Active.com is now pimping Chi running.

Great. After Chi running I went from a 21 to 20 min 5K in less than a year.

biggus dickus wrote:

Great. After Chi running I went from a 21 to 20 min 5K in less than a year.

Oh wow. It's gotta be legit.

haha - another pose concept...lean forward and let gravity propel you forward! WHEEEE!!!!

Imagine if someone had told Michael Johnson to do this in the 200m and 400m. He could have really been fast.

Olympic 1996 watcher wrote:

Imagine if someone had told Michael Johnson to do this in the 200m and 400m. He could have really been fast.

Was he born in Entirea ?

Did anybody actually read the article? If so, what specifically do you disagree with? Seemed like sensible information to me...

Yeddle wrote:

Did anybody actually read the article? If so, what specifically do you disagree with? Seemed like sensible information to me...

Idiot Chi Runner wrote:

Lean Forward. One of the biggest forces we have to fight every day is gravity. Why not make it work for us instead of against us? By adding a slight forward lean when you run, your body falls forward and you use gravity for your propulsion instead of your legs.

Gravity cannot work for us in running unless we are going downhill. Anybody who knows anything about physics knows that gravity is a conservative force, meaning that if you run around a track and finish where you started, gravity has done zero work on you. The same is true as long as you finish your run at a point where the gravitational potential is the same as where you started, i.e. at the same elevation.

Actually in your example, gravity has done a lot of work. Gravity is the force that makes it running and not floating. Gravity is what returns the runners foot to the ground.

Surprise! wrote:

haha - another pose concept...lean forward and let gravity propel you forward! WHEEEE!!!!

Tai Chi has been around for thousands of years.

Pose has been around for a few decades.

Run Tall

Lean Forward

Land on your Midfoot

Run from your Core

Relax, relax, relax

If you re-phrase "lean forward" as "keep your hips forward", there's not a lot to object to here.

For schlubs just starting out, pelvic angle is going to steal a lot of their energy through inefficiency. All the young studs 16-23 already do this because they have decent ab strength.

Monte wrote:

Run Tall

Lean Forward

Land on your Midfoot

Run from your Core

Relax, relax, relax

If you re-phrase "lean forward" as "keep your hips forward", there's not a lot to object to here.

For schlubs just starting out, pelvic angle is going to steal a lot of their energy through inefficiency. All the young studs 16-23 already do this because they have decent ab strength.

Would you say this is the case for both Males and Females?

I think a good percentage of the 16-23 year old running population could get a lot of benefit from the principles discussed in the article the OP posted.

Things like ChiRunning are soon going to be the norm. Yoga is becoming more and more mainstream every day. Top athletes like Lebron James do Yoga. Many other NFL and NBA players have a yoga practice as well.

Active.com has several articles with stretches that are really yoga poses.

Its funny, we think we come up with something new, only to realize it has been around for thousands of years.

Many top athletes do what is called "visualization training"

This is not new, this is 1,000s of years old and has been known as "meditation"

Maybe if we took the best from other cultures we could begin to create a template for optimal performance rather than continuing to search for the newest, most undetectable PEDs.

Geez guys, I thought there would be at least a couple people on this board up for a discussion about biomechanics, efficiency, relaxation etc....

Seems like nobody wants to really touch this topic. Maybe it's because the ChiRunning principles are so fundamentally sound that you can't refute very much.

One guy tries to claim that gravity has no effect on someone running around a track. Obviously this guy is not affected by gravity as he is a complete space shot. For the rest of us who do deal with gravity on a constant basis, learning to work with this force is a good idea.

lebron james does yoga wrote:

Geez guys, I thought there would be at least a couple people on this board up for a discussion about biomechanics, efficiency, relaxation etc....

Seems like nobody wants to really touch this topic. Maybe it's because the ChiRunning principles are so fundamentally sound that you can't refute very much.

The problem is not with the content, it with the fact that members of the Chi cult try to pass it off as something that will take the place of actually putting in the miles. Treating Chi running principles as something to supplement a good training program of mileage and intensity is entirely different than the thinking of many Chi devotees who think they can skip the hard work and 'relax' and 'flow' their way to better times through drills and visualization.

Ravenmaniac wrote:

lebron james does yoga wrote:

Geez guys, I thought there would be at least a couple people on this board up for a discussion about biomechanics, efficiency, relaxation etc....

Seems like nobody wants to really touch this topic. Maybe it's because the ChiRunning principles are so fundamentally sound that you can't refute very much.

The problem is not with the content, it with the fact that members of the Chi cult try to pass it off as something that will take the place of actually putting in the miles. Treating Chi running principles as something to supplement a good training program of mileage and intensity is entirely different than the thinking of many Chi devotees who think they can skip the hard work and 'relax' and 'flow' their way to better times through drills and visualization.

