The Funky Impressive Resume of Joe Cebulski
- Two-time Olympic qualifier and world-class athlete
- Division 1 track coach at Arkansas State for 7 years
- Has years of experience coaching Olympians, collegiate and high school athletes, and average joes like you and me
The Funky Buddha is funking thrilled to be collaborating with Joe Cebulski for our Run Lab on Sunday, March 20 at 8th Day Gym. Here’s a look inside the brain of a two-time Olympic Decathlon qualifier/owner of 8th Day Gym and why he’s the perfect “run nerd” to teach us the good stuff – the mechanics of movement:
How do a decathlete/crossfitter and yogi fit together?
I don’t define myself or my business as CrossFit. I am in the business of movement science and my passion is movement. I believe in an unification theory of movement. Swinging a golf club, throwing a discus, executing a squat or practicing a sun salutation – movement is movement, efficiency is efficiency.
All sports have a “flow state.” The flow state can only exist when the body has fully assimilated the necessary technique to achieve efficiency of movement. This is when an athlete can, at times, surrender to the intelligence of their body.
Where our daily work lies is in cultivating efficient movement that is rooted in technique. Technique is positions and muscle firing patterns. Mastery of technique is the necessary precursor to physical efficiency, and efficiency gives us the possibility of achieving a flow state environment. Flow state is what every athlete craves, no matter their sport.
What do you like about teaching running?
One of the things I love most is to teach running. I love simplifying and demystifying an enormously complicated movement that everyone is told that they can “just do.” When I look at poor run mechanics, it is hard for me to not just see injury – PREVENTABLE injury.
Human culture is built around locomotion, moving spatially from one space to another. Running is on the spectrum of locomotion- it’s moving fast, but the basic mechanics can be seen in all athletic movements and endeavors. Because of this, investing yourself in the practice and assimilation of safe and efficient run mechanics is one of the single best things that you can do for your physicality and coordination, no matter your preferred sport or fitness regime.
How long does it take to assimilate these types of techniques into your actual running?
In my experience, human bodies “want” to be efficient. Once a body feels an energetically efficient movement, it wants to replicate it, it wants to stick. Of course with each individual there are varying degrees of natural athleticism, coordination, motivation, and focus, but as a general rule, bodies respond well and quickly to this type of training.
Will this training (in run-mechanics) help my yoga?
It is my believe that ANY training that you do that is focused on building awareness and understanding around how your body is put together and how it moves will help you in any and all of your physical pursuits.
Collaborating with the Funky Buddha to develop this workshop has been fascinating. It has expanded my mind and brought out my inner-movement-science-nerd in a fierce way. The workshop will be half run mechanics and drills, subject matter that I have been studying and teaching for years. The second half will be a yoga practice that has been specifically designed to compliment and ingrain the exact physical skill sets and concepts that we will be working on in the first half of the workshop. When you can distill movement down to its most basic and efficient mechanic, and then you can find and practice that mechanic in multiple places/sports/environments the benefit is enormous and reciprocal. Yoga will improve your running, and running will improve your yoga.
Ready to get going and flowing with Joe and The Funky Buddha? Sign up for Run Lab right now by clicking the link below.
