BACK TO BASICS
Very often, may be more often than I want to see, I observe
people running out of what could be considered an acceptable
running technique. The thing is not so much about running
technique itself, but about movement in general, which, to
put it politely, could be described as lacking basic culture.
The whole picture appears to be consisting of lots of different
movements barely connected with the main movement running.
When you look at a good dancer, or any other skillful performer,
you can see only the leading movement without noticing other
small details accompanying the main one. Everything in this
movement is subordinate to the main goal as in a great picture,
where everything seems to be measured and proportional to
the main idea expressed by an artist. In music performance
every instrument has its own place and sounds in harmony with
the whole orchestra conducted by a virtuoso conductor.
Our movement should happen in analogy with music performance
where our body parts should act as instruments and gravity/body
weight as a conductor. Clumsy movement is produced by our
body parts/instruments playing out of the main performance
by being either not on time or taking a wrong note. So how
do we achieve perfect performance? It is very simple, by learning
fundamentals, which are basics notes/movements and their timing.
What fundamentals do we need to learn for movement, and particularly
for running? It is understanding and perception of running
as a body weight transfer in the desirable direction. Therefore
we need to know what is our body weight and how could it be
transferred in the desirable direction? From this question
stems another one: how are our muscles related to the body
weight and what is their role in its transfer in the desirable
direction?
Our clumsiness stems from our disregard of basics of movement.
Simply put, we do not know how to use our body weight and
through it gravity. This starts from the most important thing
where and how do we place our body weight on the support,
which is our feet, if we are talking about running. Our muscles
hold the body weight in accordance with its location, which
in its own turn, depends on our thoughts (knowledge) of what
a proper location is.
Starting from these premises it is easy to see how we become
clumsy runners. If we have no idea what our body weight is
and where we are supposed to place it in order to move it
in the desirable direction, then our thoughts go in the wrong
direction of using our muscles to move our body disregarding
the body weight. But we can use muscles in this way only to
move our non supporting extremities legs and arms, but not
the body. Therefore unskillful runner produces lots of unharmonious,
eclectic movements with legs and arms without any positive
effect on his running performance.
There is a great variety of movements fitting this description,
such as powerful arm movement, leg swing, fast landing (by
putting the foot on the ground), paw back (by pulling the
foot back to the ground), powerful knee/hip drive forward,
push off and so on. None of these elements of running has
anything to do with the efficient body weight transfer forward,
therefore they are out of sync with the major requirement
of the efficient running technique.
What are we supposed to do? We have to go back to the basics
of movement: we have to understand the concept of the body
weight/gravity, their leading role in movement and a proper
attachment of muscles to the body weight. How do we do it?
By developing our perception of the body weight as pressure
on the ball of the foot through different exercises where
the major ones are jumps (with the rope, hops on two or one
leg, and so on) and different kind of balance exercises and
Pose stance. Using hips exercises (I would recommend exercises
from our booklet Hips and Hamstring Exercises) to attach muscles
to the body weight. By doing these exercises youll align your
body posture, release muscle tension and eventually eliminate
all unnecessary actions and bring harmony into your movement.
Dr.Romanov
Pose
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