Title seems a bit misleading but let me explain.
You teach sprinters to squeeze the abs and hold the hips straight and body upright. Now the same situation for distance runners. Especially some kenyans are running with a major anterior pelvic tilt. (butt sticks out)
I think its mainly because they run relaxed without reaching out with the knee and/or foot.
Is this beneficial for longer distances to \\\\\\\"relax\\\\\\\" the abs and pelvis and just let the legs to their work like a windmill or should you work actively with the core to correct this?
I have one athlete whose posture is the same (big anterior tilt) and he tells me everytime he tries to maintain neutral position in the hips his stride and back kick shortens massively. He\\\\\\\'s also not floating anymore, if you see him running this way it looks a little like Gabe Jennings. No relaxation at all. Up to 800m he can hold this form but from there on its seems inefficient to me, because he is wasting too much energy.
Also, his quads are significantly weaker than the glutes and hams. Like, he is quick on the track but loses it on hilly xc courses. In the weight room he can dead lift BWx10 easily with perfect form but fails doing even one BW Squat.
Should i force him into another position or just leave him running his own relaxed style? Some american based coaches i spoke to prefer weight room work to work on the weakness in quads, while my old coach always told us \\\\\\\'sprinter lift, runners do hill work and boundings\\\\\\\' Worked as well for national competitors from 800-Marathon.