In both 2013 & 2014, I logged well over 500 miles running. This included 2 Boston Marathons, a few dozen half-marathons, several 10ks and 5ks, trail races, mud runs, obstacle course races and other challenges. Running was my escape, my stress management, the one thing I could fully, personally dedicate to outside of my job, relationships and day-to-day responsibilities. I loved race weekends and the running community. I loved waking up at sunrise to log miles, running through the city after dark to close out a long day and practicing the dedication to fuel myself properly. I would even sign-up for a race in whatever city I was traveling to for work, just so I could show up a few days early and stick to my healthy habits. I explored the country through running.

Now, it's August 2015. 
Since January, I've logged fewer than 100 miles and have only participated in a single trail race with a group of friends. For the past 8 months or so, I decided to break up with running. Not because of a serious injury or because I fell out of love with it. I still love the freedom of running and yearn to get back into the racing circuit. I stopped running because I found that the sames aches, pains, minor injuries and imbalances were persisting. My body wasn't moving efficiently and my running simply perpetuated all the issues.

If anyone knows me, they know I always have to figure things out for myself. This serves my clients well, because I've had to find my way through many injuries and conditions, which provides direct experience to help them through their challenges. It doesn't always serve me in the best way possible, but in the long run....it all works out.

Now that you know how I operate, I'll summarize that I didn't take the best approaches in managing widespread pain and injuries from a few accidents, surgeries and other conditions. Instead, I pushed through pain and poor movement patterns and decided to dive into distance running. **I don't recommend this approach for anyone, ever.**

As you can imagine, with back to back years of 500+ miles logged, issues really didn't get better. They shape-shifted or caused a chain reaction of other problems. Nothing too debilitating, but plenty that was uncomfortable and didn't serve me well in daily functioning or overall athletic performance. So, I quit running.

I decided to step away from running until I found a way for my body to move as functionally and efficiently as possible; until my excessive, everyday aches and pains diminished; until I established a better baseline of total body strength (not just runner strength), and my running form was based on purposeful, precise movements...rather than compensation patterns.

It has taken over 6 months of diligent training to arrive at a point where I can slowly re-introduce running alongside my continued functional movement and strength training. I headed out for my first 5k run in several months and my pace was over 60 seconds faster than where I left off at the end of last year. Running feels like an entirely different sport now that I can maintain proper form, utilize core stability and total body strength, and not adapt my movements in an effort to mask lingering pains.

How did I get to a point where it made sense to start running again? I used a variety of methods, but really tried to keep it as simple as possible.

-Daily soft-tissue release, mobility work and activation exercises
-Targeted strength and stability work for areas that needed it most 
-Working with other coaches for assessments and additional perspectives
-Total body strength development with a focus on the 7 Primal Movements
-Low impact cardio cross-training
-Getting back into a regular yoga practice

As runners and athletes, we train our minds to push through pain and just keep going...one more step, one more mile, just keep going no matter what. If you can maintain your form without compensating or adapting your movements in those final steps or sprints, then it's all good. You are improving your overall endurance. BUT if you are feeling pain, leaning forward, putting more weight on one side of your body than the other, chopping the air instead of swinging your shoulders, hardcore heel-striking, or doing some other funky thing when your body is fatigued....it might be a better idea to peel it back a little bit. At this point, you aren't serving yourself well---instead of increasing your endurance, you are conditioning your body to rely on these inefficient movement patterns.

I'm happy to share that, with diligence and the proper approaches, you can stop feeling riddled with pain and/or injuries and you can become a much stronger, faster runner. 

If anything, just take a moment to pause and ask yourself....what purpose is my running serving? Is it making me better? Am I taking the best approach possible?

If you're not sure, I'd love to connect and see how we can help you find your "zen" with running.

Keep it functional, people.

-Cassie Taylor

Contact:
www.olliwithcassie.com
[email protected]

About 4 years ago, I was trapped in a dysfunctional body and dragged myself through every single day with relentless pain. Car accidents, bike accidents, illness and surgeries piled on one another and I hadn't taken the proper steps for recovery. Forget squatting, I could barely stand up straight and move about the world. I pushed ahead and created additional compensations, imbalances and injuries as I attempted to accommodate existing conditions. Long story short, I knew enough was enough and there had to be a way I could get back to life without pain. I made a new year resolution to achieve a deep squat (at a point when I couldn't sit into a chair appropriately) and for 6 months, I focused on simple bodyweight exercises. This included holding a deep squat for a total of 10 minutes each day. It was brutal at first. I had to hold onto a doorway or sit on a stack of books, just to kind of, sort of get into a deep squat. 

