveler. So maybe sprinting and fast, accelerated sports aside, walking and running are levelers.

It doesn't matter what size you are, what shape you are. My husband is a big guy and he runs as light as a feather. Barefoot Ted complimented him on his running prowess. It's not about your size. It's not even about your fitness because that will just come. People ask, do I need to be fit to come to you? Well, no, otherwise nobody would be able to come because everybody's hurting so badly. The fitness comes with better movement because more of your body is being moved. So instead of the movement coming from a smaller part of your body, it's being shared, which makes the job easier. But now more of your body is moving.

So you're manipulating more of your body and you're pumping life through more of your body. You're pumping life through more of your body. So with reference, people who are sick, the same thing applies. Where is your head? Are you making your walk around the block as easy as it could be, as all-encompassing with all of your body parts as it could be? Or is it harder than it needs to be? Which when you're already sick is, well, you know, that is a hard thing to do. So you'd want that to be made as easy as possible, which then,

and this goes back to the father of osteopathy, Andrew Still, the artery is king. If you can get your head on right, then all of the tubes, it's just plumbing. All of the tubes, the kinks get taken out of the pipes. The blood can flow better. The metabolic waste can flow better. The air can flow better. It's easier to move. So when you, in any, whether you're tired, whether you're sick, whether you're injured,

if you can understand how your body moves and notice where it isn't moving and help it along a little bit better you will move better and then further and enjoy it more and and and and and will grow so this lady in australia who wants to run she wants to run more efficiently yeah but is fearful and nervous about it because of her size and presumably because of the way she views herself on some level what would you say to her directly when i see uh people who aren't moving uh smoothly and fluidly but they're out there, all I can think is, good for you. You're giving it a go.

Just start. Hugh said it's such a commonly used Chinese proverb, but it's so true. It starts with a single step. We all, I think, have to learn to not judge quite as much as we do. It's certainly a work in progress for me. I think some people are better at it than others. Some people are really, really not very good at it at all. But when you see people out there giving it a go, for her to even feel as if she's being judged, it's because she knows it's been in somebody else's eyes. And we collectively need to stop that. We need to

stop judging people for getting out there and trying and applauding them instead. Like on the marathon, London marathon, Nobody was saying nasty things to anybody whilst they were trying, whilst they might've been struggling, when they might've been limping, they might've been walking. They were cheering them on. Doesn't matter how old they were, how big they were, how fit they looked, how much prowess they showed. They were being cheered. We should be cheering everybody. As Hugh said, the party buses at the back, because those people at the back, they're the heroes. They're the people that inspire everybody. The people at the front, yes, great. The four-hour marathoners, good for you.

Those aren't really the people that inspire everybody else to get off the couch and start moving. Good for you is what I say to you. Just ignore what everybody else might be thinking. They might be thinking good for you. So just go out and put one foot in front of the other and notice where is your head? First job, where is your head? Get it on better. Get it on right. There's only one place for it to be and only you know exactly where that is. And on that point, Helen, I know not everyone can work with you one-on-one, unfortunately, for a variety of reasons. But you're passionate about helping as many people as possible. So you've created these videos to kind of get the word out there so people can, well, the way I see it with those videos, which are brilliant, is that, and if we get time, we'll talk about this. This is not the

Helen Hall method, right? You're not, you don't have, you're not developed a new method of running. I came in where you think, oh, do I have to run like this? Is it the Chi method or the pose method and all these things that I'd read about and you get, well, I don't know if that's the right thing for you. I'm just going to help your body move more efficiently. How do you see those videos? Because I kind of see that they can help people figure some of this stuff out themselves. Well, I'm the self-proclaimed queen of efficiency. So my whole world is about efficiency. So rather than this way or that way, the right way or the wrong way, it's just, can we have a non-confrontational discussion, conversation about what is best for you? What is absolutely right for you? With your body as it is, how can that make certain shapes to make movement more efficient? And working one person at a time

really wasn't cutting my whole ethos of efficiency, which is why I ended up writing the book, because I thought, well, if I write a book, more people can read about what I say incessantly day in, day out. So tell us the title. Even with your shoes on, which, and I was warned, are you sure you want to call it that? I was like, totally. It came to me and I knew it was right. Even with your shoes on, because people, I was known as a barefoot runner, much as you are now. And, but it was, it's not about the shoe. I just choose to have less on my feet than most. It's a choice, but you can put anything on your shoe. If your feet are comfortable, you can put anything on your feet and you can move efficiently. So I titled the book, Even With Your Shoes On on so that it didn't pigeonhole the presentation of the work

to just people who wear less on their feet like I do. So I was trying to make it all inclusive. I don't know if I hit the spot there, but that's what it's called and I still enjoy it. Book titles. Yeah, don't get me started on book titles. So it was probably not the best in terms of publishing, but it was my choice. So even with your shoes on and the book walks you by the hand, it started as a 26,000 word manual. And Gary's friend read it for me and they held me by the hand and sat me down quietly and said, okay, so you need to assume that we all know less than you think we do and hold us very carefully by the hand and start again. So my 26,000 word manual turned into 105,000 word tome, which weighs nearly a kilo. But it was absolutely the right thing to say because I just wasn't using enough words, which is very unlike me, not using enough words so that people could follow it step by step. And we start with head position.

