Reasons for not ‘Getting It’.

Pose Method – Reasons for not ‘Getting It’

I have been thinking. I have been wondering why, after all the hints, tips, drills, one to one sessions etc. some people (an alarming number actually) just do not get what efficient running is, let alone how to do it. I speak from experience after struggling with this for over a year! This article is an attempt to explore and uncover the reasons why we have trouble ‘getting it’.

1. We look yet we don’t see. We can read something, watch something time and time again but do we really see or take in what we are looking at? I don’t think we do. I think we are so used to tuning out TV adverts, rubbish in newspapers etc. that our attention – if ever caught fully is probably not on anything for very long. We scan read too much and sit there in front of television like dummies, half asleep.
2. We hear yet we do not listen. I can hear someone telling me about something yet I don’t really listen to what they are trying to get across. My father-in-law is terrible for this, I have a two second window in which to grab his attention, mostly he just drifts off and starts talking about something else. It is a very ignorant yet human trait…
3. We touch yet we do not feel. Our bodies are cosseted and insulated from the environment in which we function. We have enjoyed many years of civilisation where our homes are heated beyond any real requirement, our bodies are shielded from the slightest change in temperature and cushioned from the surfaces on which we walk. Our shoes stop our feet from flexing and over time the muscles and tendons in our feet go dormant. Our feet become dead to the surfaces we walk on. Crucially our ability to sense our body weight under the balls of our feet becomes dramatically reduced and we start to rock back onto our heels when walking. When we run, the running shoe industry recommends that we hit the ground heel first thus reinforcing the myth that running is actually just a walk with a little hop between steps.
4. We expect magic. When you ‘read up’ and listen to people describing Pose for example it starts to make you think that there must be something you are missing, some secret. After trying the Change of Support drill a million times, faithfully reproducing what you see in the videos yet being told by coaches that you are not doing it properly you get very very disheartened. You start to think you are useless, stupid or simply “just not cut out to be a proper runner”. This is how I felt for many weeks and I nearly gave up altogether.
5. We expect a quick fix. In this day and age we are so used to the on-demand-life where everything we wish is at our fingertips I think anything that requires a serious amount of input or concentration or demands any time from us we quickly get bored of trying if we do not see instant and dramatic results.
6. We over analyse. When listening to all the technical detail of how to run more efficiently it is very easy to over-think things. People may tell you that for example you should try to land under your hips, not stride out in front, land with bent knee and make sure you pull your foot from the ground as quickly as possible. What they are saying here is what should HAPPEN, not what YOU must do consciously. If you try to do all that by controlling it with your conscious mind then you will slow the reactions down that your brain uses the subconscious to control. You will literally hinder yourself. The reactions – this is what they are, are just the result of your body doing what it is programmed to do. You program your body to do this through drills. Do the drills then just run. If I had actually listened when people told me that I would have saved myself LOTS of frustration.

I think I am starting to understand this now. Running is a dynamic process that has many movements and reflexes happening all at once and they are all interdependent. For example in Pose running there is Pose, Fall and Pull. Neither one can exist properly without the other. If you don’t Pose properly then the Fall won’t happen properly and neither will the Pull. I used Pose as an example because that is what I have specifically learned. Actually the same principles apply to running in general because it is just running. No magic remember? No one method actually gets you to run much different in the end. We end up running more efficiently to varying degrees because we are all different.

Now here is what I believe is the cornerstone of running without which nothing else can happen properly. The recoil, ground reaction force, call it what you will. This, essentially is the return of energy from the system that you have applied to it by using your body weight – without even knowing it!

I believe that if you are getting the Lean roughly right and the Pose roughly right then you can use this recoil effect. If you do then you automatically pull on time – probably much faster than you could have done trying to do it consciously. If you pull on time then you can get into Pose quicker, fall again, pull, etc.. All this relies on you using the recoil; if you don’t ‘get it’ and you subsequently don’t use this recoil effect, the whole running cycle is left in a mess, timings are wrong and you run like you are on flat tyres wasting bags of energy and creating huge muscle tension in the process. I speak from experience. I have done this and have felt all the horrible aches and pains that I thought were just part of being a runner. They are not; they are part of being a runner who doesn’t run properly. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way, just an objective way. Remember I ran badly like this for a long time! I find it best to think of it as a chain of interdependent processes that start with a bounce. This bounce is a result of the last landing you did where your body weight hit the ground, your leg muscles and tendons absorbed a lot of that impact and at the same time stored some energy. This energy is then released and helps to propel you forwards, your muscles and tendons acting much like large elastic bands. Remember I said that this is the beginning of the chain? Well if you introduce any conscious thought into the system by thinking of something in the middle of the chain then everything just falls out of timing, you lose the bounce and stop running properly.

How Did I ‘get’ it?

Actually it is something I had backed away from many times getting it mixed up with Active Landing and all kinds of bad things that had been explained to me and I took as you shouldn’t do them. I had been trying my very best to stop myself from using this weird bouncy feeling for many months because I thought it was wrong! I was convinced that all I should ever do is pull my foot from the ground so that is what I did. If all you do is pull your foot then you don’t use recoil and that slows the whole gait cycle down. Furthermore if you consciously try too hard to just pull your foot from the ground you actually slow the Pull down too. This results in you spending too long on the ground which means you will land in front which may make you reach out with the foot instinctively to save yourself – you can’t help it. It is your brain’s last ditch attempt to save you from falling on your face! All of this means that you land with a much straighter knee, on your lateral edge with your foot reaching for the ground. Tension in the muscles when the leg hits the floor is bad – a terribly Active Land. The shock can go nowhere apart from up your leg and throughout the entire body from head to toe. The energy dissipates through your body instead of being stored in your leg muscles and tendons in readiness for the next step. You have landed braking heavily so your body nearly stops moving. You use all your muscle power in the thighs to get yourself moving again and so it continues. Sounds horrific doesn’t it? It is.

