I have tried the pose method and have a pretty clear undersanding of the ideas behind it but I was wondering if someone could tell me about evolution running and chi running … how are they different from pose method?
I wasn’t impressed with Chi-runnin’. If you want my copy, I’ll send it to you. (PM me if you want it).
As for evolution running. Here’s a thread that includes comments from its originator (?) and author Ken Mierke.
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=466672;search_string=evolution%20running;#466672
I will probably order the book and DVD sometime in the off-season. I find it intriguing
good to know … i should have searched the posts first …thanks for the link!
First, Evolution Runner Steven Duplinsky just won his first World Championship this afternoon! Sorry…
The Pose Method describes what to do and what not to do in the vertical plane, but it never analyzes what a runner actually does with his/her legs to generate horizontal propulsion. This is the primary difference between Evolution Running and the Pose Method. In the Pose Method, Romanov instructs athletes to lean forward, which I agree puts them in a position which enables efficient propulsion, but then says that gravity propels. I strongly disagree with this. A runner can only “fall forward” - pulled by gravity - once. The legs propel us. If gravity propelled, heavier runners would be faster, which we all now isn’t true.
Another difference is in how the heel flick movement is generated. Romanov asks runners to contract the hamstring muscles to lift the heel and initiate leg recovery. I believe that the hamstring muscles are important for propulsion and, therefore, should not be used for any other movement. I teach runners to use the angular momentum of the foot and lower leg to swing the leg up while maintaining relaxation in the hamstrings.
Chi Running seems to be similar to Pose, but he recommends increased hip rotation, which I have not see in economical runners and has not improved economy in my testing. It is less scientific, but he makes some very good points.
Evolution Running was developed by anlyzing the techniques of the great Kenyan runners, who have extrordinary economy, and tested on hundreds of athletes using a metabolic analyzer to measure oxygen consumption. If we change your technque and you set a PR 2 months later, we’d like to think you were more efficient, but many other factors went in to the PR. You probably trained pretty hard those 2 months, race conditions may have been perfect, and you may have been more motivated. If you consume less oxygen at 5:30 pace, I consider that objective evidence of improved economy.
I have had fantastic results with these methods. Some of my recent client results are below.
My book The Triathlete’s Guide to Run Training and the video that Joe Friel (who coached Ryan Bolton) and I produced, both cover these techniques extensively. Both are available at www.Fitness-Concepts.com I have a document that summarizes Evolution Running that I’ll be happy to send to anyone who writes me at CoachKen@erols.com
Steven Duplinsky, at age 17, averaged 4:39 per mile off the bike last year at USAT Nationals - best by 26 seconds per mile - that is 9.3% faster than #2.
Margie Shapiro had the fastest run split at her last Worlds and the fastest run split by 45 sec in her win at this year’s Best of the US race. See her on page 78 of this month’s Triathlete magazine.
Dan MacKenzie had the fastest run split in the men’s 20-24 at Lifetime Fitness by 8:02.
Lisa Thomas had the fastest run split by 4:08 in winning her age group and getting the Hawaii slot at the Blackwater Eagleman.
Look for the results of Margie and Dan at Worlds in Hawaii and Lisa at Kona.
Ken
If gravity propelled, heavier runners would be faster
No, they wouldn’t: acceleration due to gravity is independent of the mass of the object.
John
You got half the picture. Acceleration is the same but speed is not. For example, a heavier rider will coast faster down hill because of his heavier weight, even though he has the same gravitational accleration acting on him as a lighter rider.
Mike
actually…in a non-vertical plane, heavier objects fall faster.
this is why snowboarding i’m able to go a helluva lot faster than the smaller guys, as well as coming down the hills on the bike.
actually…in a non-vertical plane, heavier objects fall faster.
this is why snowboarding i’m able to go a helluva lot faster than the smaller guys, as well as coming down the hills on the bike.
Sorry, you are confusing acceleration with speed. Heavier (denser) objects will tend to accumulate more speed as the slowing action of wind resistance is less effective on heavier objects of equal or greater density. On the moon all objects would fall the same, be it vertically or on a slope of rolling resistance could be eliminated.
