Pose = crazy???

astupidquestion wrote:

why argue with these POSE morons?

The problem, as evidenced in numerous areas beyond just running, is that moronosity can be contageous if not properly identified and contained.

Without contrary information, too many people will fall for that schtick. Why do you think you still get emails from Prince Mombasa of Nigeria?

You bring up a very valid point Asterix, but I am reminded of something a friend of mine used to say. Suppose you had a child who kept reaching for the hot stove in spite of you repeatedly telling him not to. My friend said that while I (and most people) would probably either swat the kid or banish him to another room after some time, he would just let the kid touch the oven and burn himself. While it sounds cruel, he defended it by saying that the kid will learn two very valuable lessons. 1) The stove is hot and can burn you, and 2) listen to me when I warn you about something.

The "problem" I have with the whole Pose "free forward movement via gravity" conjecture (I use the word "conjecture" in the scientific sense as it does not reach the level of "hypothesis" and certainly not "theory", two terms that are inappropriate for Pose) is the utter disregard for basic physics. There is a sort of anti-intellectual streak here, a sort of "we found a way around the laws of physics" kind of thinking (or perhaps just complete ignorance of those laws). It's like a new age "crystal" mentality. Never mind all the wonderful things that science has made possible for you, if it's inconvenient, belittle it and toss it aside! That attitude says much more to me than anything else, and I would be equally appalled if it was applied to skating or tiddly-winks or whatever.

" Again, back to the elite runners like Geb. He is most definitely pushing off very strongly and yet is not continually braking by landing out in front."

You have to do two things:

1. Watch Geb running frame by frame. See, his rear knee and ankle never straightens.

2. Try to run "pushing off" without straightening the rear knee and ankle. I bet you'll have a hard time doing this.

"I assume you just made up that 90% figure as I have a hard time grasping how someone could 'push' 90% less and still perform anything approaching running"

Of course I made 90% up - just as an example. In reality it might be even 95%, LOL. Concerning hard time grasping - I see you do. Just try running in place, thinking about lifting the foot up, and then make a very slight lean forward DOING EXACTLY THE SAME WITH YOUR FEET - you are running without pushing. If you have a hard time grasping how gravity driver you forward - imagine an unicyclist.

Gatorade,

You are talking to a brick wall with good old Jimmy, and Asterix. They are to knowledeable for us "POSE" followers :):)Best of luck with your running fellows!!

Gatorade wrote:

If you have a hard time grasping how gravity driver you forward - imagine an unicyclist.

Ok, I'm imagining an unicyclist. I see this person leaning whichever way is neccesary to keep his balance and then peddling to move forward. As for running in place... if you lean forward while running in place you can still run in place. You move forward when you PUSH! If you lean foward to the point where you actually do start moving forward then you're out of balance and your running will resemble more that of a special olympics race.

Even if your idea of leaning forward was true, it is not GRAVITY that is pulling you forward. Gravity is still pulling you DOWN but it is your brain that is telling your legs to go forward so that you don't fall on your face.

I still believe that the fastest way from A to B would come from pushing.

You mean frames like:

(looks pretty much to me that he's got full knee extension and ankle flexion)

(full knee flexion and ankle is in the process of flexing during push-off)

(similar to previous, full knee extension and ankle nearly completely flexed)

Then there's:

where, if I'm not mistaken, all three have their center of gravity a heck of a lot higher than it could ever get if all they were doing is falling forward with no push-off (and Geb's position is such that it is evident he is just beginning to 'pull' his leg through after full knee extension and a powerful push-off).

Maybe if I'm jogging, I'm not going to be fully extending my knee. But consider this, everyone runs with pretty much the same stride frequency and all that changes when they speed it up or slow it down is their stride length. When I want to increase my stride length (but maintain stride rate), I simply push-off more. Doesn't take much pushing to result in fully extending the knee.

Try sprinting without straightening the rear knee and ankle. I bet you'll have a hard (impossible) time doing this.

I'd have thought you would have realized by now that I'm a logical and analytical type of guy. If you want to throw numbers around, make sure you can back them up. 87% of people I meet figure this out if they want to communicate effectively to me.

I'm just working with what I'm given. You say Geb runs POSE and tell me to look at individual frames, I did that and something doesn't quite fit with your description (see above).

If POSE adherents are wrong about something so easily proven otherwise, how can I take anything they say with any credibility?