We start with stacking. And still people had lots of questions because I couldn't, and I couldn't fit everything in. So then I decided, well, I could make videos as a result of lockdown. I was doing kind of online classes where I was preparing people for their run. So a warmup, if you will, which

actually can then became an exploration, which then if somebody had any energy left to do some running afterwards, which I always did, they would find more about their running as a result of exploring their body through the movements in the videos. So essentially the videos become me taking you for your warm-up walk, talking about all the things that we discuss in a warm-up walk, taking you through some movements to prepare yourself for your next running session, whether or not you're exploring hills or speed or whatever it might be. You're narrow tracking because it turns out you're always spraining your ankles and you've got IT band issues uh when you say narrow tracking you're talking about the width yeah between your

feet apart when you run yes which again i remember is something that we did together it's like oh wow i didn't know that changing the width of how far apart my feet are makes a difference and you can feel it yourself it's transformative to the extent that you see people running along these very narrow overgrown trails and I am struggling. I've got one foot in the trail and one foot on the bank somewhere because to run along that tightrope is just so uncomfortable. I'm going to put a link in the show notes to the book and the videos because I think they're going to help so many people. I've got friends who I've got the book for. They find it really helpful. One friend in particular, you know, he just loves it. It's really helped him. It's actually

helped him with his golf swing. Yes. It's helped him with his golf swing, you know, because what we're talking about is efficiency, efficiency of movement. I've got a, somebody wrote to me recently and she's not a runner and it's helped her walking. Yeah. Because every single running session starts with walking and walking involves your entire body. So it's just all we're doing is exploring your whole body so that you can use your whole body for whatever activity you want to do. It doesn't matter the sport. It's just more of you being available. So you have more joy from your movement and therefore maybe you'll keep it going and not stop once you've started.

Yeah. Well, I hope people get it because I've been lucky enough to work directly with you. But I just want everyone to have access to that wisdom and knowledge that you've imparted on me. And I think this is a great way of you doing it. Let's get into the marathon because we've touched on it a couple of times. You know, I've been so busy since the marathon, I don't think I've had a chance to properly unpack it myself. So let's see what happens now when we get into it. Well, I can't wait to hear all about it. Well, I don't know, Maybe you should ask the questions. Well, I think that the logical place to start is the end.

Yeah. Because it invoked emotions that you weren't expecting. And working backwards from there might enable you to then shape it in your head to then be able to move forward with all of that information that you've just discovered inside you yes it was interesting um it wasn't the day that me or you i, had expected or wanted. I really struggled. I think from mile three, I was feeling my right groin. I thought, come on, you're in the positive frame of mind, you've seen the crowds, you're like, oh, this will go. Come on, just stick to the strategy. But it wasn't getting better it

was progressively getting worse uh to the point where i was close to tears at times in pain and i think when at one point when i saw vid and the kids i think i did burst into tears there was so much emotion in me during that uh event but in answer to your question people who've followed me on instagram or or heard the conversation i had with hugh a few episodes ago will have heard the four goals i had yeah for this marathon i'll just reiterate them one was to do the event and complete it in barefoot shoes so I did it in my Vivo barefoot and I thought there was no problem at all one was for the um the training and the aftermath to not overly interfere with my personal or professional life I feel I've succeeded there I wanted to nasal breathe the whole way around uh which I did. Although given how much I had to walk in

the end, I'm not sure I can claim, you know, I think we have to put that in the context, but yes, I think I pretty much did apart from when talking to people, which I had to do quite a lot, which we'll get to. And the other goal was to finish with a smile on my face. So technically I did finish with a smile on my face technically yeah but I wasn't smiling on the insides no I didn't feel joy when I passed the finish line if I remember I went through and I was just in such turmoil in my head I remember saying to somebody who had some official gear on I said have, is that it? Have I finished?

I didn't feel euphoria. And it was like a six hour therapy session with my inner voice, stuff that I thought I dealt with and processed. Oh man. They say this about endurance events, that you start to discover stuff about yourself, that it's, I really feel endurance is going to be the next stage of my spiritual evolution, actually, because I learned so much. It wasn't the race I wanted. Now I've, well, obviously we've had a few conversations, but we haven't spoke for a few weeks on this. So I have this real conflict, Helen, where it's kind of weird. It may surprise people, but I'm actually a relatively private person. But doing that event in public, I didn't realise how many people knew who I was.

I couldn't have my name on my top. I didn't say Rangan or Dr Chatterjee. Yet all throughout, people shout, come on, Rangan, come on, Dr Chatterjee. And when they say Rangan and not Rangan or Dr. Chatterjee, yet all throughout people shout, come on, Rangan, come on, Dr. Chatterjee. And when they say Rangan and not Rangan, I'm like, oh, you know how to pronounce my name as well. That's still a shock to me when people actually say it correctly, because I've had people saying it incorrectly my entire life. And I had this real conflict where the truth is it wasn't about a time, right? But my entire life, I've been really harsh on myself. I've expected perfection in anything I do. And although the time wasn't a target, I still thought, yeah, you'll probably get this done in about four and a half hours.

