LITTLE ROCK — Running feels hard. Falling feels easy.
But letting gravity pull you forward as if you were falling can help people run faster and with less effort, one school of thought says.
Just ask Vinky Mehta, a 48-year-old senior manager at Deloitte Consulting in Austin, Texas. Mehta says he trimmed 36 minutes off his half-marathon time after learning the Pose Method of Running, a technique developed by Nicholas Romanov, a Russian sports scientist and former Olympic triathlon coach now based in Miami.
Mehta ran the 2009 Austin Half Marathon in 2:24 but was plagued by injuries as he prepared for it. Frustrated, he signed up for some coaching and quickly realized his running form needed improvement. Austin coaches Valerie Hunt and Mike Maggio showed him how to land on the balls of his feet instead of his heels, then had him focus on pulling his foot up instead of pushing his leg forward with each stride.
This year, he ran the same half marathon in 1:48. He ran his first marathon and improved his time in every other race he entered.
The concept sounds simple but takes practice to perfect. The “pose” is the exact moment in your running stride when your center of mass is directly over your support leg, and your body is in proper alignment, Maggio says.
From the side view, that proper alignment means your head, shoulders and hip are lined up, knee slightly bent and a little in front of this imaginary line, with your weight on the ball of your foot. The opposite foot is pulled up, the ankle directly below the hip.
When you run, you hit this pose, fall forward, then lift up the other foot. And repeat and repeat.
The key, Hunt and Maggio say, is using gravity instead of muscular effort to move forward. That means leaning - from the ankle, not the waist - and letting gravity do its work.
“There’s only one action you must learn, and that’s pulling the foot from the ground using your hamstring[s],”Hunt says.
Notice that she specifies using your hamstrings, the big muscles along the back of your thigh.
If you use your quadriceps, the big muscles on the front of your leg, to step out, you’ll actually inhibit forward progress and decelerate, the coaches say.
To demonstrate, Hunt ran on a grassy field, picking up her feet very quickly. A quick cadence is important. “Pretend the ground is on fire,” she said.
Other tips? Don’t push off the ground - that makes you go up, not forward. Avoid landing on your heel. Anything that lands before the ball of the foot shocks the system and impedes forward motion. Try wearing thin-soled running shoes, so you can feel the ground better.
When you figure out proper form, proponents of the Pose Method say, it takes less effort to run at the same pace - or the same amount of effort to run at a faster pace.
Not that running is quite as effortless as falling to the ground. It’s still an endurance activity.
“When we talk about taking effort out of running, we’re talking about taking effort out of the movement part of running,” Hunt says. “We’re just harnessing energy that’s already here.”
When you’ve mastered the technique, you reduce impact on your knees. You don’t have to log as many training miles, either, Hunt says.
Most traditional running programs prescribe five or six days of running a week, including at least one long distance day. But “Pose-ers” say four days of shorter distances - combined with strength training for the hips, feet and core - is plenty.
ActiveStyle, Pages 28 on 06/28/2010