Pose Method

we saw your first message

Thanks for answering the question, asshole.

just make a new thread again. maybe this time, someone will answer it!

Yes, good example. The leg swings out like that due to the velocity he is running at.

Remember that Pose is not a new way of running, but is based on an analysis of how the best runners run (combiend with other factors too). What is new is the breaking down of what makes a running style good and the drills that teach the body to achieve it.

But, what the poster is pointing out is: Dr "POSE" (order your T-shirts now!) says that the ankle should pull straight up from the ground immediately after contact, pretty much only using your hamstrings to ?pull? ankle/foot vertically straight off the ground. Based on that description, I picture a very short stride, with extremely little hip flexor usage pulling the leg backwards horizontally. But when actually watching Lagat and other great runners, clearly the foot/ankle odes not pull STRAIGHT up off the ground, and the hip flexors are utilized to first pull the leg backwards prior to push off(leaving the ground). Now maybe Dr Pose is just trying to stress a short ground contact (fine), and emphasizing hamstring contraction over hip flexor action, and sure at faster speeds maybe there is no way to pull ankle straight up off ground as he is suggesting we attempt (but he still thinks the key is TRYING to do so), but, despite all that?.I STILL say his description of what the ankle and foot should attempt to do after contact with the ground (pull STRAIGHT up immediately) is a little off. I believe one does want to use some hip flexor action to pull the leg backwards and then allow the ankle to flow backwards horizontally as it also rises vertically. I think Dr Pose is overemphasizing this immediate vertical action of the ankle/foot and the hamstring use in his description of/prescription for the perfect running stride.

What do others think? What am I missing? Who am I? What am I doing here?

Exactly. Lagat's foot is moving in a circular path behind him to go from footstrike to fully bent, rather than straight up.

I think Dr. Pose's method only works if one is running in place, or trying to do those poses. If we simply were hopping from one leg to another, letting gravity drop the ankle down, and then picking it up, we wouldn't be going anywhere. In order to generate enough forward momentum, there has to be some horizontal force being applied, which would force the leg to swing backwards.

Jack Daniels observed that optimal stride frequency for most distance runners is about 180 steps/minute. For middle distance runners like Lagat, it may be slightly higher, but the real difference in his speed comes from stride length. To increase his stride length, he can (a) reach in front of his body with his leg, which is inefficient; or (b) launch his body forward with each footstrike with a strong backwards push, which would force his leg to swing behind his center of mass.

I think the most important question from looking at those pictures is...

WHAT ARE THOES BAD ASS SPIKES HE IS WEARING?!!

moron,

I'm sorry I called you an asshole--that showed a complete lack of class.

I did consider starting a third thread as you suggested, but I was pleased to find that this one has generated some response. In addition, monitoring a third thread could become tedious. However, I do appreciate your input.

I'm with you ebrunner.Dr Pose does do some nice analysis of what happens, biomechanically, during efficient running, and he does get one to appreciate the use of gravity in forward basically horizontal motion. But we are on the same page in not quite buying his description of the ankle lifting vertically off the ground immediately.

I think Dr Pose offers some decent insight, but his "new" method of running is not obviously not very new. But he gets one to thinking about what they want their body to do during running, and how to make sure one is indeed using gravity in some manner (land foot under body, not ahead, land on forefoot not heel, have a slight forward lean, lead with your body/chest, get the feeling of falling forward immediately after each foot contact).

Bump --

I've enjoyed eb's and Stockdale's comments, because I also am curious about running form and have wondered about the Pose suggestion that the foot be pulled straight up WITHOUT toeing off, using just the hamstrings to flex at the knee.

I do agree with Pose that trying to bring the knee up too high is probably not helpful -- it will come up naturally at fast speeds, but trying to concentrate on bringing it too high for its own sake always felt awkward to me (even though I think Lydiard stresses it).

But I disagree with Pose that there should be no toe-off (if I've read him correctly) -- I think toe-off is hard to avoid, and I seem to run best when I follow Lydiard's advice to try and toe-off forcefully, getting some power from my calves, ankles, and foot, and extend the backleg fully.

[ . . . A couple definitions before the next paragraph:

1. Knee flexion = bending the knee, a hamstrings function

(it is the opposite of knee extension, which straightens the leg at the knee, a quadriceps function).