Consistency equals results.

By the end of 6 months, I had achieved the primal squat position with no support needed and was ready to return to strength training with squats. Not only did I find it rewarding to be able to move into the squat position, but my digestion improved, breathing techniques were enhanced, the stuck stress in my diaphragm released, my low back pain was gone and so much more.

So, why am I a stickler for squats? Because they are truly the foundation of everything when it comes to moving well, feeling well, and staying healthy...and I want to pass it on so we can all get back to moving how our bodies are intended to move!


Keep dropping it low.

-Coach Cassie Taylor

When you were younger, or maybe even now, did you wait for something to just "click?" I remember thinking, "Someday, it will just click and I'll be a grown-up. I'll wake up early all the time, I'll dress in professional clothes and look put together, I'll have money saved up..."
Then none of those things really happened. That automatic "click" just kept moving further away from wherever I was. Here's the issue: we can't keep doing the same things we are doing and expect it all to click for us. We have to MAKE it click.

You want to wake up early and feel good about it? Then go to bed early and don't hit snooze in the morning.

You'd like to be taken seriously as a young professional? Then start acting like one and take yourself seriously.

We all want to have money to do things. So, work hard and save some money.

It seems so very simple. Action precedes results. No problem.

So, why did it take me (and likely many of us) years to get up at 5:00am and NOT hit snooze or need 3 cups of coffee to start the day?

One word: DISCIPLINE.

We can't say we don't know what to do. We know if you want to get up earlier, we have to set our alarms and wake up. If you want to run faster, you have to start running...fast. We just figured that out, right?

It's not that we don't know. It's that we don't DO.

You know what to do, so do it. Not just for a day or a week--have the discipline to do it until you achieve the results you want. Then, KEEP doing it to maintain your success and set new goals.

So, what is it that you want? And how are you going to get there? 
Put in work to make it all "click" and it will all go "boom" for you.

Stick with what you know and you'll always be able to have what you want.

With a little tough love this week,

-Cassie

#OneLifeLiveInfinitely

It's so easy to get overwhelmed about how far we are from our desired destination. We can think about everything that stands between where we are now and where we want to be. We can stress out about never having enough time, not having the money to pursue what we want to, or whatever barriers may be holding us hostage from achieving what we wish to have. It's easy to do all this...it's normal, it's routine and it's what everyone else seems to be doing.

I'm going to make a crazy suggestion here: Don't take the easy way.

Know your ultimate vision, but focus less on the end destination. Instead, challenge yourself to keep your focus in the present. Do things that align with your values and goals every day. As a coach of mine calls them, "Daily Action Steps."

Commit to the little things. Wake up tomorrow and dedicate yourself to doing at least one thing that moves you in the direction you'd like to go. If you make the effort to complete your daily action steps, the compounded effect will soon align you with the long term goals you'd like to achieve.

It's really that simple. Endurance & discipline are difficult practices to master, though they are the two "frenemies" which will determine if you reach that ultimate destination, or if it begins to float further away.

Get started on your Daily Action Steps by taking a few minutes this week--whether on your lunch break, your commute, during a workout or over your morning coffee--to really think what that ultimate destination looks like and why it's important to you.

Then, get moving. Choose one Action Step that you WILL commit to. Go to sleep with the intention to complete the action step the following day; wake up by telling yourself you WILL fulfill your daily dues. Then do it.

Take note of how this simple, daily commitment to a single task begins to shape the direction of your lifestyle.

Oh, and be kind to yourself! Everything is a process. Commit to this practice, but know the outside world is going to do everything it can to derail your commitment. Stay disciplined and forgive yourself if you have the occasional detour---but never let these detours become a pattern.

So what do you commit to this evening that you will carry out as a Daily Action Step tomorrow?

-Will you wake up a half hour earlier for a quick yoga flow before work?
-Will you commit to squeezing that lunchtime run in?
-Will you take the extra few minutes to cook yourself dinner instead of defaulting to your usual take-out?
-Will you pick up that book you've been meaning to read and knock out a few chapters?
-Will you connect with an old friend to catch up?

You have a choice and you are in control of the outcomes. Know your vision & stick to your Daily Action Steps.

I promise you'll find yourself moving in the right direction.