In my head, although that wasn't the target, and I tell you what, during the race, during the events, that started coming up for me. Like this judgment, but also what are people thinking? And I thought I'd move beyond that. And so I had this real conflict, Helen, which is so weird, right? Where I was in agony, I was in pain. And then people were saying really lovely things. I kept getting stopped whilst running. And people were saying the most wonderful things. I just wasn't expecting that. People were running and then you said, Dr. Chastity, oh man, I've just been listening to your show. It's completely transformed my life. I got so much love from people in that event. And I guess

because of the last 18, 20 months, you don't really do stuff in public that much anymore. 18, 20 months, you don't really do stuff in public that much anymore. It was so touching. So I was having this kind of external gratitude being showed to me, which was lovely. But at the same time, I'm struggling in pain. I'm also struggling with my inner voice that, man, are you even going to finish this? If it wasn't all on the marathon, I would not have completed that marathon. I will be really clear. I am proud of myself. I think you have taught me how to manage my body.

So I don't know how I got through the last 16 miles because I pretty much walk hobbled. And you know, past 13 miles, I couldn't lift my right foot up. So if I was going past a drink station and there was a bottle on the floor, I had to put my hands onto my leg and lift it up manually. I couldn't lift my right leg up. Oh my goodness.

So I'm proud, but I also don't want to glorify finishing even when you're in pain. There's no disgrace if people stop because they're in pain. And just to be really clear, I'm really passionate about this. If I felt I was damaging my body, I would have stopped. But I thought, no, this just feels like a tension. It's getting worse. I'm going to manage this round. My knee wasn't like crunching with every step. I would not have kept going then. What was this sort of pride that you finished it, but it's going to then cost you your health? No. So I don't feel I've done any long-term damage.

I could say a lot more, but I'll pause there for the moment. So I think that underlying the decision to keep going and not stop, because you somehow knew that it wasn't damaging you because we knew where it had come from. Yeah. We have this innate intelligence inside of us where we can trust our gut rather than people second guess themselves all the time. If we can trust our gut, our gut will be telling us whether or not this is like, whoa, stop, don't go anymore because you are just going to really badly hurt yourself or man this is this is really hard work but I can keep going somewhere you you went you kept going because you could even though it was really painful because your central nervous system wasn't so alarmed that it needed to stop you but you were flaring something that had just um you were challenging an area of tissue in

your body we we knew um that had only just been joined in the party yeah i mean that's i think this is a really good point i wanted to bring up scars at some point i think now's a good time so i'll give you my understanding of this and you can then tell me if I've got this right or not. It looks like now, if I look back on my entire life with all my issues with movement that I have had, whether it's recurrent sprained ankles when I used to play squash as a teenager, whether it's the back pain or the inability to ever run up hills. I remember at uni, I'd run with my flatmates sometimes and we'd get to a hill.

I couldn't do anything. It was just like he flew off and I almost had to walk. What I've learned through you is that actually all of this may come down to the appendix operation I had when I was seven, eight or nine. I can't remember the exact age. Neither can my mum at the moment. I was in India on holiday. And I know the story because it's been sort of, you know, you have stories in families that keep getting told. You know, the story is that we were due to fly home a few days. Dad, they're taking me to see a few doctors. No one was doing anything. I think everyone just wanted to wait and just say,

look, just fly home to the UK, get it sorted there. And my dad took me in somewhere. Dad was a medical doctor. He insisted to the surgeon, take out my son's appendix. It needs to come out. So dad insisted. They took it out. And as word has it, the story goes that it was a really, you know, bent, infected appendix. Okay. Apparently everyone saw it afterwards. But I tell you what I remember, Helen, I remember so clearly. I was in the hospital the next day and I thought I was standing straight, but I wasn't. What I thought was straight, I was bent over. I don't know to my left or to my right and the doctors or the nurses said to me, we can't discharge you until you're standing up straight. This is my memory of the conversation. And I remember, so we could get our flight home, is my memory of the conversation. And I remember, so we could get our flight home, I remember, I was only seven or eight, like blagging it basically and actually tilting myself so that

I was straight in the mirror to say, yeah, I'm straight. Can I go now? But to me, that felt as though I was bent. And why I find that so interesting is because, and this comes down to the marathon and the injury, ever since I met you, this scar, this lower right abdominal appendix scar, you have had your eye on. You've done work on it. My understanding is that I would never go into that area of my body. I would do anything I could, not consciously, my body would do anything it could to avoid compressing that scar. And for all the time we've worked together, we've made so many improvements. It's like peeling off layers of the onion. I'm getting faster. My movement's getting better. We went on this 21 mile run. I'm like, marathon, no problem. Yeah, bring it on. This is great. Barefoot shoes, nasal breathing. Come on, let's go. And literally four or five weeks when we

popped in to see you in the summer, I still remember you were shot. I suddenly found the movements that you'd been trying to help me with that my brain couldn't get for a year and a half. And I know if I had done the marathon at the start of August, I actually think I would have smashed it, no problem. So although it seems, or you could argue, oh, this is a failure, you didn't do it the way you wanted to. If it was all about the marathon, yeah, that was a failure. Or you could make that argument. If it's my movement journey for life, what I discovered with you at the end of August suddenly I can now get into that section of my body it's like well this is great it's just not

