The Magic of Running: How to Make It Happen

Go for a short run, just far enough to feel how your running is right now. Go just far enough to get the general sense of your running, your weight on your feet, and your general sense of effort.

Now come back inside. Remove your shoes, and stand in one place with your feet a comfortable distance apart. Notice the sense you have of how you are carrying your weight on your feet. Do you feel heavy, light, balanced or unbalanced? Do you feel comfortable?  Begin to scan yourself from head to foot. What is the general feeling of tension you have in your neck? What is the position of your head in relation to the rest of your body? How are your shoulders aligned? How are you holding your chest, your ribs, you low back?  How do your hips feel? How does the weight settle on your feet? Is your weight carried more on the outside or inside of the feet, the balls of the feet or the heels?  Or is your weight carried more in the center of the feet? 

Take a short break and walk around for a minute or two. Think of a chair and the four legs it has. The chair has no muscles to hold it up. But it has a structure. Unless the chair is broken, it never falls down.  It can stand on its legs for many years. You have a structure too. It is called your skeleton. Trust your bones. They are a secret to effortless running.  Learn how to use them and they can hold you up for hours. 

Come back to the place you were standing. Now picture a heavy weight on top of your head. In some places in the world, people routinely carry heavy weights on the head and they are skilled at doing this. With the image of the weight, again notice the curve in the neck. Notice that now the brain will now want to organize the neck to support weight. Can you feel how the head will want to rearrange itself?  Can you feel that with the rearrangement of the head, the entire skeleton will want to rearrange itself?  Once you rearrange the head you have affected everything. Can you feel that the relationship of the head to the feet has changed? 

Take away the image of the heavy weight on top of the head. Now you are standing differently than at first. See if you can now relax further some of the muscles that you normally think of as holding you up.  Due to your new alignment you may be able to do this. 

Walk around again and notice how your use skeleton can reduce the amount of effort in your walk. Go out and run again. Do not try to maintain an absolutely vertical posture, but trust your bones.  Allow them to do the work of holding you up. Notice at mid stance if there is a brief instant where the bones really work to hold you up. Play with your alignment and see if you can use greater awareness of the skeleton to create more ease in your running.

The Magic of Running

You might run for exercise, you are wise if you do

But there are other reasons to do it too

Movement is a vehicle, a tool.

To explore what’s around you and inside of you too.

What are you without the outside, that space, the environment even the universe

And what is the outside if it didn’t have you

You go out and run and you feel alive.

 But there is more, and when you find it you no longer struggle and strive.

Now you are connected and the ground runs with you.

That joining, with the ground moving backwards under your feet

You are no longer running on the earth, but with it.

You no longer hold yourself up, but the alignment of your bones like the trunk of a tree

Creates the magic of perpetuity

Don’t forget to get your free e-book, The Runners Body/Mind  at

www.transcendent-running.com

Running tip # 3 Running efficiently

Running tip #3 of course follows on tip one and two. Be sure to read the other two tips on this page.
What is efficient running ? One definition of efficient is
ef·fi·cient
iˈfiSHənt/Submit
adjective
1.
(esp. of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
So efficient running is moving forward with as the very minimum of effort possible. Efficient running is getting as close to effortless running as you can. This kind of running is more productive and less destructive to the body. It is also more beautiful to watch and more fun to do. It takes advantage of the superb human design.
Remember that the foundation of our running lies in the unique human upright vertical posture. The foundation of our running is thus in good running alignment and posture or posture in action, acture, which is a different concept than static posture.

How do we run efficiently? 1. Good alignment and good skeletal transmission of forces from the ground through the core and the spine so that the skeleton does the job of holding us up and the muscles are free for movement. 2. An easy elegant spiral through the core and spine. 3. Keep learning.
But here is a point that you may not have considered. Let us start with a comparison of the ideas contained in two words. First the word correct. The word correct implies perfect, and right. Correct implies that no further learning is necessary or possible. The word better implies improvement and allows for even further improvement and learning.

To improve, leave behind the idea of doing a correct movement or having correct posture. Leave behind technique and externally imposed instructions and corrections. Embrace the idea that you and your structure are unique. While not forgetting the foundation, ask not am I doing this correctly, but is this really easier for me, with my current knowlegde and my current body.
If we decide to adopt a "correct" posture and sit up, or stand straight, we are likely adding to the effort of an action rather than finding the easiest way to do something. We are entering into the realm of "overdoing it". We are bypassing the way of continual learning in favor of the technique, the external, the quick fix. To improve we must appreciate our unique selves. To run more easily use less force. Use less force in the learning process too. Trying is different than learning.

