I know there are many friends and colleagues who are going to be pissed off at what I am going to write here but really... long distance running isn't really great for the longevity of a body. But let's clarify what long-distance running is.

Ultramarathon runners can train as much as they want but during these excessive bouts of very long distance running the amount of breakdown in the body is catastrophic. When I was in Germany last year there was a team of researchers who followed the ultramarathon runners who basically ran from Ireland to I don't even remember where but it was literally a 4500-kilometer (that's like 2700+ miles) over 2 months. The runners lost 50% of their total body fat, 7% of thier lean muscle mass and many had massive stress fractures in their lower legs and feet. One guy even fractured his pelvis but he kept on going...

In the 1970's  a well known doctor, Tom Bassler said marathon runners were "immune" from coronary heart disease. However in more recent years, the University of Colorado, Denver did a study showing that long-time marathon runners have MORE coronary calcifications than age-matched non-marathon runners. So marathon running might actually promote heart disease by increasing... you guess it, inflammation, free radical damage, and mechanical stress.

So what to do? Do all of my awesome runner friends just hang up those Newtons? Nope. JUST MELT!!! If we can aid in decreasing inflammation in the connective tissue, the potential to also help decrease blood inflammation is possible. Besides, if they did MELTing (even just a soft ball treatment on their feet) before they ran and then spent 20 minutes MELTing post long distance running I am telling you, it would reduce a great deal of the damage in the many layers of connective tissue that invest the bones and muscles - specifically of the lower leg!

Who's up for doing a MELT for Marathon Runners this spring? I'm ready to see if we can get our MELT instructors out there to help the running community GET OUT OF PAIN and live better longer!