I'd suggest you review previous POSE threads as this specific issue has been flogged many times before. Physics just does not work that way. You can not lean forward and end up running WITHOUT pushing. Any 'falling forward' you do will have to be counteracted by an equal magnitude of 'falling upwards' and I've yet to see a POSER or anyone else come up with such a refutation of the theory of gravity. I'm sure there's a Nobel in there if you can prove that one.

Jhuffman wrote:

They are to knowledeable for us "POSE" followers

I think I'll take that as a compliment.

"imagine an unicyclist."

hahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahah

I just did... he fell flat on his face

thanks for the funny mental image

JimFiore wrote:

You bring up a very valid point Asterix, but I am reminded of something a friend of mine used to say. Suppose you had a child who kept reaching for the hot stove in spite of you repeatedly telling him not to. My friend said that while I (and most people) would probably either swat the kid or banish him to another room after some time, he would just let the kid touch the oven and burn himself. While it sounds cruel, he defended it by saying that the kid will learn two very valuable lessons. 1) The stove is hot and can burn you, and 2) listen to me when I warn you about something.

I don't know if that analogy is quite valid with this subject. While those brainwashed into POSE may be harming themselves by giving up their intellectual competency, they are unlikely to realize they've been 'burned' and so be able to learn from their mistake the way one gets hurt touching a hot stove.

Despite anecdotal accounts posted here previously about injuries that occured from trying POSE, I'm not convinced there is a higher risk of injury than any reasonably intense training program.

What the converts miss aside from an understanding of physics and intellectual honesty (and the dollars spent in the process), is the opportunity to achieve the highest possible level of performance (since it has been shown quite extensively that despite claims to the contrary, no top level runner runs POSE as described). But that is something they'll likely never realize.

Pose is for those runners who bought into the shoe company crap about motion control, landing on the heel, etc. So if you ran college track, you already know how to run. If you took up running later in life and listened to all those shoe company ads, you might need prose to learn how to run correctly. Shoes are the number one cause of leg injury to runners. If you have a stress fracture, it was probably CAUSED by the various motion control and cushioning devices in your shoes.

Asterix: True, they may never realize that they've been burned but if you try to wake up every cultist you'd never get to sleep yourself. As the old saying goes "They pays their money and they makes their choice." It's the anti-intellectual stance and thought process that bothers me, and more specifically, the spreading of it that I wish to squash. I think it's important for the newbie to hear the logical reasons why the "free energy from gravity" argument of Posers is hogwash. If they buy into the cult, well, ultimately that's their choice and I won't take it further. To me, it's no different than any other religion. I don't care if someone prays to a six foot tall styrofoam locust but when he comes to my house, tells me I'm wrong for not believing in it, and then demands that it be taught in my local school's science classroom, I'm going to get pissed and plenty vocal about it.

This, I love though:

"They are to knowledeable for us "POSE" followers" -jHuffman

Apparently, this is true on several levels.

OK so I completly agree with the first half of you post.

It goes downhill from there.... Saying that shoes are the #1 cause of leg injury- dubious at best, and if it is true then it dosn't really help your point. While there are some people in motion control shoes that don't need them I would say that at least an equal number of people are the opposite and have injuries due to not having shoes which control flexibility in the foot. Minimalists will cringe at the thought of a motion control shoe helping anyone, but trust me we see thousands of people each year in our running store who rely on motion control shoes to keep them injury free.

Also.... you CANNOT say that motion control and cushioning devices cause most stress fractures, this is completly incorrect and completly ridiculous. Most stress fractures are in fact caused by hard surfaces, lots of miles (esp. increasing milage too fast), poor nutrition (coke instead of milk), and/or old shoes. You can ask ANY running-specialty doctor and they will agree with this.

JimFiore wrote:

If they buy into the cult, well, ultimately that's their choice and I won't take it further.

In full agreement. I don't hang out on their message board pointing out their flawed reasoning (although it does provide good cites for letsrun threads - POSE shotput still gets me).

But if they bring their drivel here, then it is fair game to be countered with logic and knowledeable facts.

Asterix,

Thank you for providing those references of Geb running to explain your point. You have confirmed to me what I thought intuitively, but didn’t have the technical knowledge to back up.

