Pose = crazy???

Back to the original topic: I trained entirely in racing flats for the course of a 3-month buildup to 90 mile weeks. I was fine until week #12, when I got achilles tendinitis. It cost me 3 days of rest and $85 worth of active release therapy. Now I can handle 70-mile weeks again as long as I use trainers. Should I go back to minimalism, or should I take my injury as a sign that I can't handle it?

"Back to the original topic: I trained entirely in racing flats for the course of a 3-month buildup to 90 mile weeks. I was fine until week #12, when I got achilles tendinitis. It cost me 3 days of rest and $85 worth of active release therapy. Now I can handle 70-mile weeks again as long as I use trainers. Should I go back to minimalism, or should I take my injury as a sign that I can't handle it?"

If something happens "after it", it's not always " due to it". The cause of you problem might be (I'm only speculating) due to:

1. Too much too soon.

2. Using old running technique with new shoes.

3. Since it's damn hard to heel strike in minimalist shoes, maybe you started running on your toes , which is wrong. Actively landing on your toes is a recipe for achilles and calf problems, especially if you land on your toes ahead of your gravity center.

"Fundamental undeniable physics dictates that you can not fall up the hill. You MUST be pushing in order the generate consistent forward motion."

"fundamental undeniable physics" - this wording very much ressembles me people who, wanting their statements to have more weight, say: "everyone knows it".

"you can not fall up the hill"

Tell a yachtsman that he can't sail against the wind.

"You MUST be pushing in order the generate consistent forward motion."

Tell a yachtsman that the wind MUST be blowing from behind in order to generate forward motion. And tell him this is based on "fundamental undeniable physics". And if he says that sailing against the wind is possible and works for him, tell him he is just misleading and ( just remembered the word), SCAMMING people, cuz it's just a cult of his.

Bad analogy.

A sailing boat is able to sail into the wind because of the deisign of the sails and hull etc, but it is still being pushed by the wind.

You are quite patronising Asterix, I do not ge in to arguments with people who have closed minds I am so sorry>

"Motion is created by the destruction of balance, that is, of equality of weight, for nothing can move by itself, which does not leave its state of balance, and that thing moves most rapidly, which is furthest from its balance." - Leonardo da Vinci

You lean to dall and you have the destruction of balance!

"It seems to me that the act of progression itself - whether it be by flight through the air or by such movements as running over surface of the ground-consists essentially in a movement in which the center of gravity of the body is allowed to fall forwards and downwards under the action of gravity, and in which the momentum thus gained is used forward, so that from one point in the cycle to the corresponding point in the next, no work is done (theoretically), but the mass of the individual is, in effect, moved horizontally through the environment". - Graham Brown, 1912

just a few quotes for you

"Bad analogy.

A sailing boat is able to sail into the wind because of the deisign of the sails and hull etc, but it is still being pushed by the wind."

Good analogy, cuz the direction of the wind doesn't change, you are just harnessing it to suit your needs, and this is only about 30% the desingn of the sail, and the rest is how you mastered the technique - how you hold the sail, how you find the sweet spot to put your ass in the boat, you must have the feel of how far forward you shoud center the boat to be able to sail into the wind at the sharpest possible angle - this is all about perception, like in Pose. The same with gravity in pose running - it pulls you down, but you harness it you propel you forward. The cornerstone of anti-pose ideology is that the push-off is necessary to counter the action of gravity. In sailing it would mean you would be looking for something to push off to counter the force of the wind, otherwise it would be impossible to sail into the wind.

lara-

Nice misuse/misunderstanding of quotes. Leonardo appears to be talking about unbalanced forces which naturally results in motion. While falling implies a loss of balance, it does not follow that one call fall horizontally in perpetuity.

