Add a little lean...to run faster and stronger!



My previous two blogs have been focused on the mental and motivational aspects of running. For the June edition, I decided to take a detour and write about a technical aspect of running. I have to admit that of all the technical details that I have learned over the past year, this has to be the one that I have found most impactful. As I continue to learn and master this technique ahead of ADHM 2015, I thought it would be worthwhile to share this with my running companions.

As a rookie runner, I often observed skillful runners effortlessly gliding through the air, as if there’s some mysterious force of nature supporting their motion. Up till about six months back, every time I came across an efficient runner like that, I used to feel envious and felt an urge to increase the intensity of my strength training to get stronger calves, quads, and hamstrings. It used to be my humble attempt to build stronger leg muscles which would one day allow me to run equally efficiently. However, I soon learned that there are distinct ways in which runners run - some rely on their muscular strength alone to create the running motion and then there are others (the more skillful ones) who learn to literally use the ‘mysterious forces of nature’ to support their running motion. The two styles are very different – a difference that I like to describe as ‘Hard’ running vs. ‘Smart’ running. In this edition, I am going to talk about the latter, i.e. the smart running technique.

Let’s think about it very fundamentally – what exactly is running? Wikipedia says running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Well, not exactly the definition I was looking for to explain my point, but still it will do the job. The key point here is ‘rapid movement on foot’.

So that raises the next important question – what creates this motion? About few months ago, I would have promptly answered this by saying – “muscular strength in the human body”. However, that answer is only partially correct. To understand this point, think of a simple wooden plank hinged at the bottom and delicately balanced in a vertical equilibrium position (as shown in the figure below).

What happens if we give a gentle horizontal nudge at the top of the plank? The plank gradually swings and falls horizontally on the ground. In the process of this rotational fall, there is motion induced in the plank. What induced this motion? There is no muscular strength in the plank as it is an inanimate object. Clearly, it is the force of gravity that induced this rotational motion. In fact, laws of physics tell us that the plank (of same volumetric dimensions) would fall on the ground in the same time irrespective of whether it is an iron plank or wooden plank (i.e. strength doesn’t matter here!).

It is the same "mysterious force" (i.e. the force of gravity) which efficient runners learn to use effectively to support their motion. To understand this, think of human body as a plank (or in more technical running terms and as students of Chi running will tell you, a "column"). Imagine for a moment that the body is fixated to the ground momentarily (akin to the hinge that we saw in the case of plank). What happens if such a body is gently nudged to fall forward? This is exactly what efficient runners do.

• In state 1 (refer figure below), the column is nudged forward.
• In state 2, we see that the column falls freely under the force of gravity. Mind you up till this time, the muscular strength of legs has had very limited or no role to play.
• In state 3, the runner recognizes that it is a human body after all and it doesn’t have the luxury of falling down like a wooden plank. It is at this time, that the legs come into action and move forward only to catch the body from falling.

Try to repeat this sequence of activities 1-2-3 (i.e. nudge-fall-catch) in a continuous flow and what you get is the “motion of a skillful runner effortlessly gliding through the air”.

The most important thing to note here is the role of legs in facilitating this motion. If one can learn the art of executing this running technique efficiently, all that the legs have to do is to move forward at the right time to catch the body from falling and setting it up for the next cycle of nudge-fall-catch. From an execution perspective, this technique requires the body to be in a state of permanent lean during the state of running motion. Usually a lean 2 – 4 degrees (from the vertical) is all that is required to minimize the load on legs and to effectively utilize the force of gravity to create a ‘pull’ that supports the forward motion of the body.

What I have just shared is the basic principle of a good running posture. There is wealth of information available on this form of technique. However, for beginners who want to start practicing this posture, here are three absolute essentials:

• Practice keeping the column (i.e. arc ABC in figure below) straight. This means that you should lean from your ankles and not from your waist. Leaning from waist results in an unbalanced posture which can lead to back injuries and also results in a crouched poster, which inhibits effective breathing while running.
• The point of impact where the foot lands on the ground should be behind the vertical line dropped from body’s center of mass. In the figure below it means that if the body is moving from left to right, then point E should be towards left of point D. In practice, to achieve this you may have to reduce your stride length a bit, but it’s worth it.
• Lastly, the angle of arm bend at the elbow joint should be close to a right angle. For my friends who hail from an engineering background, here is the rationale - your arm swing is like a compound pendulum and a right angle bend at the elbow results in the shortest effective length of this compound pendulum. Now the time period for the swing of a compound pendulum is proportional to square root of effective length of the pendulum. Hence, keeping a right angle bend helps in reducing the time period for one complete arm swing. This results in a higher swinging frequency of arms and correspondingly higher stride turnover, as hands and legs move in synchronization).

Following figure depicts the absolute essential points in maintaining the lean which can help gravity support your running motion.

I must add that learning this running form is easier said than done. Usually there is a tendency to bend from the waist instead of bending from the ankles. Below are some rare moments where I found myself executing the lean posture reasonably well.

Do let me know what you think about this essential running technique (i.e. maintaining a slight lean while running). Also, please share what are some of the other running forms that you believe are essential to maintaining good running efficiency - I will be happy to cover them in the next editions of ‘Reflections by Sundeep’.

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Sundeep Singh: +91 - 98181 19794