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POSE Method of running?
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maybe I'm wrong but wouldn't there be eccentric loading on the quads running POSE? I thoughtt that was supposed to be more tiring on the muscles.
Not doubting how you feel Siance, just tyring to understand how this all works
hmm maybe I'm doing it wrong then Bear!
With the leg under your CGM the ground reaction forces are dissipated more I think than having the leg further ahead. When the leg's ahead of the CGM you would have to use more force to propel yourself forward of the support leg to then toe off, hence more of a pushing action with the leg muscles.
As you don't propel in Pose, just land, and the minimal contact time - high cadence - means (if I understand it correctly) less muscular effort? Might be different though if the support time was longer, there would be increased eccentric loading as the quads would act as brakes.
Maybe someone can better explain it to us?
not too sure about the amount of loading - however short the contact time, you have to stop the falling or you'd just collapse in a heap.
You also have to restore the original height somehow - you can't fall forever!
Siance: What you are describing sounds v.good to me
and oh yeah it's hard to stop mid-run. Try this on your next run: About 2 miles in stop running on purpose (even if you feel good) and just do some small bounces on the ball of your feet for 1 min minimum. Keep it nice light and springy. Then start running again - see how good your running feels after this 
After starting Pose I found really good reduction in fatigue in quads. In Pose the quads primary use are to stabilise when you take support. If you were trying to push off with your legs then you will be really tensing those muscles. Quick cadence, relaxed ankles, landing under your hips allowing excentric contraction of the calf = nice light springy running. Lovely!
...which leads me to how we regain height. In Pose muscle elasticity plays a very important role in regaining the height of our GCM and allowing the foot to spring up so we only need a quick light hamstring pull to get the foot back into the position under the hips.
In summary...relax those lower legs and just keep pulling (and do nothing else) and all the loveliness of light springiness will happen for you.
Hello All,
Bear: Something which is not explained well enough 'cos is crops up all the time is the difference in Physical Reality and what you perceive.
Perception wise: Do not push, just Pull your ankle up
Physical Reality: Yep, everything you said is absolutely totally correct.
Pose is just as much as not thinking about landing or push-off as it is about "Pose/Fall/Pull". So just because we say don't focus on something doesn't mean all the other stuff (eg quads, hip-flexors muscles usage, push to maintain GCM height etc) doesn't happen. Oooo, a double negative, hope that was clear!?!
Due to straining my hamstrings whilst doing some squats and weak glutes, I got some inflammation on the upper hamstring tendon near the sit-bone. The fizz told me this is also the attach point for the adductor muscles which meant I also got a sore groins (don't laugh!).
Anyway, I reckon I'm onto recovery and so wanted to share some exercises to strengthen the glute meds and hamstrings. You don't have to do all of them per session:
1. Lie on back. Flex knees so that the ankles come close-ish to the butt. Push down on heels, squeeze the butts and raise your hips up. You will resemble a right angle triangle with the knees at the apex.To make it harder, while the hips are up, raise and straighten a leg but don't let the hip on that side drop. Keep your shoulders relaxed.
2. Lie straight on your tummy. Flex the knee of one leg so that the lower leg is pointing vertically up. Now squeeze your core and you do so, lift that leg upwards such that the knee comes off the floor.
3. Do a similar exercise as 1, except put your ankles on top of a swiss ball. Now raise your hips up by curling the ball towards your butt. To make it harder do this with one leg. This will greatly exercise the lower hamstrings just above the knees.
4. Get on all fours (submissive wench position). Straighten one leg behind you and little to the lateral side eg if your head was pointing in a 12:00 position then the right leg would point to 5. (left leg to 7). Now tighten core (ie suck belly button in towards your back) and lift that leg straight up. Try to keep equal pressure through the other knee and both hands. Again don't raise the hip on that side.
5. Get a looped piece of theraband and place around lower legs such that you can stand easily with your legs slightly apart. Now walk sideways by sliding your foot along (ie abbduct the leg) - a bit like those space invader characters crab-walking along the screen. Do this a few steps to the right (say) and then crab-walk back again. Make it harder by placing the band around your ankles.
