The Spectrum: From Mediocre to Average to Sublime

This week I took some video of a friend who is a runner. The video was revealing as it usually is. I showed it to my wife and she challenged me to find one thing that would help my friend the most. In the process I tried to duplicate what he was doing in his running as she videoed me. I then did another video of myself running. I did indeed show improvement over years ago. But I was surprised to see myself doing some of the same things my friend was doing even if to a lesser extent. I needed to go back to the basics of sensing and learning.  How little we sense sometime and how much is yet to be known.  This article is for you and also for me and anyone else who wants to continue the learning process.  

What makes the difference between a great stride and an average one?  Obviously there are a lot of differences between one person and another. The kinesthetic sense, the ability to sense how we are organizing ourselves, is the biggest factor. Good running requires that we use our structure optimally.  There is also a difference between mechanical application or action controlled mainly be conscious thought, and action that is entrusted and to and learned in the unconscious motor control centers of the brain. 

Let’s begin a short lesson of sensing and learning. First stand and sense your weight on your feet. Scan your body from head to foot. What can you notice about your sense of your standing, your lightness or heaviness, your sense of balance, the relationship of head, neck, hips and feet?

 Do a short run, just enough to warm up. Notice the quality of your run.  Walk around a bit and come back to standing in one place. 

Evoke curiosity

Your ear is roughly in line with your spine. Your first rib forms a small circle under the collar bone below the base of the neck.  Many people do not stop to notice the relationship between the head and neck and to feel it for themselves. Notice the line between the center of the ear and the circle at the base of the neck, and the hip joint. Is this a straight vertical line or is the head out in front of you? Notice the line between the head at the center of the ear and the hip joint and feet at the ankles. Is this a straight line?  I am not suggesting that you hold a straight line between these points at all times and for all movements in your life. But I am suggesting that you notice your habitual arrangement.

 Notice that using the skeletal alignment, the arrangement of the bones supporting you against the pull of gravity is a key to ease in standing and moving. The better the bones are arranged, the less effort from the muscles is required. Accentuate your habitual pattern. Is there more or less effort required to stand now.  Your center of gravity is generally somewhere in front of your spine and below your navel. Notice the relationship of your feet, hips, head and neck to your center of gravity. 

Using your most powerful muscles to do the largest share of the work

Using your smallest muscles to do small amounts of work

Your largest muscles are your buttocks muscles, your glutes.  Try bending your knees and hips and doing a vertical jump by straightening the legs but not fully straightening your hips. You can extend. Now jump with a coordinated use of the hips and quads. You can probably jump twice as high.  It is important to note that the foot lands in some relationship to your center of gravity, for balance and to be ready for the next jump. Jump, balance into power.  Jump, land on flexed joints, balance into power, etc. 

Arranging yourself for power

Stand in a more or less vertical alignment, whatever is comfortable for you. Note the straight line arrangement of the head, hips and feet. You did this before. But you cannot run from this very vertical position.

 Stand next to a wall in this alignment. Now lean forward by maintaining the straight line relationship between the head and feet but allowing the ankles to bend. Note that you have maintained the straight postural line but you are not standing as vertically now.  Place one foot, say the right foot a little in front of the left. Use the right foot only for balance, keep as much weight as you can on the left. Note that you can feel the glutes engage in this position. The glutes engage as a mighty stabilizer in the middle and help you move through this position of extension quickly in running. 

Stand vertically and this time place one foot quite a ways in front of the other with a straight knee joint. Begin to make the forward straight leg the weight bearing leg. If you try to bear all you weight on this forward straight leg you will find it very difficult to do. If you were doing a walking lunge the front knee would be bent as it started to bear weight, not straight.  Yet this straight knee in front is the classic over striding pattern. There is no power in this. 

The walking lunge uses first one glute, then the other.  Notice that it is the rear leg that straightens and extends to take you forward. Practice this without weights. Make it very, very smooth and only then increase your speed a bit.  Make this a practice in learning, not exercise. 

Over striding, with the foot being advanced in front of the knee takes the timing of the running movement out of the possibility of maximum ease and power. Look at the pictures of over striding vs opening the stride at the top of this article.  See if you can imagine, actually take the time to imagine how each pattern in the pictures might be executed.

Putting it together

 Now comes the key to the whole process. How do we put this all together?  Practice the experiments above, notice, notice , notice.  You have a lot of sensory information and perhaps you have more deeply noticed your habits. Let some time pass, and then perhaps do a few light easy small jumps. Now run. Do not make any attempt at all to consciously control all your movements. Only let your practice exist in the very background. Search for what is light, what is easy, what is easy yet more powerful, what is fun. Let the learning take place in a deeper less mechanical place. Enjoy! 

