UPPER BODY POSITION IN POSE
In spite of a seeming simplicity of this topic we need to have this discussion because of continuously coming questions on this matter. What are the difficulties in understanding the upper body position? There is some uncertainty about the head, neck, trunk placement and eyes focus, which we need to discuss in order to understand their role in the whole movement such as running. What are these parts of the body doing or should be doing to make our run efficient? Does it look like as a million dollar question?
There is a general approach to understanding their role in running in connection with the three major elements of the Pose Method ? Pose-Fall-Pull. All questions about body part positions should be narrowed to one question: Do they enhance performance of these elements or not? If yes, then how, if no, then why?
As you remember, the Pose is a balanced body position in midstance, which we are falling forward from. So all of the above-mentioned parts of the body have to line up along the vertical line, passing through the ball of the support foot on the ground. Any deviations from this line should be considered as an error. No one of these parts has its own activity outside the requirement of supporting balance. The difficulty of this simple lining up is that it happens in a fraction of second and our body parts (head, shoulders, hips) have to be in that vertical line at this fraction of a second.
How to hold this position in running? You have to remember your perception of it while staying in place with no movement. The body can be looked upon as a frame of a car on wheels, which are substituted here by our legs. Only our perception is our guidance to holding our body in the proper position, but we have to develop this proper feeling using outside help such as a mirror or somebody?s (coach, teacher, and friend) corrections. Very useful tools for this development are running drills, jumps in place (using rope, boxes, and free weights).
Falling starts from this position, and the body is supposed to act as a whole, connected and relatively rigid system, something what we can compare with a stick. Falling happens not by our muscle efforts, but by gravity pull. We need our muscle activity to keep our body as a whole and rigid system. The difference between the falling stick and falling body is that we do not fall from the shoulders by leaning forward with the trunk, we fall from the GCM (hips). Our trunk should be in almost erect position.
So again, it is about the connections between the upper body parts and keeping them along a straight line in order to have a rotational movement of the GCM around the point of support. Our upper body is not leaning forward as much as the support leg, because the next step is pulling the foot from the ground and our upper body becomes a support for pulling the foot from the ground. For this action our upper body have to be in a stable and balanced condition in the air and then during landing on support.
As you see, there is a very specific task for the upper body ? do not lean, because the GCM of the body is leaning. There is a very good exercise to develop this skill ? performing all running drills with the rubber band (tied up to your ankles) resistance. These drills could be performed in place and in forward movement, for one or two legs. Rubber bands force us to hold the upper body strictly in erect position and incorporate all body parts in one unit, a relatively rigid system.
Our eyes are very important for keeping balance of the body and their focus is important for supporting this function because it influences the head position. It is easy to understand this by experiencing running in the dark where our vision is reduced. Where is our eyes focus in this case? It is just in the position to control the general balance of the body, including the head position. This is what we have to keep in mind when talking about the eyes focus.
And everything, as you see, comes to our perception as our major regulator of our movement.
Dr.Romanov
