An Experiment in Movement
One of the things I’ve learned over nearly three decades of coaching is that sometimes the best way to move forward is to temporarily stop doing the thing you’re best at.
As coaches, we spend a lot of time asking athletes to trust the process. I think it’s important that we do the same ourselves.
So I decided to run an experiment.
For years, my riding has been the foundation of my training. A typical week often meant 200-300 miles with a fair amount of intensity built in. The bike has always been my strongest discipline and, if I’m honest, it’s also the easiest place for me to go when I want to train hard.
But I’ve also dealt with a longstanding issue involving my right hip and upper hamstring. It’s been persistent enough that I haven’t been able to run consistently, let alone competitively, for a long time. Every time I’d build my running, something would tighten up or flare, and I’d find myself right back where I started.
Rather than continuing to push against the same wall, I wondered…
What if the bike was actually preventing my hips from ever fully recovering?
Cycling is an incredible sport, but spending thousands of miles each year in a flexed position can create stiffness through the hips, hip flexors, and lower back. That isn’t necessarily a problem if you’re only riding. But when you’re trying to run well, those restrictions matter.
So I did something that, for me, felt almost backwards.
I cut my cycling down to the absolute minimum needed to maintain fitness.
Instead of riding five or six days a week, I’m riding just twice a week. Easy rides. About 40-45 miles each. No hard intervals. No chasing numbers. Just enough to maintain my aerobic engine.
The focus shifted somewhere entirely different. The gym. Not heavy lifting. Movement first. My priority has been restoring the movement quality that years of riding slowly took away.
Every squat has become a practice in positioning rather than loading. I’m concentrating on keeping my chest tall while drawing my tailbone down between my heels, allowing my hips and lower back to move through a full, natural range of motion again. Only once that movement feels right do I add strength.
At the same time, I’ve slowly rebuilt my running. Three easy runs each week became four. One additional day is simply walking. No intensity. No pace goals.Just teaching my body to tolerate running again while moving well.
And…….For the first time in a very long time, my hip continues to move in the right direction. Running is becoming more consistent instead of feeling like a constant battle against irritation and setbacks.
It’s still early, but this experiment is giving me exactly what I hoped it would. Sometimes it’s about creating space for the body to regain what it has lost.
Strength built on poor movement simply reinforces dysfunction. But restore the movement first, then layer strength on top of it, and the body often starts solving problems that have lingered for years.
The next phase of this experiment will be equally interesting.
Once my movement quality is where I want it, my strength has progressed, and I’m comfortably running four days a week—including one slightly longer run—I plan to slowly reintroduce more cycling.
Not all at once. Just enough to see how much riding I can tolerate while maintaining the mobility and running progress I’ve gained.
One of the things I enjoy most about coaching is experimenting on myself first. It gives me confidence when I ask an athlete to try something unconventional because I’ve experienced the process firsthand. I’ve felt the uncertainty. I’ve made the mistakes. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t.
Not every experiment succeeds. But every experiment teaches you something. And if this one continues to work, it may become another tool I can use to help athletes who feel stuck with the same pattern of chronic tightness, recurring injuries, and frustration. Sometimes it’s having the courage to do less of what you’re good at so you can rebuild what you’ve been missing all along.