Scott

Transcendent-running.com

ranscendentrunningease@gmail.com

541 536 4822

My History With Running Injuries

Early days:

I discovered running in high school almost by accident. I decided to go out for high school track although my motive was really just to get my schedule changed. I was already a senior and had never run at all before so I was never competitive.  I didn’t realize at the time that a lifelong love of movement and running was starting for me.  In those days (1968) there was really no clear concept of running form and no real instruction in how to run.  We didn’t have computers or video cameras. There were 8 millimeter film cameras, but they were not in common use for runners.  There was no slow motion or still photo analysis. Yes, sometimes coaches would yell “relax your arms” or “run tall”. But what does that really mean and how could that teach you to run like the best runners?  It was common to hear coaches tell runners to land on the heel first – heel to toe running. Coaches seemed to have some ideas about over striding was, and might tell you not to do it, but they weren’t necessarily good at explaining their ideas. There was no Chi Running, no Pose Method Running, or any of the popular programs that exist today, no real instruction at all. There were the talented runners and the rest of us. 

Victim of injuries:

One of the first running injuries I developed was a stress fracture in the lower leg – tibia. It happened at the end of a half mile run at PR pace. I finished the run and had trouble even showering and getting my clothes on. I had trouble driving home and walking was painful.  That was the end of my running for months. When I did start running again, I ran only on dirt for quite a while thinking that the softer terrain would protect me. It helped, and it was a good adjustment for me.  What I didn’t realize was that it was mainly the way I was running that caused the injury, not the surface I was running on.  I blamed external circumstances even though I had probably been ignoring warning signs for some time. I didn’t run much when I was doing construction work but when I returned to running later. I learned about other running injuries. I once had a severe bout of IT band syndrome. That can be a discouraging injury when you don’t understand it. I went to a physical therapist for that one and received a little help and was so relieved to find that I could run again. But I hadn’t really learned much about the cause and so years later I when through another round of IT band problems. This time it was not as severe because I had learned a bit more about anatomy, runners stretches and even a little about body usage.  Over the years I accumulated experience with ankle sprains, knee problems, hip stress,  plantar fasciitis etc. 

The Crisis and the Shift in View Point:

Injuries As Learning Experiences.

When I was around was around 50 years old I fell off a roof and broke my right ankle. It swelled, and bruised clear up to my knee.  The medial malleolus (the large protrusion on the inside of the ankle) had fractured. I went immediately to the doctor to get an x-ray after work but the doctor’s office was closed. I worked with an air cast on the next day. I thought I just had a very severe sprain and eventually it felt like it had healed poorly. I eventually got an x-ray and MRI and was able to get surgery to repair the ankle. The surgery was successful and my ankle healed well. But in the meantime I had developed knee problems due in large measure to compensating for a weak ankle. An x-ray and MRI revealed degenerative changes in the knee and narrowing of the joint spacing on the medial side of the knee. The orthopedic surgeon recommended that I not run anymore. 

I was not ready to accept that idea. I went on a search for answers. I went first to Physical Therapy. The particular clinic I went to did some standard things and I could tell right away that they were making things worse.  I went in search of someone who had given a talk I heard once and eventually got in touch with him. This person was also a PT by degree, but he understood runners and was himself an ultra runner. He understood how self organization impacts running. He helped me understand on a different level the subject of somatic education that I was just beginning to investigate. Within a few years of my injury I enrolled in a Feldenkrais Professional Training program.  I can now run farther than when I was young  and I rarely have injuries that side line me for long.  I now know that we can often even use running as a means of healing. 

The paradigm shift for me has been changing the question- what is wrong with my knee when I do this to what I am I doing with my entire self organization to produce this problem?  The focus shifts from the body part to the learning process and safer organization of the entire running form on an individual level. 

Giving Back

If you would like to learn more about what the teachings of Dr Feldenkrais can do for runners, I am offering a free video analysis, free phone consultation, and free learning lesson for Father’s Day June 15 – 17 only. Take advantage of this free online offer by clicking here. If you live in the Bend Oregon area the offer will run from June 15 -20.  Just email us at the address below to set up your free sessions or call us at 541-536-4822

Thanks and Happy Fathers Day to Fathers and families

Scott

transcendent-running.com

Scottrun400@yahoo.com  

 

Improving Skill By Sensing Differences.

 Improving Skill By Sensing Differences.

