 Oh yeah, oh, that was a good one. Okay, wet, rainy, cold out today, 15 miles. I'll get you, so this was another no-watch run. Just, it's actually getting harder in the winter as you layer up to see what pace you're running. Just going by feel and yes, foot and ankle strength discussion happening today. Staying healthy as runners, trying to make sure through high volume, which is happening right now. I cannot wait to talk to all of you about what's happening with my body and my legs because I'm not seeking out vertical gain right now. It's really wild because I've been running the mountains for four years now and I haven't been up there in a long time. So anyway, we'll talk about that foot and ankle strength and it looks like, it looks like some packages arrived. I hope there's some shoes in here. We got to restock after last night's running shoe giveaway, so here we go. All right, here we go. There it is, the stability disc that I own from Power Systems. All right, now there's a lot of different companies out there that make stability discs. That's the one I use and I love it for strengthening my feet and my ankles. And somebody commented on the D'Amore Global Running Facebook group a couple days ago, she basically put out the question, is running one of the most injury-prone sports out there? And it just got me thinking like, why, she might be onto something because running the injuries are nuanced compared to football, compared to hockey, where there's pucks flying around and you're getting checked and it's, those injuries are a little more traumatic, whereas running injuries, they can be very, very subtle at times, but still very painful and can develop into very serious injuries if they are not paid attention to. And that is where the stability disc comes into play for feet and ankle strength. So that's what we're talking about today, but first of all, real quick, if you're watching this vlog, when it publishes, just gotta make a mention real quick, where is it? You know what, oh, there it is, here we go. So you've got three hours, 8 a.m. mountain time, if you wanna enter your name into the Nike Next Percent giveaways. Remember, today I announced the winner live here on the YouTube channel at 4 p.m. mountain time. Right here in the studio, I'm giving away two pairs of Nike Next Percent, remember the experiment, the science experiment there. So go to the vlog upper right-hand corner to learn how to enter your name into the giveaway. All right, there we go, and yes, today's run. So for staying healthy, I'm training for a marathon, the Houston Marathon, January 19th, 2020. And the training block is about eight weeks, so a little shorter than usual because of previous races. And my volume is rising, pretty high. And I'm excited about it. And so far, so good with respect to how the body is feeling, but I wanna make sure I stay healthy. So today's run was 15 miles, 655 a mile, and there it is on your screen in kilometers. And I ran in the Hoka, I forgot to bring him out, but in the Hoka EVO Speed Goats, really enjoying that shoe for these higher miles. Now for me, running injuries. I was just trying to remember all the injuries. I've actually made a vlog. Oh man, I'll try to remember to link to it. I listed every single injury that I've ever had that's related to running. I think I came up with around 22 or 23 injuries in my life, whether it's stress fractures, whether it's rolled ankles really bad, whether it's plantar fasciitis, whatever the case may be. But I think I'd have to go back and look at the vlog, but I think 85% of my injuries are below my ankles, okay? So like my knees, my hamstrings, my quads, those are all my hips, they're usually pretty good. It's my below my ankles where I really have to pay attention. And that is where this guy comes into play. So the first strength and mobility that I do with the stability disc is actually not really strength related, it's stretching. I, when I bought this, I had no idea how effective it would be at stretching my quads, sorry, my calf, my soleus, and you see it on your screen there, my calf, my soleus, and all those little muscles right around my Achilles tendon going right down into the fascia, right to the bottom of the foot. Amazing, just stepping on it and then placing my weight, so pressing down in my heel, and there's something about it, but it's just, I can go just like a little deeper into the stretch on this stability disc. I'm loving it. I had never done that before. I owned a disc in the gym when I was using a stability disc in the gym. I just had never thought to do that. So that is exercise number one, it's actually stretching. And here we go, exercise number two, are you ready? This is actually the most difficult one. It's, yeah, yeah, I would say it's the most difficult one. So it's called the blind eye balance. So you put one foot up on the disc and I would get away from the wall, but make sure you feel comfortable catching yourself, but get away from the wall and then you put one foot on the disc, raise your other knee up in the air, put your arms out to help you balance, and then close your eyes, there you go. So as soon as you close your eyes, it becomes really difficult to balance on this disc. And I try to hold it for about 20 seconds. Usually I don't even make it to 20 seconds. It just gets really, really difficult because your orientation is off, but the benefit of closing your eyes is that it really causes you to focus on your foot strike. And so as runners, we're always paying attention to our foot strike on the ground. So really focus, you really have to focus on what is your foot doing on the stability, on the stability disc and all the muscles, all the tendons, all the ligaments are being fired and activated by closing your eyes on the disc. It is so hard and so I do 20 seconds on both ankles three times. Now you might have to work up to that and don't