OVER-PULLING

Pulling is the second most important element of the Pose Method of Running. No matter how many times we said that pulling should just be enough to break the contact of the foot with the ground, over-pulling, or pulling with too much effort is still an issue for Pose runners.

The essence of over-pulling is very simple: most runners do not feel or perceive how much is enough to break contact with the ground and in what direction the pulled foot goes.

The right perception of the pulling effort and the pulling direction is still a blurry thing for runners who try to run with the Pose Method of Running.

Somehow pulling the foot from the ground is not perceived as a component of falling process, where pulling determines the rate of falling and not vice versa.

To put it simply: pulling serves our falling and for this matter pulling should be just enough to serve the falling process.

The rest: how high does the foot go up, is regulated by speed, not by muscular efforts. We only have to keep the foot moving along a straight vertical line under the hip.

A common mistake from the directional point of view is pulling behind the body, deviating from this vertical line under the hip. This error shows itself as legs lagging behind the body.

Why do we have to pull the foot under the hips (body)? - Because of the necessity to bring the GCM (General Centre of Mass) of the body over the ball of the foot and start falling forward from this position.

In the Pose Method we do not swing the airborne leg from behind forward, but we reproduce the running Pose (falling position) by moving the foot under the body in order to fall forward. The pulling action involves the movement of the foot from the ground not that of the thigh or the leg, in which case some other muscles are involved compared to the hamstring muscles flexing knee and thus moving the foot.

Therefore we need to have a developed perception of the foot pulling versus the thigh/leg pulling, and moving the foot along the vertical line from the ground under the hips. The absence of this kind of perception leads to unnecessary activity of hip flexors and then, as a compensation, to over-activity of the foot pulling behind the body and raising too high.

Timing of the fall-pull is a very important component which allows us to reduce over-pulling. Usually over-pulling is a result of being late with the pull while falling forward. A "normal" reaction to this delay is to compensate for it by applying more efforts, which ends up with over-pulling. So to avoid this we need to be on time with our action.

Pulling is the main physical action in running which requires our constant focus/attention from the beginning to the end of running. There is no any need to think about the foot moving in a circular motion, as we see it in running. This is a resultant movement. Our perception of the foot movement should be as of a vertical motion from the ground up under the hip (piston-like), a kind of up&down motion. In our perception the foot shouldn't deviate from the vertical line going from the ball of the support foot on the ground to under the hips.

The main conclusion is the following: minimize your pulling efforts at any speed and direct them only in the vertical direction. This will not only lower your heart rate, improve your efficiency and saving your energy, improve your performance, but also lower your chances of getting injuries, like hamstring soreness, tearing hamstring muscles, etc.

Dr.Romanov