2. Hip flexion = bringing the knee up, towards the torso, a hip flexor function (largely the iliopsoas). . . ]

I think you will see Lagat (nice photos, BTW) extend the backleg and toe off powerfully like that, consistent with Lydiard. Looking at Lagat and reading Pose, though, here is one thing I take from it: I think that as Lagat brings his trailing leg through he gets his knee bent 90-degrees BEFORE the thigh reaches the point in stride where it is vertical with the ground; at the point where it is vertical, the knee is now flexed greater than 90-degrees. I think this is what Pose meant by stressing hamstring flexion; and I think this is consistent with Lydiard's comments about getting the leg beant to shorten the lever-arm of the leg and for hip flexion (though Lydiard states this by emphasizing bringing the knee up, which is the effect of hip flexion, and Pose emphasizes flexing at the knee, which shortens the lever arm and makes hip flexion easier, thus bringing the knee up). For me, the statement that the foot should be brought straight up by hamstring force to flex at the knee equates to a nice drill to do at slow speed to remind me to get the knee bent to shorten the lever arm. Drills where one brings the heel up to your butt with quick steps is a more exaggerated version of the same thing.

From those photo's you can't really tell which arm he was shooting up all those drugs.

I did stride analysis of Lasse Viren and Dave Wottle some 20 years ago and this is exactly what they do. You can see a quite noticeable budge in Viren's hamstrings as this happens. In other words, immediate to the foot leaving the ground it goes virtually "upward", in comparison to a line through the hips and shoulders.

In contrast the feet of their competitors Carlos Lopes and Yvgeny Arzanov continued somewhat more noticably backward after their feet left the ground, which means they had to also regain that distance each time in their strides, a waste of energy and efficiency.

An excess backward thrust also tends to throw the opposing lead leg more forward of the body at landing.

By "stride" if you mean the distance covered by the legs, yes it is shorter. If you mean the distance traveled by the body with each stride that's a different matter, however a shorter faster stride can get you to the finish more quickly and/or with less energy expenditure at given speeds.

Appearances are deceiving. What is necessary is to make a line through the center of gravity of the body, and diagram the path of the ball of the foot through this line.

Then you can very CLEARLY see if the foot does indeed keep traveling backwards, or rather immediately goes UPWARD.

You certainly don't want to use muscles and energy to push backwards, or cause the feet to go farther backwards, in relation to this line, after the feet have already left the ground and are providing no additional forward momentum.

Admiral Stockdale wrote:

But when actually watching Lagat and other great runners, clearly the foot/ankle odes not pull STRAIGHT up off the ground, and the hip flexors are utilized to first pull the leg backwards prior to push off(leaving the ground). I STILL say his description of what the ankle and foot should attempt to do after contact with the ground (pull STRAIGHT up immediately) is a little off. I believe one does want to use some hip flexor action to pull the leg backwards and then allow the ankle to flow backwards horizontally as it also rises vertically.

What do others think? What am I missing? Who am I? What am I doing here?

This is a pretty good discussion guys. Admiral Stockdale I think one thing you are missing is that the hip flexors (primarily the psoas, illiacus, rectus femoris) do not function to pull the leg backwards, that is the role of the hip extensors (glutes, hams).

Last night while running I tried a few things out. First I picked up my pace to about 90% effort using the long backward pendulum stride, where the foot goes way back, but stays very low to the ground. In this style of stride I really feel my glutes and hamstrings pulling me forward. The hip flexors (psoas, illiacus (sp?), rectus femoris) are doing just enough to return my leg underneath me so the extensor muscles can do their thing on the next stride. I like the feel of this stride, but when I transitioned to a stride where the hip flexors lifted my knee fairly high, the hamstrings and gastrocnemius flexed together to make that short lever arm, and backswing felt minimal, well that's when I really took off. I hadn't run like that in a while and it felt like suddenly I was really flying.

Possibly a way to rationalize what the POSE method is saying about pulling the foot straight up is to think of it in relation to where the center of gravity was during initial push off, or think of straight "up" in relation to where the center of gravity currently is, which might be better explained as straight towards the center of gravity as we tend to think of up as being towards the sky.

Dunes,

That was a really good post. You want to be careful, you may lose your reputation... ;-)

Thanks. I'll be careful about that. ; )

dunes runner --

Nice post. When you were analyzing Lasse Viren, did he push-off or toe-off much, and did he extend the trailing leg completely? I have the old Olympiad series on tape which has several minutes of Lasse running, and he had to be just about the smoothest relatively tall runner I've ever seen. I've often wondered how he did it (my stride, in comparison, looks like a '75 Chevy Vega with a flat tire). Thx.