Frank
Ken,
How do you know if the Kenyans are passively or actively using their hamstrings to get their foot up. After push off it seems that the energy to get the foot up is so small that it would hardly make a difference. And the foot won’t come up “passively” unless the rearward progress of the thigh is reversed quickly, which requires hip flexors. My running sources tell me the major mistake that most runners make is “excessive backkick” which can most efficiently stopped by the combination of early activation of the HF’s after push off to reverse the swing of the leg and activation of the knee flexors (or relaxation of the knee extensors) to get the foot up. This is probably most effectively done by the sartorius muscle which has both actions, not the hamstrings. Anyhow, PC’s encourage both of these motions on the backswing (and they also encourage footstrike under the center of gravity), which is why my running consultants say the reason PC’s help runners is, primarily, form inprovement.
Evolution running, pose running, chi running, etc etc etc are all terms that various coaches have developed to brand their particular variation on efficient running form. The reality is that even for people who run 20+ miles per week (which is an unfortunately small fraction of the US population) the differences between these methods are relatively minor. I believe it’s only when you are trying to eke out the last 20% of your performance potential that the details really matter, and by that point your biomechanics are far more important than any theoretical tweaks to basic, efficient running. For most of us, just going out there and running, with “good enough” form, will improve our running far more than investing time in relatively minor details.
Slowman wrote an article about this very topic in September of last year, entitled “The high cost of good form”. It’s here: http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/coachcorn/costofform.html
I wrote the attached post in June, but it’s a variation on posts that I and several others have made over the past two years, since the term “barefoot running” started becoming popular. Barefoot running really implies a forefoot strike and a number of associated changes to leg motion. I ran that way for a year, and while I was more efficient for a while, the additional stress on my muscles, ligaments and bones caused me to develop a heel spur and rather severe Plantar Fascitis. I still have trigger points (knots) in my calves that haven’t released, despite months of twice a week ART treatments that have cleared up almost everything else. I finally had to go in for a Cortizone injection to eliminate the inflamation and pain in my heel, and now I’m up to a 3.3 mile walk with several 2 minute “running” intervals after I’m good & warmed up, then 15 minutes of stretching. It’s going to be a long time before I can even consider a marathon again, let alone any triathlon longer than an Olympic. Meanwhile, I have to lose 15 pounds just to get back to my preseason weight from 2004. (And I probably have to gain 5 pounds of muscle, too, so make that 20 pounds of fat.)
Anyway, my point is to stick to the basics of good running form and don’t sweat the details. Get your ass out of bed in the morning and run. Wear appropriate running shoes fit by professionals. Replace them when they wear out. Unless you’re already in the top 20% of your age group, that alone will make you faster.
Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
The original thread is here: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=437450
Human beings evolved to run barefoot. Long before there were stability shoes, or shoes of any kind, humans were regularly running 5-15 miles every day to hunt, forage, migrate, and raid competing tribes. Over long distances, a human being can outrun a horse, an antelope, a buffalo, and almost any other animal. Native Americans had many coming of age rites that involve long distance running, including bringing down a deer barehanded. Buddhist monks in Japan continue to practice long distance running as a form of meditation and self-awareness. Our only rivals in this niche are dogs, which might explain the close relationship we enjoy with our four legged friends.
Our bodies are marvels of engineering that work best when we run as though barefoot. Try this test: find someplace with a hard floor and run a few yards in your sneakers. Chances are good that you land with your heel first, then roll onto the ball of your foot and off your big toe. Now take off your shoes and try to run the same way. If you can do it at all, you find that it hurts! Your body is not built to absorb the impact of landing on your heels first when you run. The only reason we can run this way at all is that modern shoes cushion the impact. In fact, when you run barefoot your natural tendency is to land first with the ball of your foot (that is, the bony area about an inch behind your big toe). The impact of your landing is absorbed in your calves and your quads as your heel comes down toward the ground and your knee straightens out. Study after study shows that this form of running results in greater efficiency, which means you can run faster while burning fewer calories and working at a lower heartrate. It also engages all the muscles in your foot and leg, so you naturally stabilize yourself instead of relying on your shoes for stability. Simply put, the best way to run is to run the way nature designed us.
BUT evolution does not account for our modern lifestyles. In the US, almost every child starts wearing shoes by 6 months old, and we wear shoes of various types for almost every waking moment of our lives. We also spend a large fraction of our time sitting at our desks, in cars, trains, and planes, at the table, and on the couch. And where our ancestors routinely ran long distances every day, modern Americans run only a few miles, and all but the most serious athletes run at most a few miles 3-5 times a week.
