Hi Mr. Myers. Thank you very much for your very informative and useful instruction. In your video on how the fascia moves, you mentioned that you were building bounce in your body by doing a forefoot run and not allowing your heels to touch the ground as you run. I know this exercise would cause me more damage than positive effects. I’ve never been built for running. I already have some ankle issues, plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendon issues can flare up. I do practice some tai chi/qigong, there is a pretty commonly known exercise known as shaking the whole body up and down. Do you think I could adapt this exercise to build bounce in the body by shaking up and down on the ball of the foot, and not allowing the heel to touch the ground. I am slightly concerned that this might actually aggravate the achilles tendon. However, like all things if I do it slowly and build up to see its effects I figured it might be worth a try. In any case, I wanted to get your thoughts on this, to see if it could mimic the effect that you get from running. Thanks for your time!
Without examining you, Stephen, to check to tone of your tissues, I am reluctant to give any advice.
Skipping rope, or any kind of bouncing will do. I bounce on my hands and back sometimes, too, but mostly on my feet.
I was built for it, and it sounds like you’re not, but most can get there in a few weeks with a slow build.
I am not familiar with the Taoist shaking exercise you mention, so I don’t know whether it builds resilience in that way.
But in general, most gentle martial arts exercises are great for your body, but not, to my knowledge, elastically active.
If you are accepting weight into your body and bouncing back up again,
And you vary the vectors so it’s not all the same.
And you keep it very regular through these weeks of adaptation,I was certainly happy with the results.
Best wishes
Tom
Thanks for your response! But now I’m curious could you do a video on how you do bouncing off your back and hands? Thank you.