-Cassie Taylor
#OneLifeLiveInfinitely
#OLLI

Each one of us has a unique energy signature, or vibe, that we carry with us…infect other people with…and often times define our lives by. People can get a feel for who we are, simply by being near us. In fact, other people pick up on our energy signatures without us realizing it’s happening. Often times, we don’t even know what our “signature” is—we tend to be totally out of touch with our “vibe.” This vibe is deeply intertwined with who we are, what we do, how we think about things, and how we engage with the world.

If we are not actively working to be in touch with this defining force, we are very actively doing the opposite: becoming out of touch with all that defines us and creates our world.

Recently, I’ve had a number of interactions with people who are very evidently taking a passive approach to defining their vibe. They are so consumed by the overwhelming, rapidly transpiring, continuously fleeting, incidences of their every day lives that they are really just along for the ride. They are on a hyper-speed train being controlled by outside forces. Being on this train draws people so deeply into their micro-universe that they become engrossed in whatever is the easiest pattern to follow.

Most often, the pattern looks something like this:

• We become easily influenced by the things and people around us. Whatever the given of the situation is, we take it on as an attribute and let it control how we operate. Negativity & doubt are especially contagious.
• We misinterpret the magnitude of our “problems.”
• We fly in auto-pilot mode, simply trying to get through the day and go through the motions of our lives.
• We exude the stress, the negativity, and the elements of disconnect that result from tumble-weeding through each day without a connection to ourselves.
  

Being disconnected from our energy signatures, and falling into the above-described pattern sets us into a perpetual cycle. Not taking the time to understand and own our vibe, leads to losing sight of what’s important to us, what’s important in the grand scheme of things, and it encourages lack of forward, positive movement in our lives. Something abrupt has to happen to halt the cycle and give us a wake up call.

Unfortunately, many of us stay within the cycle until a major life event forces us to stop and take a step back. Disastrous situations do not allow us to avoid re-evaluating our perspective, our issues, or ourselves. Paths of self-discovery are triggered when our rapidly moving, every day lives are disrupted by something earth-shattering.

Learning to own and define our vibe without the need of the token catastrophic wake-up call will help to exude & attract positive energy. There is an easier way to get in tune with our energy signature and become adept in using it to create the life, the relationships, and the environment we exist in.

The first step (and the most painful) is getting out of our micro-universe. We can’t rely on something epic to just present its self and shift our lives in a different direction. We need to become capable of creating that force on our own, in a positive way. It’s important for us to separate ourselves from the hyper-speed train, refrain from becoming absorbed in fleeting everyday incidents, and start connecting with the universe at large.

If we can control the energy signature we are putting in to the world, it will directly translate to what we do, how we do it, who we spend our time with, how we engage with others, and what we are capable of achieving.

To embark on this journey of self-discovery, keep this list in mind every single day:

1.     Slow down; the world is already moving fast enough around us

2.     Be mindful; get in tune and totally lost in the present

3.     Understand and recognize what real problems are; check yourself if you’re sweating the small stuff

4.     Get outside of your own world; connect with people, explore new places

5.     Recognize the vibe you’re carrying and how it influences those around you

6.     Create your positive environment; people, places, atmospheres, and attitude

7.     Make a positive impact everyday; even the smallest deeds help define us

8.     Remember that what we create, we also attract

9.     Live beyond the edge of your comfort zone

10. Create a vision for yourself; clarify & define it frequently

As always, take care of yourself by establishing healthy lifestyle habits, positive self-talk and embracing the “OLLI” Philosophy. Once we understand our powerful defining force, we are limitless in what we can achieve. One Life, Live Infinitely.


-Cassie Taylor

Founder, OLLI Fitness

The Power of a Positive Environment

Creating the life you want seems to be a simple process:

Step 1: Discover yourself

Step 2: Discover your passion

Step 3: Hustle your face off to make it all happen

Easy enough, right? The journey of fulfilling these steps and upholding the principles, however, is a constant daily battle between doing what is right and doing what is easy.

The easy way out will always be there….tempting your determination…challenging your will-power…begging for you to take a detour from your hard-fought path towards success.

So the question lies not in what to do to embark on your journey, but rather how to stay on your journey with the same tenacity and clear vision you set out with.

You will face many challenges and temptations along the way.

You will fall into a slump and feel defeated.

You will feel frustration, confusion, and impatience.

The key to fighting your way through the obstacles is accepting these things as temporary circumstances and refusing to let them become permanent realities.

The difference between status quo and success is the ability to face adversity, and fight all the way through it. Your success rests in the amount of resilience, tenacity and passion you have to overcome the obstacles you run into.

