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Many of the current materials, claims, and website instructions on running form share one flaw. That is they don’t address the basic principles of movement directly enough and jump right into correcting the mechanics associated with skill. Here I want to draw a distinction between skills and what I am going to call pre-skills. Skills would be the specifics of good running form such as: correct arm swing, short stride with the weight bearing foot under the hip, Mid foot/forefoot/hind foot strike (depending on who you talk to), forward lean, and specifics relating to speed, strength and endurance.
Pre-skills, on the other hand, are associated with good posture and body use in general, and forms the foundation upon which skill can be easily taught and correctly learned. If these building blocks of movement have not been set, skills are incorrectly or partially learned, or remain unlearned no matter how hard you try. Also increased efforts yield diminishing returns.
These foundation principles have to do with tension and tone of the muscles and how it distributed in the body at rest and when performing, the range of motion at the joints that is normal to the body, the orientation towards the body’s center of gravity, the body’s orientation to the ground and the upright posture, natural momentum of a body moving through space, and the fluid flow of good movement.
It is these basics that precede the acquisition of specific skills always.
When teaching skills it is important to address deficiencies in the basics, which in the hands of a good instructor can be done simultaneously. So the student can be improving his foundational pre-skills while learning the specifics of the sport.
An example to illustrate this point:
Learning to run with increased tempo (faster cadence) is a goal of anyone trying to improve his or her speed. Many runners settle into a specific cadence and it takes training to change this. With good posture and form this can be easily accomplished. However when a person tends to tilt the top rim of their pelvis forward standing and walking, it is likely that this will be exaggerated in their running form (their hip will appear back when viewed from the side). This is often accompanied by a reach with the lower leg to increase the stride length because hip flexion is limited and takes more effort. If this remains unaddressed increase cadence will be difficult to learn, and will also increase pounding and the chance of injury in the process. Decreasing the pelvic tilt and stride length go hand in hand. Tempo is relatively easy to learn as these basic postural issues resolve.
Click here to learn more about good posture.
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