Jack Gray, low mileage (30-40 mpw) sometimes 40-50 for limited periods. 28:27/10,000.
I’m thinking how does a guy with that kind of style run so fast? Counterintuitive.
Jack Gray, 28:27, most bizarre style for elite runner
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1) There was a thread about this last week
2) His mileage isn't that low. The article you're referring too was taken out of context.
3) His 'bizarre style' is only not bending his arms more. His legs move normally, Mantz has a more bizarre style and still manages to run pretty damn well = get over it.
4) What possible genuine answer were you looking for/expecting, by asking loads of anonymous message board accounts how a 28min guy runs the way he does2129 -
getalifeman wrote:
1) There was a thread about this last week
2) His mileage isn't that low. The article you're referring too was taken out of context.
3) His 'bizarre style' is only not bending his arms more. His legs move normally, Mantz has a more bizarre style and still manages to run pretty damn well = get over it.
4) What possible genuine answer were you looking for/expecting, by asking loads of anonymous message board accounts how a 28min guy runs the way he doesI prefer/think Mantz's style/technique is more efficient. Conner's foot placement, pigeon toed, is unusual, but many sprinters run this way - not necessarily a bad thing. Jack Gray appears to waste so much energy from his arms, but perhaps that is optically misleading.
Salazar made some technique adjustments for Ritz which might have helped him run 12:56, but following those adjustments Ritz got injured.
In the final analysis, changing someone's technique is perhaps counter productive once the tutee has reached a certain age.
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Ghost1 wrote:
Jack Gray, low mileage (30-40 mpw) sometimes 40-50 for limited periods. 28:27/10,000.
I’m thinking how does a guy with that kind of style run so fast? Counterintuitive.
A 28:27 guy isn't an elite.
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this just in... wrote:
Ghost1 wrote:
Jack Gray, low mileage (30-40 mpw) sometimes 40-50 for limited periods. 28:27/10,000.
I’m thinking how does a guy with that kind of style run so fast? Counterintuitive.
A 28:27 guy isn't an elite.
It is elite in most people's eyes. National teams in most countries. This British runner, with the ungainly arm action is a full time worker, so it could be argued that he's an amateur runner. Semantics may lead to confusion.
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There was a bourbon ad in Australia back in the mid-2000s that referred to "The Cougar". Dude reminds me of the running action depicted at about 20 seconds in.
Also, I've always thought of Mantz as a little Shetland pony, the way he canters along with his knock-knees.
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Ghost1 wrote:
Jack Gray appears to waste so much energy from his arms, but perhaps that is optically misleading.
The answer is that what your arms are doing doesn’t really matter. He isn’t really wasting energy.
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Your arms while running mainly act as a counter balance to keep you aligned while running. If this is his natural form then it's totally possible his arms flailing a bit and going so low is what's needed with his physiology and gait to keep his stride smooth. Maybe it could be optimized, maybe not. I'm curious if he's ever thought about or done a half or full marathon and if his arms got pretty tired during one.
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Dude should try some upper extremity-focused Rolfing, deep-tissue massage, maybe Botox injections in those tight muscles. Next thing you know he'll be running like those Japanese women with their arms hanging at their sides like zombies.
Well, most likely, he should just forget about it and run, baby, run!!! See this article on the unimportance of armswing:
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Grassrunner wrote:
...See this article on the unimportance of armswing:Grassrunner, thanks for pointing out that article. If you read the , you see that they only studied a 30 meter sprint, far too short to determine if arm swinging affects distance running. And even for 30 meters, the non-arm-swingers were "only" 1.65% slower. That would be about 30 seconds, for a 30 minute run, which is a big deal at the elite level. But as I said before, it is not reasonable to extrapolate from 30m to 10km. This is not to criticize their study, which is interesting.A more relevant article is (Arellano & Kram, 2014) which shows that arm swinging does affect running efficiency. Their subjects ran for 7 minutes, not 5-8 seconds. And they actually measured vO2 and determined running efficiency, unlike the 30 m sprint study. They found normal arm swinging reduces oxygen demand, compared to three types of abnormal arm swinging. I.e. normal arm-swinging is more efficient. These results are consistent with many earlier studies which show running efficiency is worse when the arms do not swing.This post was edited 3 minutes after it was posted.60 -
Grassrunner wrote:
Dude should try some upper extremity-focused Rolfing, deep-tissue massage, maybe Botox injections in those tight muscles. Next thing you know he'll be running like those Japanese women with their arms hanging at their sides like zombies.