Regardless of your goals in life, this is true…

Whether you are studying to complete your degree, with the ultimate goal of landing your dream career…or training to complete your first marathon…or starting your own business. Those who make it, those who land on success have made it there by waking up each and every day, ready to fight their way through anything that dares to stand between them and their vision.

So, when you find yourself in a negative mind-set or you’re feeling exhausted, in need of motivation, you absolutely have to recognize and own the state you’re in. Then, you need to get out of it and get back on track with consistently engaging in activities that will move you forward, rather than hold you back.

One of the most important ways to minimize how often you fall into these frustrating situations, and decrease the depth of your fall, is to create an electrically positive environment to exist in. This infiltrates multiple areas of your life and must be implemented in a holistic way. You cannot create positive, forward-moving progress by only looking at one segment of you (as a person) or your world.

Here is a list of some of the major areas to start really looking at:

1.          Own who you are, where you’ve been and what you’ve experienced. You need to brave the pain of facing yourself, facing your past, and getting comfortable with every element of what makes you, you.

2.         Own your space. Whether it’s your apartment, your office, your car, your dorm-room…create an environment that fuels your positive energy. Take pride in your space and invest what you need for it to support your efforts. Minimize your obstacles, do this today.

3.          Own your relationships. In a digital age, this can be more difficult. We have surface level connections with people from our past that aren’t doing much to move us in a positive direction and we are faced with negative energy from mass media, newsfeeds, and every other possible channel it can find its way through. Do your part and take control of who and what you interact with. This may mean you need to distance yourself from certain people-—if they are a negative influence, they will become toxic. The power of negativity is its contagion—don’t let a single piece of it in your world.

4.         Increase the input. No one says you have to fight this fight alone. Bring as much positivity into your realm as possible. Find people who are equally as motivated & passionate—make time for them as often as possible. Find groups to be an active member in. Listen to daily audios or watch videos. Read as often as you can to better yourself and become an expert in your field.

5.         Don’t forget about the basics. You’ll never advance forward if you aren’t taking care of yourself. Setting aside time to exercise, prepare your meals, meditate, do yoga, be social, get outside, or whatever else is important to you, will ultimately enhance your productivity in a more sustainable way.

Once you’ve discovered yourself, discovered your passion and are hustling to make things happen….never lose sight of the power of a positive environment.

Be a little delusional…be a lot tenacious…and MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.

-Cassie Taylor

Founder, Director
OLLI Fitness

“One Life, Live Infinitely”

If you look around at the people you interact with each day--especially in a well-populated city where you cross paths with an ever-changing crowd-- you will notice that there are really, simply only two types of people in this world.

Don't bail on this post already, thinking it's cliche and you know where it's headed. Instead, I want you to read this next sentence twice:

There are only two types of people in this world, the first type are those who are forging ahead in their own direction, creating their own story and their own journey....the second type are people desperately seeking to mimic the lives of the aforementioned individuals, constantly shape-shifting and pretending to be something different than what they are.

Okay, go ahead and read that again, team.

Now, take a second and evaluate...do you believe you are more like the first type of person described, or along the lines of the second type? 

There is no right answer--we are all on different journeys discovering things in our own time. There IS, however, a right direction to be headed in.

We spend so many years of our lives...through first learning how to be social in grade school, to the gossip ridden years of junior high and high school, to the tumultuous social environments of college, and beyond into much of the corporate world....comparing ourselves externally. We size our looks, our ideas, our intelligence, our worth, our everything....up against someone else.

It's human nature to compare, contrast and evaluate; it's how we interpret our world and our place in it. 

Here's the thing, though....it's an endless cycle of you comparing yourself to your co-worker, who's comparing themselves to their sister, who is comparing herself to her roommate, who's comparing herself to the trending actress, who is really just being a type 2 person to fulfill whatever they think the public wants them to be.

I know, it's a confusing tid-bit of information to process. The bottom line is, if EVERYONE else is pretending or trying to be someone else, where does this dog-eat-dog cycle end?

I'm glad you asked. It ends with YOU.

I challenge you to break a link in this ego-filled chain.

I challenge you to OWN your story.

I challenge you to create your own journey.

I challenge you to be an ORIGINAL.

I challenge you to start this now, today, by taking action. The longer you hang around as a "type 2" person, the more difficult the journey to "type 1" will become. Don't waste another day trying to be someone else.

DO YOU, and DO IT WELL.

-Cassie Taylor

"One Life, Live Infinitely"