Enjoy yourself - Scott

Running Form: How Do We Describe the Ideal Movement Flow?

Here is a word that I would like you to consider; flow!

In previous articles we explored what effortless, well aligned posture might feel like and we introduced the idea of the learning cycle as applied to running form. The learning cycle involves the idea of a growing knowledge of good alignment in running combined with efficient movement where no extra effort is expended. These first two steps lead to more awareness, particularly awareness of how we are doing what we are doing, in other words the details. Awareness continually provides us with more information which in turn leads us back into the cycle of learning. 

Some have simply described running as standing tall and falling forward, letting gravity do the work. This is a wonderful idea and it may help a lot of people let go of effort, helping them to realize what an effortless activity it can be. It is, however, an incomplete description of the running motion. And what about standing tall?  What does posture have to do with running since we aren’t standing still? It is important to be able to apply the idea of posture to action, since our posture is continually being altered as we move through the phases of running.

Let’s consider the idea of walking upright, which is unique to man. When we look at the unique stance and walking motion that humans have we should consider not a static position called posture, but the general vertical axis of the human body. Mankind has the ability to turn around this vertical axis very quickly. The ape has a forward flexed posture and cannot turn near as efficiently as a man. 

1. Try bending forward and dragging your knuckles on the ground. 
2.  Turn quickly to face 180 degrees to the rear.  
3. Now stand up, taking full advantage of your central vertical axis and see how quickly you can turn 180 degrees. 
4. Now stand and place one foot a good distance in front of the other. Can you tell that your foot was not the only thing to move?  Your knee, hip, pelvis and back also moved to allow a large forward step by one leg. 
5. Now try standing with all your weight on one leg, let's say the right leg. The other leg is still on the ground but is used only for balance. 
6. Now with all the weight on your right leg, turn your torso to the left but keep your head and eyes looking straight forward. Make sure there is no tension in the head and neck as you do this. Can you feel that there is a spiraling action taking place in your body, and you are getting taller? Your weight is arranged over the standing leg.

 Your knee on the right side straightens your ribs twist a bit to the left and you get taller. You engage every part of yourself in sequence, from to standing foot, to the knee, to the power center of the hip and the glutes, the low, mid, and upper back. It is a spiral, flowing through the core. And yet it is so smooth and so fluid, that it is really all one movement. 

Your knee on the right side straightens your ribs twist a bit to the left and you get taller. You engage every part of yourself in sequence, from to standing foot, to the knee, to the power center of the hip and the glutes, the low, mid, and upper back. It is a spiral, flowing through the core. And yet it is so smooth and so fluid, that it is really all one movement.

Your knee on the right side straightens your ribs twist a bit to the left and you get taller. You engage every part of yourself in sequence, from to standing foot, to the knee, to the power center of the hip and the glutes, the low, mid, and upper back. It is a spiral, flowing through the core. And yet it is so smooth and so fluid, that it is really all one movement.

Efficient movement flows like a wave through the body. We don't run with the feet, the legs, or any other part alone, but as a system, as a whole person.

When our running is effortful, or injurious it is usually because of a breakdown somewhere in this flow. If our awareness of the overall flow of our running is increasing, we are on the right track.

Here is a definition of flow: flow (fl) v. flowed, flow·ing, flows. v.intr. 1. a. To move or run smoothly with unbroken continuity, as in the manner characteristic of a fluid.

So, running is a matter of coordination throughout the entire person. It is a sensing of how we are made and how we can move straight forward down a track or trail. What is not obvious at first is how much skill is involved in running. All of our bones must be arranged in precise fashion so as to transmit our ground forces well through the skeleton.

Watch David Rushida’s 2012 world record and gold medal performance in the Olympic 800 meter finals. See what great coordination he had between the upper and lower body, the unbroken continuity of movement. This is a quality that rewards runners at every level whether complete novice or world champion. Perfection is difficult or impossible but improvement is available to all. The specifics of what flow means are worth years of experimentation. But the concept of flow is one of the foundations of your running success. Take this word with you today and enjoy building on this foundation.

Scott Forrester is a Student Awareness Through Movement Instructor and a Physical Therapist Assistant and ACE Certified Personal Trainer at Mountain Valley Therapy in La Grande, OR.  Please leave questions or comments here at the blog or contact him at transcendentrunningease@gmail.com