Last but not least make sure you stretch afterwards eg
- your favourite hamstring stretch
- for each leg hugging your knee so that it almost touches the shoulder
- the typical piriformis stretch
- kneel down and curl into a ball by tucking your chin onto your knees and trying to touch your forehead onto the floor.
the way I think about the regaining height question, is to imagine my muscles as bouncy balls.
When you land and the mucsles contract to prevent you falling, the energy is stored and the released just as the bouncy ball does, a little energy will be disappated through various processes, so a little of nrg-b's 'reality' processes kick in just to top you up.. just thought I'd chip in!
Spudly: Do you think animals and small children are aware of their muscles when they run? I'd wager they have elementary movement patterns which when coupled with desire (hunger, fright etc) will translate into action (walk, trot, sprint etc).
If you think "bounce" then you will try and perceive it and search for it. This will lead to inefficient running especially if your centre of mass moves up and down too much. Injury is then only a small step away.
However, if this visualisation works for you then who am I to say otherwise?
Keep chippin'
That is helpful nrg - thanks very much
Gues because I'm studying physio all the time I'm thinking in those terms! Plus even if I wasn't, POSEis encouraging me to think about what I'm doing more
Anyway - my foot seems to be okay again now so it's back to POSE (well - or my cack handed novice attempt at it!)
HI all
Re Bouncing. Yes it is a good model for what actually happens and strangely enough a look at any of the analysis vids shows that while "Falling" we are actually rising from the ground.
These things seem contradictory as while bouncing more than heels strikers we are (with good technique) showing less vertical oscillation. Rising while falling.... after the mid-stance POSE we bounce out of the POSE but at the same time rotating about the BOF. That is the Fall is the angle relative to vertical of a line BOF to hip joint, your upper body should remain near vertical. As the angle of fall increases your bodyweight on the BOF decreases allowing the prestressed leg "spring" to push your body upwards and with momentum and the acceleration from falling, ...forwards.
Yes I did say push, but equal and opposite forces suggests something pulling at the same time, so do not get hung up on the words of what happens, rather use the words which provide the right image in the head.
You need to know absolutely none of this in order to run well, Doc Romanov devotes a whole chapter in his book to the "Do Nothing Principle". That is with the correct posture allow your body to move ahead of your feet that is "Fall" and the rest will happen just fine with out any interference from your head. So here I disagree with jonp except for the fact that pulling works for him and so what works for some may not for others and vice versa.
nrg-b: Your fizz prescribed exercises for you which are very similar to the ones my Pilates instructor uses all the time for all her students and they are ordinary uninjured jo/joanne public. She would also be very fussy about using the correct technique.
GP: For someone as analytical as me, I found the "Do Nothing Principle" very hard to do but perserverance will eventually win.
Yep some of those are similar to yoga/pillates. The fizz only told me about Ex1. The rest are ones I decided to do to supplement my conditioning.
nrg: Thanks for the glut exercises, I never do any glut strengthening so I may add a couple of those in the morning when I get up.
gp V.interesting. Our perceptions are unique, and that is a challenge when learning and teaching Pose running. I actually prefer not to think about falling at all. I prefer to perceive I am running in a very vertical posture with just a desire to be ahead of my feet being pulled. Acceleration for me comes from just wanting to increase my cadence. The pull ties it all together, it's the only action required to run, elasticity won't get the foot into Pose alignment without some of our own effort. But if I stuck my running on a video you would see a greater lean from ankle to hip when I accelerated (even though I only perceived it as increased cadence through pulling). The "springy feeling" of the pull occurs when I just have a desire to get me feet away from the ground. If I lose the "springy" feel during a run I know my thoughts are on getting to and staying on the ground not getting off the ground. If you can perceive these kind of differences then you can correct thenm quickly, if you can't then it's a path to injury over a period of time. The drills allow you to perceive these differences and that is what will eventually get you to a higher level of Pose running.
At the highest level of running we just do it correctly without thought: POSE-FALL-PULL just like when we were children - that is our common aim IMHO.
Jon P uses the perception of pulling - does anyone else use other perceptions in particular does anyone else use the POSE as their main focus and changing support to get from one pose to the next, or the fall - getting the feet behind you to allow the fall.