 


Many animals, especially four legged animals, are born with the ability to run faster than humans. Humans have immense adaptability.  No other animal has the ability to refine movement, and develop their movement repertoire to the extent that humans can. For a humorous and informative look at this watch . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wbVIgVi66k  

 

In fact you could say that what defines us as humans is a complex nervous system that makes possible a vast amount of learning. You could say that to learn and increase skill is to be human or to demonstrate humanness. To be sure, animals can learn self awareness. The ability to observe ourselves and abstract reasoning are more highly developed in humans. 

So what is it that improves our running or any other skill or function? Is it 10,000 hours of practice? That number has become a popular part of the discussion of the subject of mastery. Is it 10,000 hours of practice? The answer is both yes and no. Yes it probably does take that kind of commitment over time to really master something. Think of the number of pole vaulters who start very early in life to learn the skill of vaulting . But 10,000 hours of mindless repetition is probably not enough. Learning is about making distinctions. We do something, observe what we have done, note the result, and compare to what we want. Then we make changes. Over time this kind of experimentation, this process of differentiating between one thing and another produces learning. 

In language we learn to distinguish the word an from and. In math we learn to distinguish between the number 1 and the number 2.  These things seem simple once achieved but there is an immense amount of learning involved in order to make these simple distinctions. We learn ever more complex distinctions for instance 1 + 2,  ½,  2/1  and so on. We learn to walk and then we learn to add a further skill, one that requires more confidence, the skill of running. At some point most of us stop and say good enough and the learning process stops or slows.

But it could continue on closer and closer to mastery.

Here is a beautiful example of great alignment and self usage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWp-b3e2bZAyou

 

The picture above and the youtube video show great use of the hips and great coordination of the entire person to move forward with power. Note the

·         huge stride angle, the angle between the thighs

• ·          the rotation of the pelvis, the counterbalancing use of the arms

• ·          the use of ground forces, the horizontal running

• ·          the non compressed spine

• ·          the freedom of movement in the spine

• ·          the way the head follows and helps the running movement and yet is carried in a stable manner.

• ·          Note the flopping of the head from side to side in a less coordinated movement manner of one of the other runners.

• ·         Note the difference in skill level between Masterkova and the rest of the field.

• ·         Note the difference in the use of the hips in the rest of the field.

 Perhaps Masterkova is a good name for this master of the mile. (sorry about the pun) 

Try this

•  Do a short version of your normal speed or distance workout. Wait one day and repeat the same workout. Do it in the same way you always do it. Wait another day and warm up and do the following mini lesson. 

• ·         Lie on your back with your legs stretched out long on the floor. Squeeze your glutes powerfully. Now squeeze only the right glute.  Now squeeze only the left glute a number of times. Which one is more powerful?

• ·         Now squeeze both glutes again a few times. Can you feel the muscles thicken and the pelvis rise?  What do your knees do? Do they move inward or outward?

• ·         Come to tall kneeling, and place your hands on your buttocks. Squeeze both buttocks powerfully a number of times. What happens in your pelvis. If there were a pencil in your navel can you sense that the tip of the pencil would rise when you squeeze your glutes?

• ·          Squeeze only the right glute a few times. Squeeze the left glue. Which one is more powerful. The stronger one will produce more movement in the pelvis.  If the right glute is more powerful the pelvis will turn more to the left. Pay attention, can you tell any difference?

• ·          Now kneel on the right knee and place the left foot on the floor in front of the right knee with the knee bent and the sole of the foot flat on the floor. Squeeze the right glute. Notice that it is not possible to completely contract the left glue in this position. Switch the position of the legs.

• ·         Now stand and squeeze the glutes powerfully. Squeeze them powerfully and hold them that way for a few seconds. Which direction do you knees want to go, the outside or the inward?  The glutes are powerful extendors of the hips.  The knees will want to rotate outward when you squeeze the glutes. Notice that the knees straighten they do not bend when you squeeze. Where does the weight go on your feet when you squeeze the glutes?

• ·          Intentionally shift your weight to the outsides of your feet , turn your feet out slightly and allow the arches of your feet to rise as you squeeze your glutes.  Squeeze the glutes very quickly and lightly. Go fast. Now squeeze them powerfully a large number of times. Now squeeze and hold.

You have given your brain a lot of things to notice and compare. Now go for a short version of your normal workout. The one you did the first time. Notice any changes. To learn we need to make comparisons.  The learning process goes on….

If you are serious about improving your running and moving toward mastery click here

Have fun with this article – best in your running – Scott

If you would like to read the free e-book The Runners Body/Mind click here

Transcendent-running.com

scottforrester@transcendent-running.com

If you have questions call 541 536 4822