I would definitely be in the category of the runner that Jimfiore describes, in that I came to running later in life without a background of school athletics. After several years of heal striking and a few “respectable”, but certainly not fast marathons I wanted to improve my form. I never felt that pose was the definitive answer, but I felt that I might get something from it. I was uncomfortable with the cultishness of it from the start. All in all it was a very frustrating experience. At first my feeling was that although some of the propositions seemed illogical, maybe they knew something I didn’t and I was just not getting it. Maybe there was a method in their madness? During a period of about eighteen months to two years I fluctuated between the thought that I should give it one more try and thinking that it was all a load of rubbish. Eventually, after numerous niggling injuries I had a bad case of achilles tendonitis and I came to the latter view. One of the problems during this time was that there were runners who I knew and liked as people who were, and still are proponents.

I frequently questioned the impossibility of some of the assertions made by pose on their forum and the result was always a strange kind of circular argument, which really didn’t help at all. At one point I did point out that too many people seemed to treat pose as a kind of religion. As you can imagine this did not receive a very good response. One reply put forward the idea that they had the perfect model, so why was I questioning it?

The annoying thing is, of course that a “perfect model” if it existed would be enormously attractive, so it’s easy to see why this kind of thing is so seductive.

What did I get out of pose? Well, I was able to convert to forefoot striking, which works for me, but it was a very long and circuitous route to get there.

"http://www.sport.be/fotospecial/fotos/2057/bekelegebre.jpg"

Well, if in the last photo you consider the rear knee straight - you need an oculist. Concerning other photos - front view doesn't show much about the subject. In order to understand what I say you should look not the photos, but a motion picture frame by frame.

Concerning the unicyclist landing on his face - well, it's lots of fun, cuz from what I saw in circus I don't remember one landing this way - on the contrary they are abe to ride quite well . But perhaps the guy saw only the ones who fell on their faces, so he is talking based on his experience.

Concerning other arguments ( like pose being like a religion, cult, a way to brainwash people, etc) - it very much resembles me the times when people thought that the Earth was flat, and since the majority thought so, it was "normal" to think this way, and there were multiple "proofs" to prove it. All I can say that in every field of human life progress is NOT driven by the majority.

spokompton wrote:

Dav-man,

IMO I think it's personal preference, as long as you are not smashing your heal into the ground. As others have mentioned, many of the greatest of all time seem to land closer to their forefoot.

Thanks. I was a heel-striker/overstrider and I changed my form to a midfoot strike, under the body. I got on the treadmill tonight and experimented with a slightly forefoot strike and it actually felt better than the midfoot - kind of "springy.". I'll take it to the street to see how it works.

I was very scepticle, as well, didnt really look into the science part, after ordering the book, just wanted to get on with it, as alot of running books, tell you about technique and the benefits of improving it.

I used to run extremeley competitivley from 9- 17years of age, I ran for my county, but from 17 on I was plagued with injuries, and operations, I took time out to start a family, and on returning to the running, for fitness and weight loss, returns the old injuries.

I searched on the internet and came across the pose method, and ordered the book this is 3 years ago.

I tried to do pose on my own, and succeeded for 6 months, doing a 10k, in 39 mins, with a very sore achilles tendonitis. So I emaile don pose forum, to my surprise I was doing 1-2 things wrong, by this time, I couldnt run, tendonitis was sore to touch, never mind run. I booked on a clinic, much to my hubbys dismay. After 2 days I could run 3k, with nothing hurting, so I pursued, my training and did very well, xcountry season, our team won, I was always in the top10, for the Mid-lancashire league.

Still training, and after a few problems, due to not doing any strength work what so ever, I am still running and can do over 50 miles a week, with speed, and intervals, and looking at doing my next 10k in 38 mins, next year I aim for under 37 mins. and going to do track.

Forget all the science, that is to try and help some people accept the method, at the end of the day it is not a cult but a way of teaching people to run with the best biomechanics as possible. Like teaching someone to play tennis. You will find pose is quite accepted in the triathlon as they know they need technique for swimming and cycling so why not for running.

Jimmy/Asterix,

You guy's would make a great COMEDY duo. You guy's should take your act on the road.

Well, this is all very interesting.

Gaterade tells us that pose is not a cult whilst exhibiting all of the characteristics of a cult follower. His critique of Geb’s running is virtually a word for word repeat of Dr Romanovs’s “analysis” of a small section from the film “Endurance” in which Geb is seen on a training run – clearly not running fast, by his standards. I think the flat Earth cliché is getting a bit tired now! Gatorade: Please say something original.

Jhuffman once again, unable to win an argument has resorted to abuse.

Sorry guys you’re not very convincing.