**SO **while humans evolved to run barefoot, in our modern lives we do not develop the muscle strength & flexibility, bone density, ligament strength, vascular capacity, nerve distribution, and other attributes that our ancestors developed routinely. That means that while the human body is at its most efficient when running as though barefoot, most of us lack the strength and other infrastructure to maintain that form for any length of time. While there is a vocal minority of people who have switched to running methods like Pose Running and ChiRunning with no problems, the vast majority of people who make the shift (including your humble author) end up injured, and some are unable to run at all.
So while JackRabbit recommends that everyone try to develop a more natural running form, we also recommend making the switch very slowly. When we help our customers find the right running shoes, we use our treadmill to find the shoe that results in the most natural gait – that is, the combination of forces from your feet and from the shoes result in a natural running form. Modern running shoes do a very good job supplementing the strength that our feet would have if we ran more than we do. As you run, you develop more strength in your feet and as a result you need less from your shoes. The more you can rely on your own muscles, ligaments and bones, the better runner you’ll be and the less prone you’ll be to injury.
Anyone, at any level, can develop a more natural running form. The exact program will vary depending on your level, strengths and weaknesses, and susceptibility to injury. But almost everyone can benefit from making a few changes in the way they run.
First, try taking shorter strides more frequently. Use a stopwatch and count your steps, and see if you can take 90 or more strides per minute (that is, your right foot hits the ground 90 times in 60 seconds). At first it takes a lot more effort to run that way, so try it for a few intervals during your regular runs, and gradually increase as it feels more comfortable. When you start out, each step will be shorter than it is now, and you may be slower. But as you adapt, your strides will lengthen back out and you’ll end up faster than you were.
Second, (and this is harder to describe) try to eliminate up and down motion when you run. You can do this by “squatting down” when you run, so your legs can move under your pelvis without your torso moving up and down. A good way to practice this is on an elliptical machine in your gym, where you can try to hold your torso in place while your legs move underneath you.
The third change is not for everyone. You may be able to do a small portion of your running in very lightweight shoes with little support, such as racing flats, “lightweight performance” shoes or the Nike Free. Running in less supportive shoes forces you to use all the “little” muscles in your ankles and feet that don’t get enough of a workout in normal running shoes. However, some people don’t have the strength to do even a little running without support from their shoes. There’s a reason those muscles are small, and they’re easily overworked and injured. Better to work them too little than too much. (We can help you decide if this is an experiment you should try by analyzing your form on our treadmill.)
Lastly, and only after you’ve made and adapted to all the changes described above, and only on the days when you’re running in lightweight shoes, add intervals where you land on the ball of your foot first instead of on your heel. It’s easier (and more productive) to do this running on flats or uphill than running downhill. Gradually increase the length of those intervals, being conscious that you’re using all the muscles in your leg in a completely different way and it is very, very easy to overdo it. You may feel rapid gains in the first few weeks, but don’t expect to maintain that pace of improvement. The first few weeks your calves will probably hurt; that’s natural, but it’s also your body sending you a warning that you should listen to. Ignoring the pain can lead to tendonitis, plantar fascitis, and heel spurs, all of which can hinder your development as a runner far more than you benefit from the improved form.
Recommended Reading:
Why We Run by Bernd Heinrich
Explosive Running by Michael Yessis
Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
Anyway, my point is to stick to the basics of good running form and don’t sweat the details. Get your ass out of bed in the morning and run. Wear appropriate running shoes fit by professionals. Replace them when they wear out. Unless you’re already in the top 20% of your age group, that alone will make you faster.
You have got to be kidding. Just running and putting in the miles does nothing to help the average to below average runner develope “the basics of good running form” so how are they supposed to stick to them. Most of the athletes out there have just awful running form as evidenced by the huge improvements people start to see after about 2 weeks on PC’s, even with no running.
Evolution, chi, and pose are attempts to try to get the runner to improve running form using running drills and mental focus. PC’s seem to do similar stuff without the need to run. With improved form runners will be more efficient and be able to run faster and farther (with reduced injury rates) for the same effort.
To say that concentrating on form doesn’t matter until one is trying to improve beyond the last 20% is just pure hogwash in my opinion. Concentrating on form is important for everyone.
Frank
sorry, you are right.
i was slightly intoxicated when i posted…my bad 
**You have got to be kidding. Just running and putting in the miles does nothing to help the average to below average runner develope “the basics of good running form” so how are they supposed to stick to them. **
Frank, you get a penalty for taking some text from my post out of context of the rest of the post and the rest of the thread. Two minutes in the box for you.