brilliant timing because now you know is have I got that right yeah yeah absolutely so the rest of your body was conditioned we'd done a couple of 20 milers. You'd done a 17 miler, a 15 miler. You'd figured out the nutrition, where things were going, you know, when the wheels were coming off. You'd done all the work. And you were doing all of that without that movement. So everything was conditioned around the fact that the body was still resisting and we just have to respect the body uh there's a there's another chinese proverb um by teo um uh sue i don't know how you pronounce it but nature never hurries but everything everything happens in good time. So we can't accelerate time. Time is, we are time. So it's going to take as long as it's going to take. If attention kept being given towards that

area, which was so traumatized, it needed space before the surgery because of the inflammation, it would have needed space after the surgery because of the inflammation. It would have needed space after the surgery because of the inflammation. And if you're in single digits, your juvenile central nervous system, it's in a state of survival. It will maintain that shape, turned away, space, a drop tip, every rotation, three-dimensional movement to provide that area with the space it was asking for. And to invite movement back in isn't just, you can't just tell your central nervous system, no, you can go there now. It's all fine. Because it's got layers and layers of memory and scar tissue. There's a lovely book called The Body Keeps the Score.

Brilliant. I'm hoping to speak called The Body Keeps the Score. Brilliant. I'm hoping to speak to Bessel soon on the podcast. It is. I worked with a mountain biker who his injury list was astronomical, but his body didn't make any sense. The shapes he was making didn't make any sense. And I said, you've forgotten something. And he said, well, I'm a mountain biker. I've had tons of crashes, but those are all the big ones. And I said, no, you're missing something. Something doesn't make sense. And I turned my back to him to make the shape of

the stick man I'd written on the board in the clinic. And the room went silent for the first time in 90 minutes because he was a lovely chatterbox. And I turned around and he was crying. And so I gave him a moment and I said, okay, what did you just remember? And he just remembered that he'd spent a year in a spine cast on crutches between the age of three and four. And he was still making that shape. So the body really does keep the score. We see it time and time again that people are maintaining the shape that preceded even the surgery, which contributes to why maybe somebody has a hip replacement and then has to have another hip replacement, replacing the replacement, because they're still moving in the way that created the need for the hip replacement in the first place. The new hip doesn't make them still shy away from the opposite ankle

sprain that they never went back to but didn't realize. So your deep, deep wound in your belly, if this is the sensory headquarters your gut is that the headquarters for your immune system for your hpa axis that you talk about your gut is so important and somebody's cut a hole in and removed something and but it was a life-saving operation so is it any wonder that that has a significant influence on the shapes that you make from then on. And unless somebody draws your attention to it so that you can drive fluids through it, engage it in movement again, bring it into the party, it's going to come along in its own time. And with us, after all that work, it came when it was the right time for it so the london marathon was just a date

all of these events that we sign up they're just arbitrary dates times we're obsessed with numbers dates our life revolves around a date it's like christmas day well people are planning it for months it's just a day one day so the journey isn for that day. That day had a hiccup in it and it had so much more. You learn so much more about yourself. You now have some kind of internal urge to go further and maybe next time a little bit faster to satisfy yourself because you know you didn't perform to your potential in terms of covering that distance and a certain time but you perform to your potential as a human being who knows that they can keep going and whilst they keep going

saying hello to all these lovely people that were supporting you and and egging you on i mean i posted about it that evening. Like I did get euphoria later that evening. I finished. It took me so long to get to the hotel where I was staying. Well, we were planning to come home with Vid and the kids. I just couldn't face getting on a train. So we booked a hotel.

I hobbled all the way over Green Park. Don't know how long it took me. And once I'd had a shower and stuff and you know I thought I better I better put something on Instagram because I've been talking about the marathon all week people be wondering what happens um but I felt a real sense of pride at that time later on in the evening I you know because it's pretty raw and emotional um you know I don't think i'd trade it for anything it was the as my friend kirsty who posted she said this on my on my you saw the comment which loads of people like she said it's something like you didn't get the race that you wanted you got

the race that you needed yeah and i've been thinking about that so much because that's a metaphor for life right instead of resisting what happens on a daily basis that so much because that's a metaphor for life, right? Instead of resisting what happens on a daily basis, it's like, no, that's just the way it was. That's kind of what we needed at that moment. I learned a lot about myself. I've learned that, you know, for all the improvements I feel I've made in terms of my emotions about, I feel I've made in terms of my emotions about, yeah, I don't care what people think anymore. Yeah, I'm totally okay. You know what? I genuinely don't compare it to the past, but clearly there's an element of me that still does. That's okay because now that's been revealed to me. If I'd gone and smashed it, nails breathing the whole way, as per the plan that we had in four

hours, 15 minutes, let's say, I'm sure that would have been a great experience as well. Would I have learned about that? Probably not. So I feel I put a new stress test on my body. So I feel good about that. I do feel I need to spend a bit more time thinking about it, sort of journaling it maybe a little bit, but I'm not put off running at all. I'm just even more determined now. I'm definitely doing the marathon next year, but definitely. Like, you know, you hear, you talk about stories. What have I heard since then from, even from in my close circle, ah, tall people, you know, tall people, they don't really, they're not really runners, are they? Or, you know, you probably under-trained, didn't you? And, you know,