What works is whats best but we hear about only thinking of the pull alot - but is there mileage in teaching people to only focus on the POSE.
On long runs I do tend to get bored and platy around with perceptions - I often have nrgs POSEtech avatr in my mind when I run (you pin up boy you) and use this as a mental image to bodysense myself as a check. Is this bad (apart form the fact that having a mental image of him may be certifiable)
I've found it very difficult to focus on the Pull, my brain can't consciously resolve the action for each leg, I find myself only being able to perceive the pull for one leg, the results is I feel a bit wonky and out of balance.
I tend to focus on
1. posture (so I suppose the POSE)
2. being light footed, which I hope is improving the timeliness of my pull as well as reducing active landing (at least in my head...)
3. relaxing (coz I'm rubbish at it)
I find the posture control the best thing to think of when getting tired and I'm employing Romanov's 'mental toughness' to get thru' the run.
Spudly: When you Pull your foot up in the direction of your hips, your hip is the support point - always.
If you just stand on both legs and pull the ankle up on one foot the hip is statically stable because your other leg is providing support. When you're running, the hip is still the support point for the Pull except the hip is now "dynamically stable" since the slight push-off which happened just prior (see GP/JonP post above) caused your GCM height to go in an upward trajectory such that you can yank that foot off the floor - a bit like how one would start the action to flick up a yo-yo just before it hit maximum string extension.
So...in Pose we try to focus on the Pull action and IMHO, in doing so we "forget" how the hip maintains stability. Hence, the benefits of drills such as COS and foot tapping. You're constantly committing to unconscious memory the Pull action and feelings/sensations therein.
CT: If you ask nicely I'll send you glossy signed poster of me
Spud: I believe if you have improved your posture and you are falling correctly then a good pull will happen at the right time anyway (so you do not have to try or even focus on it much) and this will get you through the POSE correctly and fall again etc. Any more vid of you running to see how you have improved?
nrg-b: It takes a concious effort to over ride the reflex wich makes the pull happen. For example divers and gymnasts or even rugby players diving for a "try", however they are landing on mats or into water or grass whereas a failure to pull in running would lead to an immediatly painful consequence.
CT: Certifiable, you are certified..... as a POSE coach.
GP: Good points. In my experience, the smoke (effect) is at one place but the fire (cause) can be somewhere else. For example, if they're showing a late Pull then it can be because the Fall is not executed properly eg the person is trying to perceive the Fall and by doing so they're late. Or they are holding the the upper leg up for too long because of focus on landing-preparation. Some of these causes are always physical eg things that manifest themselves as Fear.
And then since Pose/Fall/Pull is circular and interdependent then those causes may be due to other ones further up in the chronological sequence or a combination of causes.
Each individual varies and part of the job is to find the cause which is the most primary. Else just pick one and work on that. Either way by reviewing the changes then progress can be monitored.
POSE, Yet another American? way for some people to make money out of nothing.
We all have our individual running styles, and that is for a reason. Focus on maintaining a good strength and flexibilty in all your major muscle groups, but in particular your running muscles.
Vary intensity, take a month off at the end of the season, eat sensibly, avoid stress, analyse your training programme and forget about POSE.
I am a vet now and I am still going under 4mins in the 1500m and sub 32 for 10K.
How many great runners had/have dreadful running styles, Zatopek, Ngugi, Radcliffe, but they still ran and run outstandingly well.
GP/NRG/CT:
When I work with someone, I always start by looking at the Pose, then the Fall, and finally Pull. I check these first when running and via video analysis and then do some static exercises (drills and lots more besides) mixed with a short run. I guess it's a bit like Posturealignment, balance, unbalance, pull in terms of working on deficiencies. But of course all are interlinked. It's easier to start with a newbie Poser whereby you can work throught the "trinity". With a more experienced Poser you looking for specific faults in the Pose the fall and the pull. In my opinion you can't ignore any of the elements as they are all linked and so all deserve the same attention.
You can check general posture and alignment for Pose. You can check hip positioning and relaxed lower legs/ankles, psychological factors for the Fall. You can work on hamstring perception for the pull both in place and running.