If you read the original post (asking about the differences between these “methods”) and read my entire post, I do emphasize running with generally good form, and spend 1/3 of my post describing some simple drills to help most runners develop better form.
**Most of the athletes out there have just awful running form as evidenced by the huge improvements people start to see after about 2 weeks on PC’s, even with no running. **
Again, the emphasis of my post is that generally decent running form is good enough for the vast majority of runners, and not sweating the details of differences between methods like Chi Running, Pose Running, Evolution Running, Barefoot Running, etc. Most runners have horrendous form because they lack muscle strength, lack range of motion, lack core strength, are overweight, or have other issues that are completely unaffected by skill training. For people in those situations, it is impossible to develop good form in their current physical condition – they need to get running with “good enough” form to develop the physical ability to run with better form. Slowman focuses on this chicken and egg issue in the article I cited.
Presumably, PowerCranks help them develop greater physical ability in terms of range of motion and muscle recruitment and probably capillarization (although that takes longer than 2 weeks) etc in the prime mover leg muscles.
Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
I am sorry but the advice of most, to whom good running form comes naturally, to those to whom it doesn’t is running speed comes from just running more. These mothods that try to teach better running form get discounted over traditional running drills that the good runners have always done and that are a mystery to everyone else (how to do them and how much to do them).
It is like a swimmer with natural good form teliing a poor swimmer the secret to swimming faster is swimming more, not spending the time to learn proper form, then doing the miles.
The best athletes are not always the best coaches, at least for the average person, since they rarely understand what it takes to turn an average athlete into an exceptional one as they have never been average.
You are correct in your assessment of why people have poor form. Unfortunately that constitutes 90% of the people in the aveage race. The real problem is how does one correct these problems. Pose, chi, evolution, are attempts to do so with equipment that everyone already has. PC’s are another way of doing it through a technological advance that requires new equipment.
I stand by my criticism of your post. I thought you implied (in the quote I highlighted) that the typical runner had good running form and they would be better off just running more and ignoring all these “fads” such as pose, chi, and evolution. I feel the average poor runner would do well to understand good running form and work to improve it, just as the average poor swiimer would do well to understand good swimming form and work to improve it. Otherwise they are doomed to be frustrated if they want to improve substantially.
Acceleration is the same but speed is not
If acceleration is the same, then speed must be too – basic kinematics.
Frank provided the correct explanation for why heavier people usually descend faster: fundamentally, it’s because the surface area of the human body increases as the square of a person’s height, whereas his mass increases as the cube, i.e., although aerodynamic drag is higher for a bigger person, his increased mass more than makes up for it.
John
I completely disagree that increasing mileage is the way to faster runs. Most of my clients run far fewer miles than most triathletes, but are some of the fastest runners in the sport. Steven Duplinsky just won Worlds on less than 4 hours per week of running. Margie Shapiro had the fastest run split at Best in the US by 45 seconds on 4 hours of running per week. Dan MacKenzie has the fastest male 20-24 run split at Lifetime Fitness by 8:02 on 5 hours per week. I believe strongly that running is about economical technique and quality training, not high volume.
I get emails every week from long time triathletes who improved from 9:30 to 8:30 per mile without increasing volume or intensity, but just by improving their technique.
To answer Frank’s question - How do you know that the Kenyans maintain hamstring relaxation as they initiate leg revovery? - I don’t. I never had access to a Kenyan champion (damn!), but analyzed video. I noticed that they have an overlap between the follow-through and leg recovery phases of their stride cycles. In other words they began driving the knee forward while the lower leg was still moving backward.
My own work with my athletes, based on my hypothesis developed from video analysis, has convinced me that using angular momentum and the hip flexor muscles to take work off the hamstrings, which are propulsive, would be more economical. We have found this to be the case. I don’t have EMG studies or any other “proof”, other than slightly reduced VO2, but I believe that relaxing the hamstrings during this phase of the stride cycle and using muscles not involved in propulsion to accomplish the heel flick gives the hamstring muscles more energy to generate propulsion through hip extension. While this intuitively makes sense, my only proof is how fast my clients run. Ken
I completely disagree that increasing mileage is the way to faster runs. Most of my clients run far fewer miles than most triathletes, but are some of the fastest runners in the sport. Steven Duplinsky just won Worlds on less than 4 hours per week of running. Margie Shapiro had the fastest run split at Best in the US by 45 seconds on 4 hours of running per week. Dan MacKenzie has the fastest male 20-24 run split at Lifetime Fitness by 8:02 on 5 hours per week. I believe strongly that running is about economical technique and quality training, not high volume.