An example of Recoil

In the video you can see the kangaroo leaning, falling, moving the legs underneath, landing on them which stores energy in the legs which then returns as a propulsive force forwards – the force of gravity has been used to move the animal horizontally.

Here is Jacky, a Pose coach from Holland I think? I think she runs beautifully. In the slow motion bits you can clearly see the horizontal boost she is getting as her body moves over the support foot.

There is very slight upward bobbing too BUT this is not to be confused with the upward bobbing caused by pushing hard with the calf like this…

This is me a long time ago pushing for all my worth with my calf muscles and brute forcing with my thighs to run. Also notice that I am landing on my forefoot. This is known as a forced forefoot landing which is probably the worst thing you can do because all the muscles are tensed and you hit the ground with your foot sticking straight out. This collision results in your body absorbing the shock from head to toe. Over time anywhere in this chain of bones, joints, muscles and tendons can become injured due to this. In my case it was a stress fracture of the second metatarsal bone in my left foot which took nearly three months for me to get over.

You have seen how I used to run, here is an example of how I run now. There is still a lot of room for improvement but I have the basics of efficient running right now. This video of me was taken at Stratford Marathon, UK on the way to a sixteen minute PB. I had been running ProperlY for eight days.

How Can You Get It?

Strengthen or re-awaken your feet and lower legs. Walk barefoot wherever you can, wear flat shoes with very thin, pliable soles.

Get rid of your cushioned shoes for running in – buy some that you can feel the ground and your body weight on the ball of foot through.

Start skipping with a rope – this is exactly the technique used for running. In rope skipping you are behaving much like a kangaroo. Try doing the running action when you have mastered two legs. Go onto one leg at a time, lifting your ankles up to the calf of the opposite leg each time to get the feeling for going into and out of your Pose.

When you start to feel like you are springing forwards with little effort, sort of just bouncing from each step without pushing then you are getting it. You have to be careful here not to confuse the bouncy feeling with jumping up into the air. The feeling is very relaxed and easy to do and doesn’t involve the heavy use if calves or front thigh muscles (quads) – you don’t push hard with them at all. Another key point here is if you feel like you are stretching your quads out like you do when you grab your foot behind you then you have got it right. Don’t worry about feeling high on your forefoot without even trying. As long as you are NOT trying to force yourself onto your toes and it is just happening – you will feel pressure on the balls of your feet. This is the feeling to go for, accept and go with. Gradually you will get the feeling that you are just letting go. Running is not about MAKING it happen, it is about LETTING your body do what it does. Embrace the feeling and learn to love your running like you never did before if you are anything like me.

Start Running

Here is a check list you can use to enable you to just start running. Above all I feel this is the best way to get results fast. Once you have started running properly then you can practice but you need to ‘get it’ before any practising will help. Do the things in the list in the order that they appear. This is what I did and it worked.

Drills First

1. Pose to remind yourself of what you must feel every time you land.
2. Change of Support for getting a feel for moving into and out of the next Pose as in 1 ProperlY.
3. Lunge to get the bouncy feeling and quick return of the pull as a result of the recoil action – make sure you can feel this.
4. Some rope skipping for warm up while using recoil and landing properly under General Centre of Mass (GCM). Again, make sure you don’t push with your calves and/or quads. Just use the springiness of your body.

Now Run

1. Make sure your knees are bent while stood. Not excessively so but enough to make the belt in your trousers level.
2. Don’t think about making your foot land because it will land wrong.
3. Just bounce with the knees bent lightly on the spot. Feel your body weight on the balls of your feet. Imagine how a boxer dances, this is the feeling you need. Bouncing like this is you pulling properly and very minimally with both feet at once.
4. Now try the Pony drill or just jogging on the spot with knees bent and lifting your feet but only lifting enough to get them off the ground. Make your feet quick. I had to make a conscious effort to make my feet quick to start with.
5. Now just while jogging on spot move forward by leaning very gently. In this manner you should be able to go for a short run and the pace will surprise you.
6. As you run faster then your range of motion will increase. Let it, don’t chop your range of motion. If you are pulling quickly and on time while keeping knees and ankles soft (like in the jogging on spot and bouncing) then you will be landing properly.
7. The main thing is that the pull is only very light. Don’t try to pull like you do in the drills. The drills greatly exaggerate to give you the sensations that you need…

Above all, relax. If you run stiff you will slow down and it will stop you from running properly. Your subconscious knows how to run, it always has done, it is just that you have been stopping it. Now is the time to let it happen, remember, let it happen. Don’t make it happen.

Ian G. McMillan 02/05/2009

1. ProperlY is a technique described by Dr Romanov at a Pose clinic for the first time in Birmingham UK. It is a way of getting people to concentrate on getting the Pose right and just getting from one Pose to the next. This works on the premise that the subconscious will work out what body movements are required to do this. It has proven very effective for some people.