Well, most likely, he should just forget about it and run, baby, run!!! See this article on the unimportance of armswing:
Those were Chinese women, not Japanese, with the super low arm carriage. In the photo, a female Chinese elite woman, named Sun, with a 2:22:00 marathon best, long before Supershoes.
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He's got great front side mechanics.
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Grassrunner wrote:
Dude should try some upper extremity-focused Rolfing, deep-tissue massage, maybe Botox injections in those tight muscles. Next thing you know he'll be running like those Japanese women with their arms hanging at their sides like zombies.
Well, most likely, he should just forget about it and run, baby, run!!! See this article on the unimportance of armswing:
That's actually a photo of Chinese runner Sun Yingjie from about twenty years ago. I still find her form to be the most annoying of any world-class runner, and was thrilled to see her busted for doping in late 2005, keeping her out of competition for two years. She returned to competition in early 2008, but never returned to international-caliber form, thereby sparing the world from seeing her run again at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Perhaps the most unusual running form I recall of a truly great world-class runner was that of 5000m Olympic champ and four-time world cross champ John Ngugi, whose extremely long stride and pendulous arm swing made him look much slower than he actually was. If you watch some of his greatest cross-country races (especially, I think, the snowy world championship in Boston's Franklin Park), you will see that he appeared to be jogging throughout the race, even as he built up a massive lead over the world-class field. Although others thought that his form was ungainly (I believe his nickname early on was "the donkey," I thought it was beautiful, and he is still perhaps my all-time favorite runner to watch.
Jack Gray's running form does not seem especially unusual for a middle-distance runner; it reminds me very much of the form of former 1000m world-record holder Rick Wohlhuter, and perhaps also the 1000m form of Seb Coe (who broke Wohlhuter's WR). Maybe a bit more unusual if sustained for a full 10,000m or (especially) marathon, but I don't know what his form looks like over those distances.
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Assuming his full name is John Gray, it would be interesting to match him up over 10k against John Gray the legendary 800 runner.
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Ghost1 wrote:
Grassrunner wrote:
Dude should try some upper extremity-focused Rolfing, deep-tissue massage, maybe Botox injections in those tight muscles. Next thing you know he'll be running like those Japanese women with their arms hanging at their sides like zombies.
Well, most likely, he should just forget about it and run, baby, run!!! See this article on the unimportance of armswing:
Those were Chinese women, not Japanese, with the super low arm carriage. In the photo, a female Chinese elite woman, named Sun, with a 2:22:00 marathon best, long before Supershoes.
Here ya go, Japanese, too:
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rosewc wrote:
Grassrunner wrote:
...See this article on the unimportance of armswing:Grassrunner, thanks for pointing out that article. If you read the , you see that they only studied a 30 meter sprint, far too short to determine if arm swinging affects distance running. And even for 30 meters, the non-arm-swingers were "only" 1.65% slower. That would be about 30 seconds, for a 30 minute run, which is a big deal at the elite level. But as I said before, it is not reasonable to extrapolate from 30m to 10km. This is not to criticize their study, which is interesting.A more relevant article is (Arellano & Kram, 2014) which shows that arm swinging does affect running efficiency. Their subjects ran for 7 minutes, not 5-8 seconds. And they actually measured vO2 and determined running efficiency, unlike the 30 m sprint study. They found normal arm swinging reduces oxygen demand, compared to three types of abnormal arm swinging. I.e. normal arm-swinging is more efficient. These results are consistent with many earlier studies which show running efficiency is worse when the arms do not swing.I agree, not a relevant article to the discussion here. More to the point is not to worry about arm swing, just running how comes naturally regarding arm swing is probably best in most cases - kinda my point with "just run, baby, run". Here is a better article supporting this thought.
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