I've read the book and taken a workshop. What you just wrote is entirely false. Chi is a method to put the miles in safely and effectively. I contains many elements from Lydiards philosophy. All of the Chi focuses are practiced while running. They are not suggesting you don't need to run. Do you have any examples of someone saying ChiRunning will take the place of putting in the work or is that just an assumption on your part?

Chi running is a very stupid concept and has nothing to do with Chi. It is only a marketing scheme to sell worthess junk.

For one thing, Danny Dwyer says that everyone should run at 180 strides per minute regardless of the speed they are running or their height. In his last race he ran 180 strides per minute with a less than 40 inch stride, just barely above walking. Because his stride is so short, he calls two steps a stride instead of one step. :) How ridiculous. There is no good runner who uses chi running, and any good runner who does will get worse.

Can you imagine running 12 minute miles and going at 180 strides per minute. That is what the chi runners do.

J.R. wrote:

Chi running is a very stupid concept and has nothing to do with Chi. It is only a marketing scheme to sell worthess junk.

For one thing, Danny Dwyer says that everyone should run at 180 strides per minute regardless of the speed they are running or their height. In his last race he ran 180 strides per minute with a less than 40 inch stride, just barely above walking. Because his stride is so short, he calls two steps a stride instead of one step. :) How ridiculous. There is no good runner who uses chi running, and any good runner who does will get worse.

Can you imagine running 12 minute miles and going at 180 strides per minute. That is what the chi runners do.

So are you suggesting turnover is not a critical aspect of efficiency? That's funny...just about every decent running coach I know of includes some aspect of training to improve turnover (cadence) And no, he does not call every two strides one stride. 180 strides per minute. 90 strides on the right leg, 90 on the left.

I'm not sure what you qualify as a "good runner" and i'm not sure how you think you are aware of everybody who practices chi running.

Most elite Kenyans run with a forward lean and demonstrate many other elements of chi running as well. I don't think they read the book or have even heard of chi running, but the elements are there. Danny Dreyer himself is a "good runner" finishing at the top of his age group in every race he runs (winning his age group at USATF National Trail Championships) There are also a few 2:25 marathon runners who practice the technique.

It is just like Jack Daniels. Jack did not "invent" VO2 max, It is not something he made up. It is a componnent of the body that already existed long before Jack Daniels. What Jack did was study it, test it, apply it and communicate the information into an easy to follow format for runners. How is this any different than what Danny Dreyer has done? He studied tai chi, anatomy, physics and some of the best running coaches of all time and synthesized this information into an easy to follow method.

I understand that he markets his products (smart business to me, we do live in a capitalist nation) but I fail to see where the "scheme" is.

You guys are failing to convince me why I should not buy into the chi running approach. In a board filled with arguments over "data, research, facts, and scientific studies" you have shown nothing to show what it is you don't like about chi running, you have, in typical letsrun fashion thrown out immature insults and made outrageous claims founded in nothing more than your emotions.

you want facts? how bout this for facts,

chi running was created by an ultra runner meaning not a real runner. for an example of a real runner try pre, ritz rupp hall and pre

chi running is japanese meaning not american meaning no truth facts or reality to it. all woo woo voodoo stuff

alignment biomechanics stride frequency, posture is all just a bunch of hippie jargon. POSTURE IS NOT A REAL THING, IT IS A MADE UP THING. where are the facts to support posture oh yhea there are none!

you want to know how to train and gett better? go out and put in a few 100 mile weeks, pound the pavement and dont think about anything when you run, completely zone out, you should have look of a deer in headlights, after the run you should barely know where you are and barely be able to stand

this mindfulness crap is a waste of time. FOCUS MEANS NOTHING TO RUNNING it is all about DROPPING THE HAMMER!!!

forget about lifting weights core work (such BS) who actually has a "core"

stretching, sleeping, eating and just HAMMER

god it is so simple you hippie liberal elitist monk freaks make things so complicated

what do you think the kenyans do HAMMER 5 TIMES A DAY SHOW UP TO RACE AND DROP THE HAMMER

what do you think ritz rupp and hall do HAMMER

Man, I really hope that my competition thinks just like you (my sincere apologies if you're being sarcastic -- it's hard to tell on here these days). Hall does huge amounts of core work, as does Teg.

People who subscribe to the Chi Running concept are looking to run more, not less. Learning to relax during your training is crucial: Didn't Malmo talk about the difference between running intervals 'hard' vs 'fast'?

Wow I didn't know that Malmo was a chi runner.