ThinkRunning

This is one mantra that I have always tried my very very best to adhere to. I have, ever since I started my Pose Journey had a problem with over stride. As you get advice from people and they say things differently in an effort to make something ‘click’ for the individual there is a danger I think of getting completely confused and not changing much if at all.

Again, yes I think this has happened to me. It is all to do with perceptions of how we feel when we run too though. I take everything I am told by a coach and execute it to the letter, or my interpretation of it! The ‘knees forwards not up’ always confused me and now I think I know why. I could never tell if I was letting them forwards or up and traditionally locked into my subconscious was when you want to go faster you stride forwards. Try as I might, I’d look at videos where I felt like I was doing it right and my knees came up too far. Conversely ages ago now I tried doing what I felt to be ‘chopping’ my stride and was told that this was no good because I wouldn’t allow the knee to come forwards enough and the pull of my foot would lag behind me. Where did this leave me? Confused, so I decided to forget about fixation with where knees went and concentrate on alignment, leaning and pulling – areas where I have much improved my running as a result.

I look at videos of people running a lot, everyone who posts a video I have probably looked at it and studied how people run. One of the ‘models’ I use is Jacky and another one is JohnP both of whom I consider to have beautiful running styles and as such give me something to aspire to. Jacky and John have the same things in common with regard to knees. They don’t let the knees come up, they only ever come forwards and it isn’t until they are sprinting that the knees come forwards just as much as if they are in The Pose and they never come any further forwards because that would be upwards thus involving too much hip flexor. Furthermore, if the knees come too far up then you cannot help but land ahead due to timing issues with foot arrival to ground and position of foot beneath knee. All of this was a conundrum to me because once again I felt I was close to cracking another piece of the Pose Jigsaw but couldn’t for the life of me understand what I needed to do. I was confused because I knew I had tried ‘chopping’ my stride and was told it didn’t work. Nevertheless I decided to revisit this because I reasoned that it was the only way forward at this point.

In the front room again for probably the millionth time with no shoes on I practiced the Pony and forward Pony looking at how the knees come forwards. I decided to go with the perception that I would not let my knees come any further forwards than the look in the Pony. I was fully aware that my knees would come further forwards but was using it as a perceptional trick in order to get the correct movement from my own brain/body. Off I went, up and down the room, feeling like my thighs weren’t doing anything at all. Apart from the awkward feeling the running seemed to be smoother and quite fast. I told myself what I tell everyone else – if it feels uncomfortable it means you have changed something, stick with it until you know if it’s better or worse.

I went in the garden to video myself and was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. My knees seemed to be behaving themselves, I was landing much closer to under the hips, the foot was behind the knee and actually starting its backwards journey on contact with the ground!

Lean Times

The above leads me into describing a potential pitfall of fixating too much on a perception. In order to get the correct movement from my knees I had to slightly overdo things as I described. However, I think once you have made an adjustment then you shouldn’t seek to increase the perception by overdoing the lean for example. I do encourage people to play with things like I do though because you learn a lot by experimenting and seeing the results of experiments. What I am leading up to is the fact that I fixed my knees from coming too far forwards BUT inadvertently made it so I was overdoing the leaning. That’s alright though because I finally learned about the lean, how little of it we actually need (perceptually) and why leaning too much is a bad thing to do. If you lean too much then you spend too much time on support because you are waiting for a dramatic lean feeling. Of course this then delays the pull and makes you leave your foot behind so you start looking like a very late pull and yes, the landing ahead starts to happen again! You have been warned. Experimenting is good as long as you understand your perceptions and can interpret the results of your actions. I now have dialled back the lean a little and dialled back the knee forwards perception a little. I am left with an easy relaxed feeling, very upright with not much of a perception of leaning at all, no stride chopping but just feeling like I am sustaining a fall by having my feet play catchup with the body. A definite running ON the legs rather than WITH them.

Summary

Basically in this post and the another one here I have described how to play with different perceptions and actions that all play a part in the running action as a whole. I think that thinking about knees, amount of pull and lean have all led to me honing elements of my technique which together have resulted in a much better running technique all round. Running more efficiently can be summarised thus…

1. Alignment – hips forward, head level and balanced in a relaxed manner looking forwards into the mid distance – not at the floor directly in front.
2. Let body weight lead the way as you fall into the run.
3. Think of lean as from ankles to full head height and don’t lean too much.
4. As soon as you feel your body weight go over your ball of foot then pull that foot from the ground with minimal effort but quickly.
5. Relax and don’t try to force anything.