Something About Pose
This is the first in a series of articles given to me by “Last of the Time Lords” as he is known on Fetcheveryone. They are his blogs from Fetch actually that I suggested would be fantastic to make available to a wider audience to which he agreed.
Thanks to LOTTL for his articles which tell the story of a coach and an athlete working together and learning together in the pursuit of better, injury free running in the real world.
Keep on tuning in for the next in the series; these are a great read!
It’s difficult to pin down what I do in the athletics world now that I’m retired. I’m a bit here, a bit there, a jack-of-all-trades. One of my hats is as a UK Athletics coach, which is what I wanted to do when I had to jack in the running myself. Due to me being all over the place it’s only something I dabble in – I don’t get much time. During my running career I was very fortunate to meet and run with some of the best distance runners in the world. I have spent time with UKA and England Athletics and yet it wasn’t until I started lurking on Fetch that I started to hear of efficient running.
I have read the Stride Mechanics book, I have read the Pose running book. As I don’t run and as I’m still studying the methods I belong to no church. For balance, once I have a greater grasp of Pose and I’ve finished organising this years Abingdon Marathon I shall move on to reading and studying Chi.
Pre Pose
One of the athletes I sometimes advise in my capacity as an (occasional) UKA coach is a former GB International triathlete, who after starting a family now concentrates on running. She is progressing well on limited time and picks up many local prizes. A month ago she was moaning about her niggles including back-ache, and as I’d just read the Pose book I suggested videoing her and that we consider looking at her running style. As the efficient running advocates say, “There’s probably nothing wrong with your body, it’s just you are doing something wrong”.
The video was a complete eye opener for her. She was a power runner, overstriding landing way ahead of her centre of gravity with huge heel strike. On seeing the replay in slow motion she was mortified by the impact forces.
I’m not a dictator with my part-time-time-fit-it-when-possible-and-if-someone-asks-nicely coaching. I prefer to nurture athletes, getting them to think and question what they are doing. We had a chat about the different forms of efficient running, and on the basis of I’d read the Pose book and had met IanM we decided to muddle our way through he process together.
After spending two hours explaining the principles of Pose to her (i.e. landing on ball of foot with bent knee under centre of gravity, Pose stance is the position from where all movement is generated, S Stance, using gravity, the vertical pull and change of support etc) we tried a few practical examples.
One of the first things I got her to do was hop in several ways:
- Hop on toes – She soon felt the calf tension created when you run on toes.
- Hop on heels – She burst out laughing when she felt how dead this feels. Have you ever tried this? Try it then question why so many runners heel strike.
- Hop on BOF – Immediately she felt much more comfortable.
- Hop on BOF with a slight forward lean – With minimal effort she was able to propel herself forward using gravity.
We went on to try numerous experiments but I’m going to be here all day writing this blog at this rate….
Learning a New Game
One of the biggest problems with competitive distance runners is they are obsessed with mileage and times. I get frustrated with even top-level athletes that can’t think beyond a few days. Once when I was team managing for my county I asked the then County Champion what his future plans were? He couldn’t give me an answer beyond next Thursday. Anyway, my budding Pose runner was keen to do more and faster as soon as possible. She wanted to try and incorporate one ‘Pose’ run into her weekly schedule. I insisted she didn’t for fear of her getting injured, and to her credit she backed off to concentrate on the drills, which she is still mastering before trying anything other than a short runs.
The efficient running threads on here can be a bit of a bun fight, but if you look beyond that there are some incredibly intelligent and useful posts. My book is out on loan so I can’t refer back to it, but there is so much more that’s not clear in the book that you can learn from the thread and by talking to those that practice efficient running. My thanks in particular to Ian for lots of off-thread conversation and thoroughly useful advice that’s benefited both the athlete and myself. I highly recommend his blog detailing his experiences as a useful tool for anyone studying the subject Link (roll over me to see where I go)
Trials and Tribulations
As a good athlete this lady is very aware of her body. Another characteristic of a good athlete is she is very determined and prepared to work hard. This makes her a pleasure to work with and generally she has picked things up very quickly.
The issues we have had so far have mainly been down to the timing of the pull. She likes skipping as it’s fun and at first she was doing lots of skipping without appreciating the importance of the Pose stance, tapping, and change of support drills to get the pull right, plus the Pony to learn to break contact with the ground with the minimum of effort. Whilst it appears skipping was useful to help her land on her BOF with a bent knee and strengthen the calf during the transition to Pose, she was just skipping without thinking of the Pose action of pulling the ankle up under the hip.
Without practicing the drills she skipped with a high knee lift using the hip flexors. This became a viscous circle as she had to push off rather than pull to catch up with the next leg.
We concentrated on cutting out the hip flexors and she went the other way i.e. she wasn’t pulling enough. So she agreed to cut back on the skipping and we have been concentrating on getting that foot tucked up under the hip, the knee moving forward and getting the bunion of the big toe against the flattest part of the calf.
JonP’s video is an excellent guide to the direction of the pull Link (roll over me to see where I go)
Tension
The next problem was tension. I never fully appreciated the need for the ankle to be relaxed. After a couple of weeks of drills and skipping the athlete’s calves were adjusting well to the Pose method but she was still complaining of some calf discomfort. Another video was recorded showing her toes pointing as she held tension in the ankle. We discussed the need to let that lower leg go floppy and a big improvement was seen, albeit there’s still some tension there.
I’m going to use the word ‘paradox’ here. ‘Paradox’ is a good word for a Time Lord to use. The paradox of pose is that you have to think about what you are doing to make change, but when you are putting it into practice you need to relax and not think about it. Forget about anything forward of the midline, let the body take you forward and bring your ankles with you. As Ian says it should feel as if you are running ‘on’ legs rather than using them to propel you.
Here’s a video of where she is now that’s she’s okay with me posting. ***At the start she is nervous because of the camera, so please judge her technique after about 15 seconds when she relaxes and runs back toward me. *** It’s still work in progress…
Summary
As a former overstriding heel striker the athlete had all sorts of aches and pains. After three weeks of drills and short runs she speaks enthusiastically at how much easier it is on her body and how she feels ready to fly. Now she won’t contemplate going back to how she used to run.
Leaning good technique needs to be worked at. It’s not something you can adopt overnight and to begin with the temptation is to go back into bad habits as it’s what you are used to. If the athlete can begin to crack Pose or Chi they will never want to go back. You have to make it clear to athletes that the process takes time and they must be patient. As most runners are obsessed with mileage and racing it’s best to study during an off-season period or during a period of recovery from injury. Get them to think of the long terms benefits of taking time to master skilful running.
It’s been a steep learning curve for both of us but the signs are encouraging. As a novice it’s impossible to learn from the book what you can pick up from talking to people on here that teach and practice efficient running. I’m looking forward to discovering more when I attend a clinic with CT.
Efficient running gets up some people’s noses. Whether you run Pose, Chi or do your own thing, running technique creates debate and that’s good. If we don’t debate these issues we will never progress.
Copyright © 2009 Last of the Time Lords