and the thing is, everyone's saying that with love. Yeah. And I understand it, but I don't buy any of it. No. Because I know, I've, I put my trust in you. We've got this great open relationship and I, in terms of, you know, sharing information with each other, like I sort of open up about my emotions, how I'm feeling, you know, I've probably shared stuff with you that I haven't shared with anyone else, if I'm honest. It is so easy after the event to point fingers at the obvious, your height. Well, you say that to Usain Bolt. There's no logic in it. How tall is Usain Bolt? Well, isn't he six foot five? So he's a tall guy. He's really, really tall. Your body has been your height ever since you stopped growing your your coordination within

your body your use of your limbs doesn't preclude you from anything you know you could be a very bendy six foot seven um i'm sure you've grown a little bit actually you say i i heard you say to who that you were six foot six and a bit and Well, I stand up straighter now. Yeah, and I think, ah. Thanks to you. So I suspect I might have gone into, I don't know when giant territory is, but I think I've hit six, seven, maybe. So you have been complimented

on your fluidity of movement when you're on holiday running. Yeah. So you run, you run so beautifully, so quietly. So my bike fitting teacher, Dan Enfield, was always talking about who can whisper the loudest. So when you go long in anything, you don't want any single movement to be overriding any other because that's a stress on the body. So it's who can whisper the loudest. And you run so, it's like a breeze. And it is frustrating. And we must acknowledge the fact that life didn't go to plan that day. And it's okay to be cross, angry, upset, frustrated, disappointed. That's human. And that, Ralph Emerson, he had a lovely turn of phrase, and I sent it to you, didn't I?

And a good indignation gives you your power. So it's not that you're i'm going to do i'm going to do better next time and it's all coming from a place of slight negativity it is no i couldn't perform to my potential that day yeah because my my scar decided to let me in for the first time and we applaud that we think oh my goodness finally it was a big day for it to happen but you know but you know that reminds me if something was going on in my head during the race at various times um like there was just this you know because of this pressure that I have put on myself my entire life which I really don't feel I do anymore. Maybe I still do, just not to the same degree. It's very hard. It's kind of hard to be your own

mirror all the time. You kind of feel you've got through some stuff and I just think it's constant growth. That's great. And then you find another life situation that goes, ah, okay, well, you're a lot better, but you still got a little bit of work to do, which I actually think, okay, that's great. But since then, people I really look up to, like Rich Roll, I love Rich. I think he's just so great. I think his podcast is great. I think the way he conducts himself, the way he articulates himself is great. And we all know him as an endurance runner, you know, this fit athlete. But Rich has spoken before about, I think, an event where he DNF'd, he did not finish, right? But we kind of ignore those stories and we just see the highlights rather than, hey, anyone who's run long distances for a long period of time, anyone who's lived,

frankly, whether you run or not, has had bad days and has had good days, right? And John McAvoy, he was on the show a couple of weeks ago. And I remember speaking to John before, we were going to talk about the marathon, we didn't get around to it in the end. John was talking about an event where he had to walk, I think, the second half of the marathon. And at the time he said he felt just so embarrassed, but I'd overtrained, I was just done. of the marathon. And at the time he said he felt just so embarrassed, but I'd over-trained. I was just done. All I could do was walk. Whereas we know him as this amazing world record-breaking athlete, but he's had bad races. And he said to me, he said, mate, I don't learn anything from my good races. You learn everything from the bad races. So all of these adventures we go on,

and I like to think of them as adventures because otherwise it's too serious. And this is meant to be fun, right? Otherwise, why are we doing it? Smiles on people's faces is what we really want to see because then that would encourage other people to do it. When I see people running around with really glum, huffy, puffy faces that look as if they're hating every moment, I'm thinking, well, that's not going to get anybody else off the couch and moving. And the party bus, I go back to the party bus, and I'm thinking, I want to be on the party bus with you and all of these amazing people at the back that are just giving it a go, no matter how

hard it takes, how long it takes and how hard it is, they're giving it a go. And the movement life will bring you these adventures of you don't start a DNS. You don't finish a DNF. I've collected all of them. I've got a DQ. I got a disqualification. I was a naughty girl. And it's all part of the journey because it's just life.

It's part of life. Movement is life. As Chris Sridharan, my friend, mentor, tutor, teaches with Gary, he says we are movement animals. And it is so right. So if we are going to move as part of our life, just whatever kind of movement we can, just putting one foot in front of the other, however short that distance is, it doesn't matter.

You're still doing it. Along that journey, there'll be days where it goes well and days where it doesn't go well, just the same as life. It's just, we are time and it is life. Yeah. I love it. I mean, it's not put me off at all it just makes me want to now teach that part of my body oh you've got this movement you've not had it maybe since you were seven years old it's you know i want to continue that process because it ain't about the marathon no and there are people who do so well at something,

they didn't do it again because they know in their heart of hearts that they peaked and they peaked too soon. So for fear of failure, they don't carry on. So when you know that you haven't, when you know that you're still building your potential, then there's every incentive then to keep going. That's why they have to redo the Guinness Book of Records just about every year, because people keep building. Well, somebody else has done that.

