Armswing of elites, circular motion and arms not going straight up/down.

You're over-thinking this.

I don't think it matters too much about your arm swing. What matters is not twisting your upper torso/shoulders, which is inefficient. Different people have different techniques to minimize shoulder/torso twisting.

Mortgage guy wrote:

You're over-thinking this.

You're right, why do I do this to myself :(

TJR25 wrote:

I don't think it matters too much about your arm swing. What matters is not twisting your upper torso/shoulders, which is inefficient. Different people have different techniques to minimize shoulder/torso twisting.

So I should just run and forget about my arms? I read about parallel armswing months ago and always ran with my arms going straight back and forth but I actually prefer running with my arms going in slight circular motion as it feels smoother / less jarring.

Even standing still it feels better because it's a continuous movement. When I swing my arms up/down it's like my arms go up STOP then reverse STOP then go up etc. In circles it's constantly smooth motion.

Circular is much more efficient than back-then-forth because you wast energy stopping the arm, then moving it again. All of the pros use circular because it works

You aren't supposed to think about swinging your arms. Think in terms of moving your elbows back and let the rest of the arm follow naturally.

Circle of life wrote:

Circular is much more efficient than back-then-forth because you wast energy stopping the arm, then moving it again. All of the pros use circular because it works

I'm going on a long run right now so I'll forget about my arms the first half (if I can) and then see if they are going circular.

One more question why did Adebe Bikila run with such LOW arm swing?

1:50 in this clip.

It's so low, is that a just personal thing or because he was running barefoot?

formerD1 wrote:

You aren't supposed to think about swinging your arms. Think in terms of moving your elbows back and let the rest of the arm follow naturally.

So thinking about my elbows instead. I was just surprised to see elites with their arms going in front of their chests (only because I've read everywhere not to).

orchid wrote:

formerD1 wrote:

You aren't supposed to think about swinging your arms. Think in terms of moving your elbows back and let the rest of the arm follow naturally.

So thinking about my elbows instead. I was just surprised to see elites with their arms going in front of their chests (only because I've read everywhere not to).

What idiot said that - your arms SHOULD cross to some degree as your leg and hip motion creates rotational forces on your upper body which need to be countered with your opposite arm at least partially crossing your chest.

If you watch the elbows of elites they are almost identical in movement. The position of the hand varies but that is an individualistic thing depending on length and mass of the arm from the elbow down.

It's actually a good thread and interesting discussion. Haven't thought about the circular thing. It makes sense it would be more efficient to let your arms move with momentum rather than consciously pulling them back and forth.

orchid wrote:

I've always thought of arm swing as straight up then but I noticed runners like Geb, Bekele, Kipchoge, Biwott and most elites run with a weird circular arm motion.

Like Kipchoge in London marathon here at 5:40

https://youtu.be/bAauOcC54wY

Look at this too.

http://i.imgur.com/SSEh1GS.jpg

It looks like their arms cross their bodies too, thought that was bad?

Coincidently I've been bothered by this subject recently and I have found a few things:

- arms wide open = moves the center of gravity lower. If you keep the arms at 50-70 degrees, your hips will do the hard work. If the arms at 90> degrees, the hard work goes to knees.

- horizontally motion of the elbows = reduced vertical bouncing. More circular motion of the elbows determines more bouncing. Actually tested with an accelerometer.

- gap between arms and body = wider area needed to obtain proper left/right balance. Is like using truck tyres vs bicycle tyres.

- back to forth elbow motion = more torso rotation. Too much elbow crossing = left/right oscillation.

I can say that almost the whole running form can be controlled with the arms.

formerD1 wrote:If you watch the elbows of elites they are almost identical in movement. The position of the hand varies but that is an individualistic thing depending on length and mass of the arm from the elbow down.

I think this is an important point. There are a lot of subtle differences in length and mass and angle and proportion of different people's limbs. This has to influence what the optimum arm swing is from person to person, and make each person subtly different. The same thing has to be true with stride and running form in general.

I don't think there's anything wrong with experimenting with slight alterations to form over time to see if the changes make you faster or more efficient. However, I don't think you can assume that just because another runner is faster that their form is a template to force your own form into. There may be too many subtle differences in your bodies for someone else's form to work for you.

Let's see that accelerometer data!

Proofinthepudding wrote:

Let's see that accelerometer data!

Ha! I've erased the data together with the app - I didn't thought that I'll have to prove anything.

However, you can test on your own:

I did two tests, 30 minutes each, similar pace. I measured the Z oscillation, which represents the speed up/down. The average speeds were:

- limited elbow rotation: -0.6 m/s

- wide elbow rotation: -1.5 m/s

What does it mean?

At -1.5 m/s I was hitting the ground harder, because the motion range was wider.

The earth attraction force is 35.2 km/hour[\b]. But that -1.5 m/s made me hit the ground with 40.6 km/hour[\b].