Running With Freedom: What’s Holding You Back?

Is there something lacking in your running, something that keeps you from your full potential? Something that holds you back but you can’t quite put your finger on it?  Do you have a sense of falling short of what is ideal for you, a knowing that there is something more but it is hidden from you?  If so, you might want to explore the difference between trying to have good technique and actually sensing what you are doing. 

Where is the ideal? 

Most runners want to run with “good form”.  To do so it is necessary to move beyond mere “technique”, communicated verbally with sayings such as “ run tall” , “ swing your arms forward and backward”, “ look straight ahead” , “ lean from the ankles”, and so on. These are rudimentary expressions of a complex movement. What we need is more sensory experience no matter what level of runner we are.  Try this: 

This is something I recently did before a run.

•   Stand in your normal habitual posture. Notice how you feel.  Do you feel ready to run? Do you feel that your head is balanced over a long non-compressed spine? Does your posture feel easy? 

•    Now stand a little taller. When I did this I felt that I was straining against a habitual tension in the lower back and the upper back did not seem aligned to carry my head well. I did not feel that my standing was as easy as I would like nor could I feel that I achieved a really balanced feeling.  I was carrying mental images of Seb Coe’s great running alignment at the time. Look at the images of Seb Coe below.
  

•   Now lie on the floor on your back and notice your contact with the floor. Use the floor as a kinesthetic mirror. What parts of you are held up from the floor and what parts are now in contact with and supported by the floor.

• Bend both of your knees and let the soles of your feet be in full contact with the floor.

•  Gently, easily and with full attention make a few circles on the floor with your pelvis by shifting the weight of your pelvis toward you low back, right hip, tailbone, and left hip in succession. Do each circle more clearly and lightly. 

• Reverse the direction on the circle.

•     Pause. Take both knees a little to the left. Do not take the knees all the way to the left. This is not an exercise. Keep the movement small, comfortable and easy. Allow your head to move just a little to the right. Make the movement small. Use your breath to settle yourself on the floor. With each breath settle yourself into the support of the floor starting at the waist for a few breaths, then the ribs, then the upper rib cage up very high.

• Take your knees a little to the other side and repeat the settling on the floor with each breath. Pause. Lower your knees. What has changed in your contact with the floor? Notice the relationship of your chin to your chest, your shoulders on the floor, the curvature of your low back, the space behind your knees, the curvature behind your neck, the relationship of your head to your neck and torso.

• Slowly come to standing.  Notice the difference in your standing now.

Trying to stand “straighter” creates more stress. But sensing your shape is something different. When I did this recently I felt that I was standing more easily and that my entire shape had changed. I took this into running and found also a new freedom in my hips. Where tight adductors and short stride length had existed now there was new ease.

Turning the search for “good form” into a personal sensory experience can take you into freer running. Experiment and have fun.

Some of you may remember the sixties movie “The Naked Prey” where Cornell Wilde had to run for his life from pursuers.  

Perhaps the one we feel pursuing is actually ourselves, our own habits and extra, unnecessary, or contradictory or “parasitic” muscular contractions. Those extra efforts that we make that actually slow us down. 

You are running now and movement is yours.

You run trails and roads and tracks and all.

You run in heat, and cold, and sun and night.

You know the mountains, the hills, the moon and the stars,

You renew yourself daily among the trees, and trails afar

Their shelter their shade, their life giving oxygen they share

Your lungs expand as you move through the air.

The effort and effortless mingle for you

You run intervals and long runs and tempos too.

And finishing another run affirms your reality, your possibility

You listen and learn and receive direction

Running is a friend to depend on.

Yet running remains a beautiful mystery

In the dark something eludes

But what?

In the dark someone follows

But Who?

You hurry on but you can’t really go

The more you try the more you slow

It is you, It is you.

Through the night you move on

Waiting for the first rays of sun

To finally come

And make certain the dark is done.

In the light I see, the one pursuing is me

And now I run with liberty.

And seeing, the pursuer is gone

Sensing has opened a new world for me

to move with more purity.

I quit resisting and now I fly

To the top, to the view, the same as the eagles eye

The earth now moves beneath my feet

With a beauty and grace that is so sweet.

-scott forrester

 

Run Freely

 

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

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