I think I can do that too. I think I can do more or faster or better. And so life goes on. We grow. We continue to grow rather than we've done something we did it so well job's done stop you know move on to the next thing it it no thankfully you're not in that space and you want to continue and and you even mentioned even further than a marathon well yeah i'm like even before this marathon the the the London marathon that was, I don't know how long ago, three weeks, two? Three weeks. Three weeks.

Last weekend, yeah. Because we're going to go for my first post-marathon run together shortly. Are you saying this, we're not live on air, obviously. It's not quite the same as Chris Evans' show. No, exactly. But, like, I don't really want to stop at a marathon. I really don't feel it was the distance. I feel that I have learned the skill of running. I'm continuing to learn the skill of walking, of running, of moving more efficiently. of running, of moving more efficiently. And given how I felt after 2021 miles, when I felt no after effects the following day, where I nasal breathed the whole way around, where I wore my barefoot shoes, where I didn't actually train that much. And I think... And you were smiling at the

end. And I was smiling at the end, right? Internally. Yeah, internally, not just externally. Like, you know, Brian McKenzie talks about this as well. I remember a book, Brian's been on the show once, and I'd love to get him on again. He talks a lot about breathing, and he wrote a lot about running in the past, about the skill of running. And he used to talk about junk miles.

And he was trying years ago to teach people, you don't have to just follow rigidly these training plans, which just plod loads and loads of distance and then accumulate junk miles. I want to concentrate on learning the skill. And I feel that's what I've done with you. I've spent a lot of time with this wonky foundation of my body when I came to see you, getting it much more stable and structured, like spending time on the foundations. I didn't have to do that. I could have run with my body the way it was and probably completed the marathon much quicker, more efficiently, but there would have been a ceiling at some point. That isn't helping

me grow and evolve in the way that I want to. I want to get my body moving as efficiently as possible, get that stable base. And then whatever movement I choose to do on it, walking, running, golfing, swimming, everything's going to be better. Whereas if I just look through the narrow lens of it, just being about the London Marathon, how did that go? I think we run the risk of missing a big part of the whole picture. And it's systemic. So as soon as you become more aware of how you do move, how stacked your body is, how effortlessly it moves, breathing improves, digestion improves. It doesn't just stop with the time it takes to do a 5k, a 10k or a marathon.

It becomes a healthful life choice. So you then can do more because your body is able through all of its functions, not just the musculoskeletal element of the function of our body, but our internal anatomy. So it's about getting the fluids flowing so that the arteries don't get all clogged up. That's also partly nutritional, of course. But the point being with movement, with better movement on the outside, you're getting better movement on the inside. So this is health. This is how we stay alive for longer and feel better and live more, right? I breathe better since we started working together. I can meditate better. The word better, I think, probably not the best word to use. I feel that, let's look at it another way. I feel that my work with you, which essentially has been about making me a more efficient human being in all aspects,

it isn't just movement actually, and probably you can't get to that today. But emotionally, I've evolved significantly as I move better. My breathing has become more efficient. I feel my meditation has become, my meditation practice has deepened. So it ain't just one thing. You know, as you say, movement is life. And it's balance. you know as you say movement it's life and and it's balance so for movement to be fluid and elegant um flowing we have to have balance in the body which creates balance in the system

so then people can think more clearly because thought is another movement. And throughout that, the whole element of noticing is there's an action and there's a thought behind the action. And what does that feel like? And you connect it all together. So the movement, which is the action, the thought around it, the feeling and the connection. grounded the feeling and the connection. So your daughter did it just like that yesterday. Your son did it just like that. He didn't want to go back to his right arm. As soon as I showed him that his right arm was causing chaos in his other limbs, and there was a way for him to think about that not happening, he didn't want to go back to how he was because it felt more difficult and it felt smoother when that didn't happen.

So he had an action. He had a thought about it. It had a feeling inside his body. He connected it all together. And now he's noticing. And he can't not know that now. Yeah. You can't unknow what you know.

Once you've felt it, once you've connected the dots, you can ignore it, but you probably won't. And it all, everything connects to everything. So going back to a thread of conversation from earlier with the medical establishment, who are amazing. of conversation from earlier with the medical establishment who are amazing. When we look at the musculoskeletal system, I have a consultant friend who recommends people to me in certain circumstances. This guy is amazing. He makes bionic kids who have cancer of the bones. He cuts the cancer out and gives them titanium sacrums. He is amazing. And in that amazingness, he couldn't figure out how to solve his Achilles problem and his calf problem. And of course, it was nothing to do with his Achilles and his calf. It was to do with, from memory,

I think it was his hip connected to the opposite shoulder. So we organized that, and he just thought that was incredible. And I said, well, why? You are, you make kids bionic. How can that be incredible? And of course, the medical establishment is rewarded through specialization. And it's very difficult to specialize with the body because everything is connected to everything yeah and we're still learning how what you know it's you've got this incredible machine there's only three in the world right it's four now yes one in belgium

yes there's four so nike have one i think you said one in germany you've got one and now this this new one yes it's the most incredible thing i've ever seen um Doris Doris your friend Doris uh and you know very simplistically what does it tell us is it I mean I love looking at the the shots afterwards but what what is it showing us so with no more uh radiation than the light bulb and more accurately than an x-ray Doris can measure the movement in three dimensions of the vertebrae in the spine the pelvis the limbs the angles of the limbs and the pressures through the feet as you move both statically and as you move up to, because she has limitations, even Doris, up to 30 kilometers an hour. Yeah. And do you know what's been so great

is that you said the whole body's connected. I have seen with you on that machine change my wrist position when I walk, the fluidity in my movement. You can see the speed going up. You can see the pressures going up. You can see the pressures in your feet change. Go back and put your wrist the other way. Think, oh, wow. Oh, actually, I think I know how I'm going to have my wrist now when I walk.

