I just got an email from the organizers of the Fresh Air Fund Half Marathon in NYC.  It’s a bit far away from Toronto, but it sounds like a great cause.  If any of you can help them out, they would really appreciate it.

“Would you like to run this year’s New York City Half-Marathon on August 16th while also helping Fresh Air Fund children? Join our Fresh Air Fund-Racers team today! If you would like to register, please visit http://freshair.kintera.org or just click here!  If you have additional questions or are interested in becoming a sponsor, please contact Kate at runners@freshair.org or call (800) 367-0003 ext. 8890.”

Last summer’s NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE was a huge success for The Fresh Air Fund, and we couldn’t have done it without all of our Fund-Racers! Thank you to the dedicated runners who participated through our team and to everyone who came out to support us! We raised more than $125,000 which will go directly to our free programs for NYC children.

We expect pain and discomfort in just about every muscle from the waist down when it comes to jogging, but why would we get a pain in the shoulder?

First of all many of us have some sort of postural imbalance where the shoulders aren’t lined up well.  Also, there is muscle tension and stress that we keep in our neck and shoulders.  This means that there might be decreased flexibility, mobility, health and strength leading to early muscle fatigue, pain and cramping.  Treating the stress in the neck and shoulders with massage or acupuncture can free them up so that they perform better when jogging.

Another approach is to look at how we jog.  Many jog in a way that increases shoulder tension.  A quick check is to look at your hands.  Are they loose or clenched in a fist?  They should be loose.  If they are clenched in a fist, then we are likely activating and clenching every muscle from our fingertips, arms and shoulders up to our neck when jogging.  This constant tension leads to early muscle fatigue and pain.  A simple remedy is to keep our hands, arms and shoulders loose as we jog.  It can be hard to be constantly thinking of our arms while jogging, so try this simple technique: touch your thumb to your middle finger lightly and keep it there the whole time that you are jogging.  In this position it is really difficult to have any real tension in our arms and shoulders.  The shoulders will stay loose and the pain will go away.

Stay loose.

Ken Shim, RMT