“Coach, I ran my 5k over this past weekend, and I got my fastest time that I have gotten in over a year. And not only did I get my fastest time, my heel was not nearly in as much pain afterwards as it had been before. Wow. I am a believer”
A great thing to hear as a coach.
But lets rewind to one week prior…
One evening Coach Josh, brother of Blaze Fit owner Jonathan Walker, taps me on the shoulder as I am finishing up a great session with a few of my athlete.
Walking bashfully behind him, exhausted from her workout is one of his fitness clients Laura.
Well in to her 50’s, Laura is an avid gym goer and even more serious runner, eating 5k’s like birthday cake, literally travelling all across the world to run them.
“Armond, I was telling Laura here about your RPR, and she was curious and wanted to know if it could help with her plantar fasciitis”
“It definitely could not hurt” I said. “What do you have going on?”
Laura goes on to tell me that her plantar fasciitis has been flaring up pretty bad in her foot over the past few weeks, and she has not been able to run or work out as thoroughly as she could be.
She informs me that she has been going to the doctor and therapist for the past couple of weeks and it has slowly gotten better, but in a slight desperation, was open to trying anything that could possibly help.
Of course, I let her know as great as RPR is, it is no substitute for a doctor or therapist’s advice, and whatever they tell her, to do it.
However, I also knew (after having great relationships and dialogues with some of the best therapists and doctors in the nation), that plantar fasciitis is often the result of some other disfunction going on in the body.
Hence, I ask a little bit more about her lifestyle.
Does she sit down often?
How far does she usually run in a week?
Any low back or hip issues?
Knee?
Tight calves?
After a brief discussion on the training floor, I discover yes that she does run quite a bit, and the gait common in distance runner cause a lot of pounding on the heel, which overtime the impact can cause issues.
I told her if I had to guess, that she most likely have a “tight” calf and that most likely is a significant chunk of the problem.
Fast forward to the next day after her next training session at Blaze Gym, she finds me and lets me know that her therapist said that she had an extremely tight left calf muscle, and it needs to be loosened up.
Eureka!
I let her know that I would send her my RPR schedule and that I would show her how to perform resets for her, and get some of her muscles turned on.
Excitedly, she agrees and books a session a few days later.
The Session:
For the initial RPR session, I tested the responsiveness and range of motion of pretty much all of her major joints and discovered a few areas that either lacked range of motion, or where the muscles were completely turned off and not even working.
Hip Flexors
Left Glute
Calf (Obviously)
Trunk Rotators
Despite these 4 areas showing some notable disfunction, I taught her the entire reset drill protocol.
We tested.
We reset.
We re-tested.
Immediately she felt and saw improvement that she had not been able to achieve in months.
Like everyone else who goes through a full RPR session, she was amazed and at a loss for words.
By simply finding her reset points and stimulating the muscle through simple touches, her muscles started to work. Not to their fullest potential just yet, but a significant difference in her range of motion and reflexive strength. Instantly.
After our session, I instructed her to try the resets points before her workouts, and before her runs. Which she did.
The following week, as I am prepping the floor for my next gang of athletes, Laura comes behind me, taps my shoulder, and when I turn around she is grinning like an excited kid from ear to ear.
“Coach, I ran my 5k over this past weekend, and I got my fastest time that I have gotten in over a year. And not only did I get my fastest time, my heel was not nearly in as much pain afterwards as it had been before. Wow. I am a believer”
Then a grin birthed from satisfaction swiftly ran across my face. These were her exact words.
*******
So what is RPR?
It’s definitely not magic, but certainly works like magic.
RPR is a different approach to optimal movement. Beyond the muscle. Beyond myofascial. Beyond the joints themselves.
It is a nervous system approach that provides the electricity for the machine.
In Laura’s case, did she have a tight calf? Yea.
Did she most likely have other causes that contributed to her condition? Yea.
However, what we should be aware of is that when muscles are not properly “woke”, other ones tend to pick up the slack. And in these cases, compensatory patterns happen, creating the perfect conditions for soft tissue injuries like plantar fasciitis.
Restoring function to these areas immediately restored function for Laura, and perhaps helped fix those energy leaks she had in her kinetic chain.
It’s simple. And it’s a quickly developing science.
And as Reflexive Performance Reset continues to create believers, those who may have been struggling with naggin injuries in the past, may have found a viable solution to supplement the recovery protocol. Just like Laura!
RPR.