worry, maybe you only can stand on it for three seconds, you will get better. So that is exercise number two, the blind eye's balance. And exercise number three, here we go, ankle rotation. So move the disc toward a wall so you can hold onto the wall, put one foot on, let's call it your right foot right on top of the disc and you're gonna go counterclockwise and clockwise 10 times two sets. So counterclockwise, 10 times rotations, making a full rotation of your ankle 10 times and then once that's done, you go the other direction clockwise. And then I alternate to the other ankle, so the left ankle and do that 10 times each direction and then do that twice. So that is called ankle rotations and yes, you are holding onto a wall when you do that one. All right, moving on to exercise number four, for strengthening your feet and ankles. And my grandmother always says, our feet are the foundations of our body. It's crazy, but like you think of how important a foundation is for a building. If you mess up the foundation, a house, an office building, you're done. That building is not gonna stand very long. So same with our feet. We gotta take care of our feet and our ankles, but and our feet especially, like that is the bottom of the foundation. So anyway, I always like that saying from my grandmother, shout out to you, Grammy, I love you, okay. Exercise number four, the perpendicular single leg lift. Okay, so once again, one foot right on top of the disc and then you're not holding onto the wall and this is also working on your hip mobility and groin area. So you're basically gonna lift your leg perpendicular up to the left. All right, you see it there, lift your leg up perpendicular. Slower is better. And I also should mention that the ankle rotations should be slow as well. So slower is better, 10 times, three sets, both sides, okay. So you're gonna lift both legs a total of 60 times. So you might have to work into it. Don't worry, if you can't do 60, ease into it. Do one set and then maybe in two weeks add another set and two more weeks add another set and you will be amazed at how much you're actually working your hips and your ankle. It's amazing. So that is the perpendicular single leg lift. Okay, last but not least, we're almost there. I could go on and on. There's a lot of different exercises you could do with this stability disc, but I don't wanna overwhelm you tonight. So we're gonna keep it to five. Okay, last one is called the moon landing jump. Quick story, my lifting coach in college at the University of Colorado, he was actually hired by the former San Diego Chargers, now the LA Chargers, the football team in the NFL. He was hired to be their head strength coach. This is about 10 years ago. So I don't know if he's still there, but he taught me this ankle and foot strengthening exercise. I love it, but I do wanna caution you. It's a little advanced and you gotta be careful doing it. And just, again, you might have to ease into it. Maybe it's two or three weeks down the road after you've been doing the previous four exercises for two to three weeks. Okay, so what you're gonna do, put the disc on the ground right in front of you. You're gonna step back about two feet, not too far, about two feet, and you can go back a little further the more confident you are. And if you're doing it on carpet, it may not be a bad idea in case you go down, but let's not go down. So what you're gonna do is you're going to jump forward onto the disc landing on one foot, preferably right in the middle of the disc. And then I like to go right into the runner's pose or the runner's form, okay? So you're gonna land on the disc and then right into that running form. So practicing the running form. And then I like to even go up onto my toes just a little bit so the foot that is on top of the disc go up on your toes just to mimic that gate cycle and foot strike and then push off to your next foot landing in front of you as if you were running, okay? So then land on it and then you can jump backward, get off, get reoriented and then jump onto your other foot, okay? And again, this is a little more advanced because you have to land on that disc and it's really, really beneficial for trail running. I have found just to again get used to basically anticipating rocks in the trail when you're out there trail running. But it's also good for road running because you are practicing pushing off when you're going fast in a road marathon. Like you need that turnover, you need that quick cadence to keep that pace up. And so I think this exercise is actually really great just to work on that ankle reacting to, okay, here's an awkward thing. Now I'm gonna push through it and just get through that gate cycle as fast as possible. So there you go, everyone. That is the moon landing jump, the final foot and ankle strength exercise for this evening. Here's the deal. I'm gonna call an audible. I was gonna go inside and open the boxes, but I can tell this vlog is gonna be plenty for this evening. So we're gonna open the boxes in another vlog later, hopefully later today. We will see if we can get that done for all of you. I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions down in the comments and again, the stability disc is available down below in the description in case you need to pick one up or just ask your gym to go out and buy one. So everybody can use it. That would be awesome as well because I think it's a really beneficial tool for runners and really everyone out there that wants to be, like basketball players, soccer players, but everyone out there that wants to have stronger ankles. Okay, there we go. We're gonna toss it back to the foam rolling vlog on the right and then a strengthening exercise vlog on the left from the gym about six months ago. Thanks for being here, thanks for watching. As always, seek beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.