So we can forget about the fact that Margie and Dan ran NCAA D-I XC/track and we can therefore attribute their fast run splits to their meager 4-5 hrs per week of training? As fast as they were before coming into triathlon and with thousands of fast miles already in their legs, they have a lot of room to slow down and still be among the fastest in the sport. 5 hours per week of running at 7:00 pace (probably slower than Dan runs) is still over 40 mpw. I wouldn’t say that “most” triathletes (>50%) run more mileage than this. Duplinsky is simply a supreme talent. If the rest of the Maryland HS running population started doing Evolution/Chi/whatever, he would still be winning by a lot. Someone that brilliant will be fast under any training program as long as they don’t get hurt.
Your points are valid, for sure. I’ve been fortunate to work with many very talented, smart, dedicated athletes. I don’t know how to coach DNA yet : ) , but I think there is a lot of credibility when one coach strings together a huge list of triathletes who are very fast runners - all from the Washington DC area (not exactly Boulder or San Diego). I think I’m not the only triathlon coach working with former collegiate runners or talented youngsters like Steven. Why do triathletes from Washington DC do so well at Nationals and Worlds, especially in the run? I coach a pro cycling team, yet my triathletes consistently do better on the run than on the swim or bike. Why is that? Again, I have no incontrovertable proof, but I believe that developing efficient techniques and quality running with relatively low mileage play a major role.
The one type of proof I can provide is reduced oxygen consumption at a given pace. Eric Sorensen reduced his oxygen consumption by 4.5% at LT pace and ran 5.4% faster at Nationals, on the same course, the year after I taught him Evolution Running. This was an all ACC runner who had run 90 miles per week in college and already finished top-10 at Worlds in the men’s 30-34. Dan, Margie, and Steven have all improved their economy at LT pace since I began coaching them. They run more efficiently than they did as NCAA D1 runners. That I can prove. I cannot prove that this carries over to race day.
I’m not asking everyone to buy into Evolution Running, but I do offer a lot of substatiation in the lab and at the races and I believe it will help every runner. You my not and your opinion is valid.
Ken
I like your post Lee, but I tend to disagree with one point that you commonly make, i.e. “Barefoot running really implies a forefoot strike and a number of associated changes to leg motion.”
I don’t think that the forefoot strike part is necessarily true, and I think perhaps this might be a point of focus for too many people. When I tried consciously changing my footstrike and running in flats, I hurt myself running less than a mile a couple of times a week. When I tried just running in the flats with a high cadence and not worrying about footstrike - things just kind of worked themselves out. I run in a pair of spikeless XC shoes. They have over 400 miles on them since March, and the heel is definitely more worn than the mid-foot or front part of the shoe. I should take a picture and post it. I’ve worked myself up to over 40 miles a week and a long run of 18 miles since March (the time I started experimenting with less shoe). I don’t feel the heel hitting first, I feel the pressure on the mid to forefoot, but the heel definitely comes down first as evidenced by shoe wear. By the way, I have no hints of injuries and my body feels great (after 7 years of constant running injuries, and the last 3 of feeling pain almost every day).
I love some of the things you point out about increasing cadence and working ones way into less shoe. Personally, I think that if someone wants a cheap way to work on economy and running injury free, a cadence above 180 steps per minute is the way to go. Personally, I think this reduces the need for built up shoes, and furthermore, the more built-up the shoe, the harder it is to run like this. One of the problems I feel is that people see forefoot, and barefoot, etc and don’t realize that the cadence thing is quite possibly the key. I also think it comes across as too much of a quick fix, when it isn’t at all. It’s way harder than it sounds, and I would think twice unless I was looking to breakout into some serious increases in performance, or I was constantly injured.
By the way, didn’t you have any warning signs that things were not right? I mean, to be that injured, it seems like it takes a lot of ignoring the pain…For me, I hurt myself twice early on. It was only minor stuff, but it took 3 weeks of complete rest each time to get past it. Just curious how you could get injured so badly before you stopped…And were you doing barefoot running, or running in flats, emphasizing a forefoot strike?
Interesting stuff… Old guy here with a long standing interest in improving running form. It’s all about hip strength. Any way to improve hip flexors and other hip stabilizers without PCs 
?