Exactly. Because I've just seen the difference and felt the difference. I think, you know, Helen, if you're interested, we could probably do another podcast. Maybe we should take questions from people. Like, could people like this actually get them to send them in? Or actually, because I feel there's very few people like you. And I feel your wisdom is so needed. Before we start wrapping it up today, you mentioned the number one issue for most people, not most people, for many people is, you know, getting your head stacked over your shoulder, over your rib cage, over your pelvis. And your book and videos can obviously help people do that better. I always remember this,

uh, I was asking you about people carrying phones, right? So this is common now. You see people running or walking with phones. Now, sometimes they're holding it in their hand whilst they're walking and running. Yeah. What advice have you got for people? Because you've seen in real time on Doris what happens when people actually do that, haven't you? Yes. Anything asymmetrical, anything on one side of the body.

anything asymmetrical, anything on one side of the body. So one stick, one phone, one water bottle, it will affect your movement patterns because everything is connected. So have two phones or two bottles or two sticks, or better still, put them in a pocket. Use a bum bag. The carrying of the phone dramatically changes the whole way you run. Janem discovered this yesterday. His right arm was doing something and it was different and causing chaos in the rest of the limbs. As soon as it wasn't doing it, there was no chaos. End of chaos. He wasn't carrying a phone, was he? He wasn't carrying a phone. Good to know. it, there was no chaos. End of chaos. He wasn't carrying a phone, was he? He wasn't carrying a phone. Good to know. Yeah, no phones. So there are so many gadgets out there to help us. We want to carry the phone because we want to be accessible. It's a safety measure.

There are all these little apps that tell us how fast we're going and how far we've gone. These are all really useful things, but we don't need to carry it so where so with me you advise you've got these shorts for me you tell me to get these sort of fusion shorts brilliant shorts it's all i wear sort of quite tight on the thighs and then the phone goes if i want to take a phone out with me which don't always it goes in the pocket so it's very tight to your thigh yeah so that is one-sided it's not two-sided but you've measured haven't you that has uh minimal effects so the reason i just want to labor this point a little bit is because i know people are going to be listening okay what should i do then with my phone we're saying that carrying it and holding

in your hand on one side is probably the worst thing you can do? Yes, it's at the end of the extremity. So if we think about levers, that weight there is going to have more effect than if it was here, but I've measured... When you say here... Sorry, on my upper arm. So some people will attach it to their upper arm. So that's better. Attaching it to your upper arm is better than having it in your hands. So that's better. Attaching it to your upper arm is better than having it in your hands. But still, the upper arm isn't as good as the upper thigh, because lots of manufacturers make these trousers, leggings now, with pockets for phones. The upper arm, because the upper arm is swinging, and it's not as dense tissue as your leg. Your thighs are enormous. They're heavy and they're close to the core. The upper arm is also close to core, but we have this attachment to the ground.

So there is less influence of a phone on an upper thigh than there is a phone on an upper arm. The holding it is effectively like, well, run um the the weight the extra weight of the phone on your shoe so run with a clod of mud on the bottom of one shoe just you just extrapolate it and equate it to something else on another limb so it's just the same. It's an extremity. You've got a great big clod of earth on your shoe that weighs the weight of a phone, and it will. You can imagine how it's going to affect. You put a little weight on your ankle, it's going to affect on that side. So this asymmetry at extremities is problematic. So why don't we challenge people then who are listening or watching.

If you do carry your phone when you go for a run or walk, first of all, try now and again to go without your phone, just to see what it feels like, I would say. But if you're going to take it with you for music, podcasts, safety, why don't we ask people to experiment? Like experiment with it on your upper thigh, you know, tight. You don't want it loose and baggy. You want it tight against your upper thigh. And I think it'd be great on the theme of noticing, asking people to see if they can pay attention how does it feel when you go

for a walk let's say it doesn't have to be a run go for a walk or run when you put your phone in a different place because that starts the awareness piece doesn't it yeah so and what happens to the hand that was holding the phone because people start to move when the phone isn't there with their hand away from their body. It imprints, there's a motor program. So the whole time you're doing that, a motor response is traveling from the hand up to the brain, back down to the hand again. Okay, you've got to hold your arm over here. So I have seen runners, they run with one elbow cocked out and it's the elbow with the watch on the wrist because they look at the wrist watch so often that they end up running with their elbow cocked out. So it's not just noticing the change when the weight isn't there and the influence in your

body. It's noticing what did that do? What did that imprint in your body? What do you now notice that arm does or doesn't? And invariably it stays still because it's learned to stay still. Yeah. So we're repeating and replicating inefficient movements. This is not just how it looks. Oh, I look like that when I run with my elbow going out. And actually, no, this is affecting our function, our form, our movements. And we don't realise it. And I think that's a great example. It's not just phones, it's watches. I do want to talk about technology, but I think we'll do that on the next conversation if you're up for another one at some point in the future i'd love to could i just say about that the phone again so if you're holding the phone does that shoulder elevate we're back to the

