Is Chi Running Still a Thing?

I thought Chi running was a scam "invented" by some guy who wrote a couple of books about it.

When I heard about it at first, it sounded cool. Reading one of the books I realized it was all BS.

I remember an old lady in my running club swore by it in the early 2000's. If I'm not mistaken, the main principle is that you try to use gravity to it's advantage by leaning forward?

I'll go with scam.

Slow people who get injured often thought it was the solution. I have no idea if it was or not.

Watched a quick youtube vid just to see what it is. Kinda just looks like normal running posture for fast runners? Nothing new.

quite a bit of research done on Chi, Pose running, etc, all shows the same thing - no effect or slower running.

One example,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26816209
"Interventions concerned with instructing runners to retrain their running biomechanics towards a specific global running technique, such as Pose, Chi and midstance to midstance running, has generally resulted in either no improvement in RE [62, 85] or a worsening of RE [157]."

So I think all those things just faded away, like the barefoot shoes etc etc.

Just shifts stresses to different muscle groups, so... might help something that ails you, but at the expense of probably finding a new problem area. For instance, trade shin splints (microtears) for strained calf muscles. Or, trade hip problems for knee problems, or back strain.

Yakob looks like he is a disciple, of Pose anyway.

It's a good solution to all the toe prancing beginners out there. For whatever reason, people starting out these days all prance around on their toes. I don't get it.

It’s because of bad interpretation. “Run in your toes “ or whatever garbage.

I did try chi running like 15 years ago, and I think his teaching is incorrect. One example is that he tells you to lean forward to run faster. And if you want to run even faster, keep leaning forward and kick back as far as possible. I think it’s incorrect to be leaning too forward and I think best runners are actually more upright.

Also, I remember him teaching that you should be running in a straight line as possible like running on a tight rope. I think this in incorrect as well where that would put unnecessary stress on your knees. I think it’s more correct to have your knees slightly more outward as that’s more of a natural running than to have your knees go inward.

One other part I remember is he teaches you when you run down the hill, you should lean backwards and land on your heels.

Those are some of the parts I recall from his book. I remember trying them out and it’s definitely a gimmick.

Pose Running

Chi Running

Gallowalking

Barefoot Running/Vibram toe glove running

What other fads am I missing?

Running in general.

Physics would say that there is no way to use gravity, a downward force, to generate forward momentum, so simplistic catchphrases like “falling forward” are just misguided or meaningless. We don’t fall forward while running except exactly once at the start of the run. Subsequently, all humans run by maintaining a steady forward lean, not by repeatedly going back and falling forward again.

The above doesn’t mean that gravity isn’t useful in running at all, rather no one really knows whether one would, with sufficient training, be faster or slower running say on the moon. It comes down to a complex interaction between airborne time, air resistance, and muscular strength adaptation over time. For example, with zero gravity (like outer space but hypothetically on a surface say), one would be slower because you’d never come back down to the ground once you take off and air resistance if any will eventually slow you down to a suspended halt.

Yup - a whole bunch of new runners think heel striking is the worst thing ever, and so program themselves to run on their toes instead.

Perhaps it gets very unfit people to be able to relax when they try to go for a run so that they do not go out too fast and they are better able to enjoy the running & stay injury free

obsessing over mm drop.

Newtons

Yeah, it does make you a lot better… but they banned it… soon they are going to ban running barefoot … those are the secrets… when I first heard about chi running, those were the best days of running for me…