As far as the Brown quote is concerned, it is in perfect agreement with what the physics folks have been saying (in fact, I believe I stated pretty much the same thing in another Pose thread), that running involves the use of momentum and gravity, ideally trading off energy in one form to another. The "problem" here is that you have (conveniently) ignored the "theoretically" part of the quote. That is, if we had a perfectly lossless system, the energy imparted by the initial stride would be translated back and forth between potential and kinetic energy. In other words, as you fell from the apex of your stride, that energy would be captured perfectly upon landing, and used to propel yourself back into the next stride, and the process would repeat. That's the idealization. The problem is that you don't have a perfectly lossless system, thus a continuous application of force is required (on each stride) in order to maintain forward motion.

Let me be very clear on this point. No one is saying that you don't "fall" while running or that no energy is involved in the process. What is being stated is that due to the losses in the mechanical system, the energy "gained" by the fall is insufficient to propel through the next stride. Energy must be added (in the form of a push-off) in order to bring you back to the same exact height that you had on the previous stride. If you drop a rubber ball on a hard surface, each bounce will produce a lower height than the previous due to the losses in the system. In order to have the ball bounce forever at the same height, you'd have to design a completely lossless system (not possible) or give the ball a little energy (a nudge if you will) on each bounce.

Gatorade-

Actually, the sailboat/wind analogy does NOT work for you for one simple reason: Classical mechanics explains perfectly well the way in which the boat moves. In fact, designers of such craft rely on physics to optimize the performance of said craft. In contrast, your conjecture of how Pose works is NOT supported by classical mechanics as outlined above. All you have shown is that your command of mechanics is insufficient in these areas.

Lara,

There is a world of difference between disagreeing with someone and patronising them. Gatorade has put forward various propositions that Asterix and others have refuted in the spirit of a lively and robust debate. In fact the only person so far, to post a genuinely offensive posting is Gatorade himself.

The problem with the accusing people of having closed minds is that both sides of the argument probably feel the same way about each other.

So when you said "Haile Gereselassie is running almost perfect pose", you didn't ACTUALLY mean that Geb was running almost perfect POSE because 'almost perfect' means that he has one tiny, insignificant difference from POSE which can be corrected in a straightforward manner.

If you got 99% on your history exam ('almost perfect') all it would take would be to change your multiple choice answer 5b) to 5c) and you'd get 100%.

If I may be so bold as to attempt to interpret what you said, rather than "Haile Gereselassie is running almost perfect pose", it should read "Haile Gereselassie is running pose-like in that he lands on his forefoot and quickly snaps his foot off the ground. His powerful push-off though is very much in contradiction to POSE teaching and so his overall running process is quite dissimilar to POSE."

And you further wrote:

Well it all depends on what exists to back it up. I can, for example direct you to section 5 (Forces and Motion I) of Halliday and Resnick's 'Fundamentals of Physics', Third Edition. It explains Newton's First, Second and Third Laws and their application with force and mass.

Newton's Laws are "fundamental undeniable physics". I'm sorry you missed that class.

If you are not familiar with how these laws are applied to when it comes to sailing, I can point you to

Once you've read that, you can try the first link at the bottom and put your new knowledge into practice with a rather near sailing simulator:

Try and sail directly into the wind. Then try tacking as described in the first article.

JimFiore - I fully agree with you until here

"Energy must be added (in the form of a push-off) in order to bring you back to the same exact height that you had on the previous stride."

Yes, pushing off actively works because the ground is solid and will provide a nearly equally strong force into the opposite direction, i.e. forward and upward. But why shouldn't it be possible to apply a force which acts in this direction by pulling the foot actively from the ground? You definitely need to apply a force to get the feed from the ground and keep the forward momentum. Compare it to jumping in-place. You can gain height by straightening your legs to push-off. But it also works to rapidly contract the hamstrings to pull-off.

lara wrote:

You are quite patronising Asterix, I do not ge in to arguments with people who have closed minds I am so sorry>

JimFiore has already identified the flaws in your application of those quotes, although I strongly suspect you didn't really understand them in the first place and just lifted them from somewhere.

Sure it's patronising. How else is one supposed to present things when the recipient refuses to acknowledge basic facts, when they change their line of argument as the preceeding one is deconstructed and consistently sticks to a thought process of 'I don't understand the science, but you are being closed minded'?

