The Pose Running Technique

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Make running easier: with this unique 'pose running' technique, you'll learn to actually enjoy your fat-burning sessions - Cardio Clinic
Men's Fitness,  Sept, 2003  by Roy M. Wallack

Lots of us have a love-hate relationship with running. We love the pure fitness, the endorphin high, the feeling of accomplishment, the peerless love-handle-zapping power. Yet we hate the aching knees, ankles and Achilles tendons, the elaborate warm-up and warm-down times, the endless stretching. In fact, we often hate running simply because it seems too much like work--hard work.

Wouldn't we enjoy running more and do it more often (and thus keep up the calorie burn and fat loss) if there was some way to make it a little, uh, easier?

Da! says Nicholas Romanov, Ph.D., a Miami-based Russian sports scientist who has devoted his adult life to that seemingly impossible dream. A trainer of world-class athletes such as Svetlana Zakharova, who won the Boston Marathon earlier this year, Romanov says he not only can make running easier, but he will make you faster and reduce your injuries, too--all in the span of a couple of hours. All you need to do is something you probably never thought of before: Learn how to run.

"You learn how to shoot a basketball and how to play golf," says Romanov. "But you don't learn how to run--you just do it, and suffer the consequences. People tell you how to train, to run four miles on Monday, then six on Wednesday and so on. But no one teaches running as a skill. Well, efficient, safe, fast running involves real skill. Unless you're a natural, you must learn it."

After discovering that great runners have certain technique similarities, Romanov institutionalized an ideal running body position, or pose, he teaches as the "pose technique," which he says will make you more efficient, require less effort, lessen impact, and greatly reduce strains to muscles and connective tissues. It's been effective enough to be adopted by top coaches of the official sanctioning body of American triathlons, not to mention high-profile fitness enthusiast, radio-show host and King of All Media Howard Stern. Whether you love or hate running, Romanov's pose technique could help you get much more out of it.

CONTROLLED FALLING

Explained biomechanically, Romanov says the pose technique is "controlled falling."

"Think of a pendulum," he says. "It uses gravity to swing forward--not mechanical or muscular power." Leaning over just to a point where he will nearly fall over, a good runner actually is letting gravity swing his lifted leg forward. That simplifies the process of forward motion quite a bit. "Theoretically, legs should not play a major role in propulsion," says Romanov. "They are just carriers, like wheels."

The hardest part of the pose technique may be learning to flick the heel up toward the butt the second the forefoot touches the ground rather than pushing off with the toes. To help you master this movement, imagine you're running barefoot on broken glass, or that you're stepping on something very hot. Or visualize yourself as a bouncing ball, a rock skipping across a lake, or a perpetual-motion machine.

BREAKING A HABIT

The pose technique is simple, but the hard part is practice, practice, practice--undoing years of running the wrong way. Among the most egregious of the ingrained running inefficiencies is landing on the heel.

"That is the worst possible thing you can do," says Romanov. "Not only does it transmit a tremendous amount of ground shock to knee and hip, but it applies a blunt braking force to your forward motion." Instead of slamming into the pavement, he explains, you want to feel more like you're springing along. Romanov says his method transmits 30% less shock than normal running.

Getting results.

"For me, the benefits of the pose technique readily became apparent. On a treadmill at 8 mph, I saw my heart rate drop and my labored breathing disappear when I switched in midrun from my normal long-striding style to the pose method. Now I definitely can run longer at the same speed. Other graduates of Nicholas Romanov's nationwide weekend clinics I've met are ecstatic. Of the dozens of 'posers' I've met, none has said the technique did not produce benefits. Once it's been explained to them, I've yet to hear any non-posers criticize it."--Roy M. Wallack

THE BASICS

* Lean machine: At all times, angle your body forward to the point where you feel you're about to fall. Do not bend at the waist. To go faster, lean more.

* S-shaped body form: Run with your back straight and your knees slightly bent at all times, including at impact. You should run at a height two or three inches shorter than your normal standing height.

* Short stride: Your foot should land under your body, not ahead of it. Remember that "distal" (far from body) equals weak, poor leverage, while close to core equals strength and good balance.

* Land on forefoot, not heel: Initially contact the ground only on the ball of the foot. Landing on the heel transmits maximum shock and has a momentum-killing "braking" effect

* Fast cadence: Minimum leg turnover should be 180 to 190 strides per minute. Increase as you get fitter and want to go faster. Remember: The longer the foot's on the ground, the more momentum you lose.

* Pull, not push: This is the hardest-to-master part of the pose technique. After the foot strike, pull the heel straight up in the direction of the butt by contracting the hamstring. It should go up like a rubber band. Fight the urge to push off from the toes as you normally do, instead using the quads and calves.

* Flick it: Don't yank the foot up; flick it up just enough to get it off the ground an inch or so. It will continue upward on its own; the faster you're running, the higher it goes.

* Free fall: Once airborne, don't reach with your stride. You're in flight, carried along by your center of mass. The foot will travel in a natural arc, then drop like a plumb line without any muscle activity.

SOVIET STUDIES

Nicholas Romanov, Ph.D., discovered the importance of running skill in 1976 while studying for his doctorate in sports pedagogy and culture in the Soviet Union. Since the program required him to develop training plans for running, which the former world-class high jumper knew little about, he did what any logical outsider would do: He analyzed the body positioning of great sprinters and distance runners. He looked at the form of ancient Greek runners as depicted on museum murals and pottery. He even studied the running form of fast animals, including cheetahs and greyhounds. Eventually, he would refine his research into the "pose technique."

COPYRIGHT 2003 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

Original article: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_9_19/ai_106652958