FALLING NOT SQUEEZING

It is typical to have this kind of discussions around running and any other movement - how to use these or those muscles to make our movement/run, bike, swim, throwing, etc, better. There is a ton of advice to "squeeze" one group of muscles or the other. On Pose Tech's running forum in discussion "Butt Running" it goes to squeeze the butt or low abdominal during running and then it goes to development of these muscles. And each one is telling that this one "helped me" and perhaps "could help you".

Who is right and who is wrong? May be it is all of them or neither one? Why something helps someone and doesn't work for another one? Is it a good question or not? Let's ask in a different way. How did people run before any knowledge about butt and low abdominal muscles was available? May be a simpler question: How do kids run without any previous knowledge of this? Even simpler: How do animals run without any knowledge of this at all?

Who is squeezing their butts and abdominals? Did we confuse something or miss something there? Reasoning as thinking creatures should, we think according to the logic of Francis Bacon: "Knowledge is power", meaning, if we know, which muscles to squeeze we'll get our running better. Isn't it so? Then, the people who know anatomy should run better than those who do not know it. Does our experience confirm this? I guess not. Do I advise you to not study anatomy? NO!!!

But everything comes down to the question of how to make our muscles work in the best way possible when we run? How can we do it without knowing our muscles or not being told what to do? What do we have our mind for? Is it a dead end?

Not at all. We just have to understand something about our movement which goes beyond our muscles. The role of muscles is to serve our movement, but our mind should not control which muscles to squeeze, so to say. Our body has over 600 muscles, which are in one way or another involved in every movement. Some muscles, such as those in the butt, are involved "heavily" in most basic movement.

Butt muscles include Gluteus maximus, medius, minimus, Piriformis, Gemellus superior inferior, Internal obturator, etc., which are all doing the same things - hip extension and lateral rotation of the thigh and playing support function during our ground time. But the question is not about their function. It is about how can we really control so many different muscles in a short time of support? Another thing is how can we keep them squeezed all the time or on time - if, first of all, it is not natural for any muscles, which are working in a cycle of contracting/relaxing, and second, when is it really on time?

So we are taking about our illusions to which our mind is attached. Certainly we can artificially, out of context of movement, contract and tense our muscles and get an illusion of "help". What happens in reality is completely different. There is a constant necessity of shifting the body weight in running and our muscles are working for this matter. Our mind controls the only thing it really can control: the rate and direction of shifting.

Sure for this matter the body should be in a specific condition and position, it's right. But the primary thing is the desire or necessity to move and the body position is subordinate in these relations. So the question is - who is the master and who is the servant? The answer is - movement is the master. No question, we need well developed muscles, but we don't need to squeeze them voluntary in order to make our run faster. We need to have our body favorably positioned for better and freer falling, and our muscles will serve this purpose easily and with pleasure, believe me.

Dr.Romanov