POSE IN PRESS A collection of articles about Pose Method and Dr.Romanov in various publications.
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| Photo courtesy of NewsWeek (Russian Edition) |
NEWSWEEK (RUSSIA)
09.23-09.29, 2004
Poses of Champions
by Nikita Maximov
A Russian coach developed a unique method of running. It is used by Olympians of Great Britain, Mexico, and USA.
Remember the main thing, to win you need not only good muscles, you also need your head.
London University researchers studied the movement of two athletes during their 5K run, using modern video equipment. While physical parameters of both sportsmen were almost identical, it took one of them 15 minutes to cover the distance, and the other a whole one and a half minutes more. It turned out that the second runner was elevating his general center of mass (GCM) 2-3 cm higher than the winner. During the run he was also "climbing" to the height of the Ostankino TV tower. This extraneous movement was "eating" his speed.
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| Photo courtesy of NewsWeek (Russian Edition) |
The research of British scientists was not done in vain: the British National Triathlon Team had been preparing for the Athens Olympics according to this method, developed on the basis of biomechanical research. The author of the method is a former Russian coach, Nicholas Romanov. Before the Brits he has also worked with the US and Mexican National Teams. In Russia they don't use Romanov's method. Coaches have been looking for an ideal method of running for a long time. "In the thirties, a corresponding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, Nikolai Bernstein conducted a kinematic analysis of running technique of track and field athletes - says Andrey Voronov, candidate of pedagogical sciences, a research worker at the Laboratory of Physiology of Muscular Activity of the Institute of Medical-Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Berstein compared the running technique of the famous Zhamenski brothers and the then world record holder, Frenchman, Jules Ladoumegue. The French champion seemed to be landing his feet near the imaginary line, going through the General Center of Mass perpendicular to the track. The Soviet athletes, on the other hand were throwing their feet far forward and later were "crashing down" into them, and losing their speed.
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| Arturo Garza of Mexican National Triathlon Team (left), Dr.Romanov (center) and Andrew Johns of British National Triathlon Team (right) |
On the basis of exactly these long-term research studies, Nicholas Romanov developed his running method, which he uses today to train the British Olympians. Romanov started to work on his Pose Method as early as 1976, when he was teaching at the Chuvash Pedagogical University. In the 90's his daughter, Marianna, married an American, and the Romanov's moved to the USA together with her. There he decided to offer his method to the local sport clubs. "It was very difficult at the beginning", says Lana Romanov. "Nobody knew our dad, and only a few believed in his method. He had to train regular people with money in the clubs, not Olympic Champions. Everything changed after Lynn MacFadden, member of the USA Triathlon, came to his classes. After several training sessions, she drastically improved her results, and became one of the best athletes in the area (she did not get to the Olympics, though). After that Romanov began getting requests both from individual famous athletes and from entire teams. One of the members of the British Olympic Triathlon team, Tim Don, after training according to his method, was the 10th in Sydney Olympics, though he never was higher than 57th in the world. "After learning Dr. Nicholas Romanov's running method, my legs seem to move faster and easier," says Jurgen Zack, German Triathlon Champion. I feel 10 kilograms less than before. I improve my result for 11 miles (17,700 m) almost by two minutes." The essence of Romanov's method is simple and obvious - you need to learn how to keep your body in space in such a manner, that is transition was maximally efficient. "The body position, found by me, says the former Russian coach, 'allows you to use the force of gravity to the maximal extent and optimize the work of muscles for the most efficient transition. My running method allows people to most fully utilize their physiological potential, work together with the natural forces, and not against them."
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| Image courtesy of NewsWeek (Russian Edition) |
Running, according to Dr.Romanov, looks as follows: the runner leans forward, holding his head, shoulders, thighs and the support leg along one line, having the whole body weight on the front part of the foot, his ankle - just a bit above the ground. In order to move forward, the athlete "falls forward," simultaneously raising the support leg and bending it at the knee. This differs from the commonly accepted running technique, where the support leg performs a forward movement. One more advantage of this method lies in the fact that the pressure on the knee is reduced, which is very important for injured athletes. The "scientific running" looks very unusual for the eyes - it seems that the athlete performs rather strange and funny moves. But in modern sport they usually value not beauty, but speed and efficiency. "Our scientists measured several years ago the efficiency of speed skating champion, Joni Nielson, who skated not very pretty, and the Russian champion, who glided beautifully," explains Andrey Voronov, "- And they found out, that Nielson consumed much less oxygen at the standard speed, than our picture perfect athlete."
"The unusual running technique brings improved results to runners of any type: sprinters, long distance runners as well as skiers and skaters. The chief researcher of the Problem Laboratory of the Russian state University of Physical Culture, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Vadim Balsevich, learnt the Romanov running technique and considers the method to be very interesting and useful. "I can tell you that this is one of the best methods in the world. Such body positioning makes the running more economical. The energy of movement is spent in the appropriate phases, which leads to increases in speed at the same expenditure," he says. "To learn this economic running is rather simple, buy a manual for $35, or pay $350 and you'll get Dr. Romanov himself as your personal trainer [at a Pose Method Running Clinic].
Voronov thinks that, if the Zhamensky brothers were trained today according to modern methods, they could easily perform on the world level. But the worst thing is, as Voronov's data show, that even today the Russian athletes do not train according to the methods, created on the basis of Biomechanical research. "What a coach can't give his athlete in the form of training, he gives in the form of pills. While today, with the right biomechanical education," says Voronov, "You can reach the results much higher than those reached through doping,"
Vadim Balsevich also agrees that Biomechanics could help our athletes to win. But alas our coaches are all interested only in looking for phenomenally physically fit people, and have no interest at all in developing any special sport technique, which could bring some additional results. Thus, in St. Petersburg's Institute of Physical Culture and Sports, they developed a method allowing them to determine for what kind of sport nature better adapted this or that particular person. This, by the way, will allow saving a lot of money: to prepare an Olympic champion costs the same as to build two tanks T-80, about $5 million.
As the head of Biochemistry department of St. Petersburg's Institute, professor Victor Rogoskin, explains to us, he and his colleagues, determine an athlete's abilities according to his genotype. "Some of them are distinguished by high endurance and can show best results in ski races, middle and long distance running, triathlon, cycling", the scientist continues, "Others are more adapted to speed-strength kinds of sport: weight lifting, boxing, wrestling." Now the St. Petersburg's scientists' method helps us to select and train those who will participate from Russia in 2008 and 2012 Olympiads. "For sprint distances in track and field one needs a larger percentage of "quick" fibers in his muscles, and for longer distances - "slow" ones", explains Andrey Voronov. " It's important, for instance, for the athlete to have a big diameter of the heart's aorta, which helps to utilize oxygen." For example, the Olympic Pentathlon champion, Pavel Lednev's, heart was pumping 250 ml of blood at one beat. In other words, his heard was pumping around 40 liters of blood a minute. Such uniquely gifted people win the race even if they spend their forces inefficiently. But when the athletes are naturally almost equally gifted, the medal will be won by the one, prepared "according to science." We may possibly see the results of Dr. Romanov's method already at the Olympics in Athens.
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