The Direction of Pull

The Direction of Pull

This is an issue that confused me for a long long time and one that I see is a source of confusion for many hence this short article in the hope it will save lots of frustration for people.

First of all the reasoning behind it is we need to use the correct muscles and minimise our use of the ‘wrong’ muscles. It is a way of drilling to train our subconscious to stop running like a power runner by using calves, quads and hip flexors and start running like an efficient runner using gravity and hamstrings and minimising the hip flexor usage. It is when you look at the movement very subtle BUT it has a profound effect on your running.

The Pose Tapping Drill

Here JonP demonstrates quite clearly how not to do this drill and lastly how to do it properly.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2360916549512169085

The first example shows too much hip flexor use which will make you drive with the knees and as a result your lower legs will swing out, you will reach for the ground and most likely land on lateral edge of foot which is undesirable.

The second example shows pulling behind or just doing a hamstring curl. This leaves your foot and lower leg lagging behind which makes you need to use inappropriate muscle action such as hip flexor to get the leg back under your hips. Furthermore it will delay you getting into the running Pose on time which will also delay the fall.

As CT puts it:

“The point of the direction of the pull is to get the GCM of the leg in line with the BOF hip shoulder axis.

If the GCM of the leg is behind then your cog will be behind the ball of the foot and the fall is delayed. – Hamstring curl takes the leg out behind so the weight of the leg acts as an anchor delaying the fall.”

Pose Method

I think I have a reasonable understanding of this now and it certainly seems to make sense. For those new to Pose Method here is a potted version of it, a quick explanation of the basics.

http://www.posetech.com/library/pp-SLTW-0001.html