Follow Up From Session #2

Wow - a great session last night. The knee-down drill (kicking up, then letting gravity create propulsion) was an eye-opener for a number of people, the setting in of the sense of letting the energy for forward movement come from an external force. This also highlighted the lean: we lean from the ankles with relaxed lower legs, while keeping the body's column alignment.

We also spent time on armswing and cadence, so let's review.

First, guidelines for the arms:

• Hands start at 90°, but the angle will open and close a little bit
• Hands stay in close to the chest
• Hands never cross the centerline of the body
• Elbows move actively back, and passively release forward
• Elbow the person behind you
• The range of motion is elbow and wrist to ribs; the hand only comes forward to bring the elbow to the side of the ribs, and only back enough to bring wrist to ribs
• At a slow speed, armswing is very gentle and relaxed; as speed increases, so does the rearward effort of the armswing
• The arms do 50% of the work of our running

Next, cadence and gears:

• The target cadence is 85-90 strikes per minute, counted on one foot
• The way to increase your cadence is, using a metronome, find your current, habitual cadence; spend two weeks running at that cadence; then, increase your cadence one beat per week until you're in the target range
• Regardless of our pace or speed, we keep the foot cadence the same
• To increase speed, we increase our lean (from the ankles), which will increase our stride length
• Each gear is just one more inch of lean at the nose; 1st gear = 1 inch; 2nd gear = 2 inches...

And we spent time on how the feet leave the ground:

• The ankle lifts, peeling the foot up off the ground; visualize a postage stamp being peeled up off the roll
• The toes dangle in space, with no holding in the lower legs
• The ankle lifts just high enough to get the dangling toes off the ground
• There's no pressure or pushing in the ball of the foot as it leaves the ground

Finally, the 3-step process to engaging gravity; we have been using this all along, but it was codified for the group who stayed after 7pm:

• Check in with the posture (lengthen the spine, level the pelvis)
• Drop the focus to the bottom of the feet
• Lean from the ankles

The next time we're together is next Thursday, April 22nd, at 630pm. I'm on spring break, and will be taking a few days to go camping early in the week. We will start off with the body-looseners, a set of pre-run (or anytime you're feeling stiff or just need a boost of energy) openers for the joints; we'll then warm up with a lap or two, and then I want to provide some individual focus points for everyone. If we have time that night we'll do some speed play on the track (with everyone working at their own pace!). That night will have moments of generating a lot of heat, and then some moments of standing, so bring an extra layer in case it's cold and windy again.

Your homework this week: focus on the arms, keep working on posture, and just generally try putting everything together! Any questions? Post or comment, and we'll work it out!

-Michael

Practice

This week's homework is to focus on where our feet meet the ground. I tried to practice while out for a run last night. The goal I think is to land on the entire foot while it is under you rather than landing on the heel with the foot in front of the body. I thought I was doing fairly well but after paying closer attention I noticed I land on my heel on the left pretty consistently and am a little better on the right. In order to not heel strike I really need to keep my feet under me and in order to do that I need to pull my hips up and lean forward more (from my hips not my waist). When I got it right it seemed to make running easier. It will take a lot of practice and slower running at first but I am excited to have someone to guide my along and give feedback.

First Session-1

Hey everyone, First off it was great to meet some new people last Monday, I am currently working at a Walk/Jog Pace of 3 Miles and on Tuesday after our First Chi-running meeting, I went for my Walk/Jog. I used the new practices Michael had taught on Monday. I was excited to see some differences right away. First I was able to Breath much easier then I have before and noticed how light I felt and the effort I felt I had to use to force myself forward was almost invisible. This was nice because I am of larger Stature and usually takes so much effort to move let alone Jog at this moment. Second it took allot of effort to keep my stance, especially keeping my shoulders down and head aligned. I was definitely sore in other areas then I had been, but it was also rather empowering to feel connected from head to feet. I felt like I fit in on the Blackstone Blvd with all the other Joggers. I can only hope it gets better from here.

Gait analysis

I had a gait analysis done. I found out my right leg is slightly shorter than my left, which I'll be correcting with orthotics. In the video of my gait, I was surprised how much wasted motion I had with my current shoes; my feet wiggled in a lot of different directions!! The idea with the orthotics and best shoes for me is to have my feet only moving forward, which should help my chi running form. I think I remember Michael saying that there's not much a runner can do about their bone structure, but there's a lot that can be done with the other soft tissue. My gait analyzer said the same thing. So, it was good to find out about difference in leg length, which is bone structure, and correcting for it with the orthotics. With that corrected, I hope to work on the things I can change through our practice sessions.

1st session

I really enjoyed our 1st sesssion and look forward to getting to know everyone. I have been trying to apply the proper body "technique" at the gym the last 2 days as well as when I go out for walks with my dog. It certainly takes alot of concentration!

reflection on session #1

First, it was great to meet/see all of you last night. I'm excited about our work together, and am really looking forward to helping you make running a positive and invigorating practice in your lives.

If you haven't yet, please register for the 5k soon; there's a link within the blog post just below this one.

Also, there appears to be a shortage of metronomes- even ChiRunning headquarters is out of stock! They are available through Amazon, and here's the link:
Link to Amazon for metronomes.

Please access me as a resource for anything you have questions about... That's my purpose here with you! Also, next Monday, I will make myself available after our time together to talk, get coffee, practice, or answer any other questions. You won't miss anything if you leave at 7, but if you'd like to talk about running plans, injuries, core strength, or anything else that comes to mind, plan on staying a bit longer!

Run lightly,
Michael

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Happy Sunday!

Looks like we'll have a beautiful day tomorrow for our first session together! We'll meet at the Hope High track at 6pm. The plan is to do introductions, a bit of a warm up, and then video taping of everyone's form. We'll then start working on posture and alignment, run a bit more, I'll share a whole ton of mantras for while you're running...and we'll plan for the next week!

Also, it'll be a week or two before we need metronomes, and I need to order some, so tomorrow night I'll take a count of how many I need to order. Finally, registration for the 5k looks to be entirely up and running here: http://www.active.com/running/bristol-ri/colt-state-park-5k-2010..

See you tomorrow!

-Michael