Perhaps I'd have more patience with a 10 year old, as it would be understandable if they don't fully grasp elementary physics. But I took the liberty of assuming you were older than that and should be capable of understanding easily explained processes, phenomena and logic.

If you still do not understand the physics, then maybe you need to stop opening yourself up to public critique. You've been given some good starting points to pick up some knowledge. Open any basic physics text book and read the sections on Newton's laws of motion. Then try and apply them to the official descriptions of POSE. Ask a POSE certified expert to explain the things that don't jive. Re-read this and other Letsrun POSE threads where every one of those contradictions is covered. Then feel free to ask for clarification on anything you still don't understand.

My 2 cents wrote:

But why shouldn't it be possible to apply a force which acts in this direction by pulling the foot actively from the ground?

Draw a force diagram and see if it is possible for the hamstring contraction to generate a net force acting in a direction somewhere between the horizontal and vertical and through the body's center of mass.

Asterix -

Provided that the leg is bent while being in contact with the ground, a contraction of the hamstring muscle will further decrease the angle between thigh and calf. If the force is strong enough you will break the ground contact and if you at least maintain the vertical position of your body while the leg(s) are moving slightly upwards then your general center of mass will move up. Try it with both feet on the ground while standing and you will see that it works... You would need some force to break the ground contact and move the GCM up, wouldn't you?

My 2 cents wrote:

Provided that the leg is bent while being in contact with the ground, a contraction of the hamstring muscle will further decrease the angle between thigh and calf. If the force is strong enough you will break the ground contact and if you at least maintain the vertical position of your body while the leg(s) are moving slightly upwards then your general center of mass will move up.

I don't get this. By lifting your foot (contraction of the hamstring to pull it off the ground), you are countering the force of gravity acting on your foot. The net force acting on your leg below the knee is in the vertical direction and pointing up due to the torque applied by your hamstring.

Acting on your whole body is a net force of gravity pulling you down to the ground (NOT forward). You must get your other leg underneath you to absorb this drop and counter it with a net vertical force so you can continue the cycle.

In order to raise your center of mass, you need to direct a force with a net downards vector through your foot. This is only achievable by extending the knee (hamstrings are NOT contracting) and then flexing the ankle.

Unless you want to fall forward flat on your face. In which case by all means, don't push.

Asterix wrote:

I don't get this.

Ok, then forget it. I don't bother.

My 2 cents wrote:

Ok, then forget it. I don't bother.

'This' referred to your suggested scenario, not what followed. Guess I should have used better paragraph structure.

Gatorade wrote:

"fundamental undeniable physics" - this wording very much ressembles me people who, wanting their statements to have more weight, say: "everyone knows it".

It reminds me of people who actually managed to pass physics class. No wonder it seems alien to you.

Tell a yachtsman that the wind MUST be blowing from behind in order to generate forward motion

I won't tell a Yachtsman he can't sail against the wind since wind is a force which may be harnessed and redirected by a simple piece of cloth. Gravity, sadly is not or you would see the next space shuttle launch assisted by a 3 mile long "gravity sail"

How silly of those NASA scientists. If only they followed the POSE method, they could make the space shuttle "fall" into space

Time to pack in son. You're grasping at straws now.

Aristotle33333 wrote:

Back to the original topic: I trained entirely in racing flats for the course of a 3-month buildup to 90 mile weeks. I was fine until week #12, when I got achilles tendinitis. It cost me 3 days of rest and $85 worth of active release therapy. Now I can handle 70-mile weeks again as long as I use trainers. Should I go back to minimalism, or should I take my injury as a sign that I can't handle it?

I ran in trainers for my first few years of running and was constantly injured. I switched to flats and *gasp* barefoot running for a summer, and I haven't looked back. Now that I run a lot on pavement, I don't do much barefoot, but I'm still in flats.

I am rarely injured, even at 90mpw, and I am running faster than I ever have before. Minimalism (combined with more miles) works for me.

"How silly of those NASA scientists. If only they followed the POSE method, they could make the space shuttle "fall" into space"

OH MAN that made my day ghajajajahhahahahahahahah