IMHO all 3 are equally important as a part of the method. When we run we can focus on falling or do the pulling of just de-focus entirely, but to de-focus we must have developed correct perception and "muscle memory" (I hate that work but hey ho) otherwise we would just say to a student "stand up straight and run" - which wouldn't really help someone who was a heel-strike runner.
Fatboy: Come back when you've done a little more research on the subject
runfatboy
I understand your point, and for several years I too just got on with running in my individual style. The reason my style was individual was probably an accumulation of previous injuries causing muscle imbalances, poor posture from everyday life, laziness in running from the apparent ease of long strides low cadence. The end result for me was 2 years carrying injuries.
I'm certainly no poster boy for POSE, not following the programme etc, but it has allowed me to enjoy running again and a min/mile faster than I was before I got injured.
You're clearly a very good runner and you might find that if you analysed the way you run, you would probably fit many of the criteria of POSE and the other 'techniques' I was looking at how a lot of the "older" folks run in a race last night, not a heel stiker amongst them, why? because heel strikers can't get to V65 without knee replacements (obviously have no data to back this up!!!)
Yes, at first I was annoyed at paying £25 for a book written by a bloke living in the US, he's made some money out of me, but in the grand scheme of things, to me it was worth it.
Sorry if this reads poorly and a little ranty, it wasn't meant to be - maybe it's just my justification to myself on having spent the money
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nrg; jonp: Thanks I think we are all singing the same hymn from the same hymn sheet, I think I am just looking at my copy upside down
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Spud: I look forward to it.
runfatboy: From your times I suspect your technique is excellent and have no need of POSE I would love to see you run, however we (the POSE coaches on this forum) hope to be able to help all those who trail in your wake to achieve more. We are inspired by Dr Romanov (he is Russian) who re-invests money from the sale of books etc into time spent helping others all over the world to run more efficiantly and injury free(by now that is many thousands), he is probably the most honest, sincere, hardworking man I ever have had the honour of meeting.
At the risk of being cut down like fatboy, is there any evidence that POSE makes the average runner any faster or more efficient?
I only ask because it sounds like you need to invest quite a lot of time (did someone say 3 months?) to get into it. Presumably during that time you have to do low mileage until you get the hang of it? I think I have a very efficient running style, with little up-down movement , and I certainly land on a bent knee as my kneecaps get a hammering on long runs. I'm not sure I'd invest the time without knowing the benefits would be predictable. Does it only work for some people (eg those people that have an inefficient running style anyway)?
Also, it seems a little nerdy
I like this thread, it's so geeky
Re: CT's question earlier about using imagery in Pose (nrg's shoe!?) I find you can over-complicate the action of running Pose very easily, esp as a beginner. Dr Romanov described it as 'paralysis by over-analysis' and I like that explanation.
I do this, and I don't think my job helps TBH as I can't switch off from thinking about anatomy, biomechanics etc. What might feel a stiff ankle to someone will be a restriction at the subtalar joint or whatever for me - sad! (but not as sad as CT's imagery..)
I think generally I've good body awareness and sense of balance, so that definitely helps with Pose for me, but the main thing I use is to relax into my running. As soon as I feel tension or drag, I relax from my COG downward and that resumes the springy bouncy easy run feel. Can't explain it any better than that really. Now I'm at the stage when I would find it difficult to run as I did before Pose as it just feels so much harder.
Runfatboy: Personally I don't think it's about buying into a corporate enterprise; I've found (for me) the best way to run injury-free. Spending £20 on a book is a small price to pay, what with the free video library and forum advice from coaches - all of whom seem genuine nice guys to me.
Run Fat Boy
I get a little irritated by that attitude - not least because it was the attitude I had. The issue was £20 for a book that has helped me improve my times, lower my heart rate and enjoy a spell of injury free running. Also that book helped me save so much on shoes - I now change mine every 1500 miles.
You dont like giving American marketting macjhines money and like to just run - Let me guess - you run in asics shoes with the latest go faster gommick - that you pay £100 for and change every 400 miles
So who is the sucker?