HARD TRAINING VS SKILL TRAINING

Running Forum again and again returns my attention to the headline topic.

Hard training philosophy still exists and dominates in the mentality of the large group of runners and triathletes. I understand where it’s coming from and why, and that’s the reason for writing this article.

As was said time and again, training in running took “hard work” direction long ago due to an assumption that the main thing to be developed in running is the cardio-vascular system. Science brought up a lot of research data to confirm this assumption and VO2 max concept became a dominant paradigm, which was never really challenged.

Consequently this led to another assumption about the necessity of a large volume of training, because only the large volume of long running can develop our aerobic capacity. Running technique, at the same time, was never considered as something to be paid attention to, because of its “simplicity” and “naturalness”. The latter opinion was widely spread among athletes and coaches and considered running technique as God given and ridiculous to be attempted to change.

These opinions still dominate among elite athlete and coaches. Just read the October issue of The Runner’s World magazine about Pose Method.

During 100 years of searching for the right running technique science never came to the point of accepting any common idea about wrong or right running technique. So what was left for runners to do to improve their results? Work hard! Running technique and skill have never been a topic for serious consideration in training.

But let’s look at this problem from a different point of view.

Let’s consider running as no different from any other movement requiring a technique. “Techno”- in Greek is a skill of doing. And this is the essence of our approach to running. Understanding that skill is the ability to use all available resources to reach the goal may help us to find the right approach to this problem.

Everything we learn, we adapt to ourselves and then express in our performance. In other words, everything we get in and out of our organism, must have its own entrance, and exit, a gate. How we move in running reflects our understanding of the world, it may be a proper or wrong reflection, and we witness it in every step. Certainly in order to recognize this we have to have a proper perception and the model of movement, but it’s a topic for further discussion.

Next thing is to see that when our technique is wrong we are communicating the wrong message, and our adaptation goes in a different way.

Running has at least 5 major interrelated parameters: biomechanical, physiological, psychological, mental and spiritual, all existing simultaneously in space and time, and all requiring different gates. If biomechanical gate is closed, it’ll not allow us to develop the proper neuromuscular patterns, proper perception of movement and mental focus.

Approach to running as a skill puts all these things in the proper perspective. We can run long or fast only as long as we are capable of maintaining the proper running technique.

If we planned running 10 miles and on 10k mark our technique is gone, and we started experiencing pain, increased hard rate, and our speed slowed down, what would we gain by continuing this run? Only the fear of being injured and fatigued, which would require a long recovery.

It should be very clear that both length and speed of running, which we can’t handle are the factors deteriorating the proper technique. If our physiology, psychology and mental condition do not provide for our ability to maintain the proper technique, why should we push ourselves over this boundary? Do we need to be pushed to misery?

In Pose Method the criterion for our choice of length and speed of running is technique, or the skill of using our biomechanical, physiological, psychological and mental abilities to maintain technique. The latter consists of very simple components, elements of running: Pose, Fall and Pull. These are where our ability is directed to, and focused instead of “hard work”, which is not really goal oriented and certainly not related to any skill.



The earlier we understand this, the sooner we’ll be on our way to better running without injuries and suffering. It’s not a simple task to change your mind and habits, but it is the only way that leads us to progress, as mentioned by Charles Kettering.

Dr.Romanov