very beginning of the conversation if that shoulder elevates you are leaning down on one side of your body so that means that one side of your body doesn't have shock absorption and one side of your body. So that means that one side of your body doesn't have shock absorption and one side of your body is being overloaded when you're pushing off on your trail leg. Yeah. It is such a big influencer. It is so easy to get yourself out of that little pickle. You don't need to see me, just find somewhere else to put that weight, you don't need to see me just find somewhere else to put that weight the water bottle and or the phone yeah i think this is really good practical advice for people at the end of the conversation because everyone can try that i mean you if we we're going to go for a run shortly and we will see no doubt people walking and running with their phone in their hands or with their

elbow jutting out, constantly looking at a watch. And this is a really great way to show people, hey, look, you might well be doing this, but there's something you can do. But don't just take your word for it or my word for it. Feel the difference for yourself. That's kind of where the empowerment comes, doesn't it? Yes. And you'll start noticing other people. doesn't it? Yes. And you'll start noticing other people. So as soon as you start to become aware of what's happening in your body and on the outside of your body, you will start to notice it in others. Now, people come back to me, they say, oh, you wouldn't believe what I just saw. It's not about being judgmental. It's about being curious about why are they moving like that? Why do they need to run like a little teapot?

Their pelvis has disappeared over one side. The body has bowed to counterbalance. Why? We're going to start seeing teapots everywhere now when we go out. There's always a reason why, but it's all unravelable. That's the point. That's the empowering thing. Yes.

Things can change. Otherwise, there's nothing to talk about. God, I love that quote. Yeah. There's just so much more I want to talk about, Helen. But I think we've covered a lot today. And I really think the work you're doing is incredible. And I know you've got plans to train running coaches in the future as well with all the learnings you've had from Doris and the machine. You know, what is it? You've got the t-shirt on, haven't you?

The PFM way. Yeah, the PFM way to efficient running. Not my way. PFM, perpetual forward motion, because that's what we do. We just put one foot in front of the other and there's no reason to stop. Every reason to start. Well, Helen, I want to, as I already have, I want to publicly acknowledge what a positive influence you've been on my life for the past year and a half. In fact,

I'd go as far to say the best thing about me signing up to the marathon was meeting you. It's been just wonderful to get to know you, to learn from you. I'm delighted my family get to now wonderful to get to know you, to learn from you. I'm delighted my family get to now, you know, experience and gain from everything that you know. The podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better, we get more out of our lives. When we move better, when we move more efficiently, we get more out of our lives. For people listening, have you got any parting words for them walk before you run it diverts the blood from the non-vital organs the glands producing the hormones and the intestines to the working muscles the boffins

tell us it's probably the most effective way to limit injury risk. So many people shut the door and just start running. The blood you need in the working muscles isn't there yet. If we had enough blood to be around our entire body for any given job at any given time, we'd be a balloon. It's not there yet. Know it. The experts have done lots of experiments. I don't know how they do it. It takes between 7 and 15 minutes to divert the blood. 7 is the minimum. So you can help yourself most easily by just walking briskly to divert the blood. Walk briskly enough that the central nervous system thinks, oh, something exciting is about to happen. I need to get some blood to those

working muscles. I rule of thumb, 10 minutes and then run. And you'll probably find you enjoy it more and you'll have a smile on your face. And then you'll be able to notice stuff because you'll be in a happy place. That's coming on the show, Helen. I have so enjoyed talking to you. There's so much left unsaid. And hopefully we can sort out a second conversation in the near future. I'd love to. Thank you for having me, Rangan. I really hope you enjoyed listening to that conversation with Helen. As I say, I think she's a very special person. And if that conversation sparked some interest in you about how you can start to notice and assess your own body and start moving more efficiently, whether it be for walking, running or anything

else, I really would recommend you check out her website. It is helen-hall.co.uk. I'll put a link in the show notes page on my website, but also in the episode description on your podcast app. And there's some really good blogs there that you can read about. You'll also find her book and you will also find that online video course, which has all the movements that we were talking about. Some of the movements that have really helped me and also her other clients. Do also give Helen a follow on Instagram. It's at Helen Hall PFM. And of course, PFM stands for Perpetual Forward Motion. Before you go, I just want to let you know about Friday Five. It's my weekly newsletter. It contains five short doses of

positivity to get you ready for the weekend. And in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that so many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. It usually contains a practical tip for your health, a book or an article that I've been reading, a quote that has caused me to stop and reflect. Basically anything that I feel would be helpful to share. So if that sounds like something

you would like to receive each Friday, you can sign up for free at drchatterjee.com forward slash Friday Five. And if you did enjoy listening to the podcast and found the content useful, please do take a moment to share it with your friends and family. Please also do consider leaving a review

on whichever podcast platform you listen on. Thank you so much for listening have a wonderful week please do press follow on whichever podcast platform you listen on so you can get notified when my latest conversation comes out and always remember you are the architects of your own health making lifestyle changes always worth it because when you feel better, you live more.