Tag Archives: running technique

The Key to Avoiding Knee Pain When Running

Posted on by by Lisa Pozzoni

‘Running will be hard on your knees,’ they said… and, hey, they’re not wrong, but it’s not ‘running’ that causes pain. It’s HOW you run.

Today I want to talk a little bit about running technique. (Of course, if you’ve been following me for a while, you already know that I’m a ChiRunning Master Instructor and that ChiRunning has absolutely changed my life.) A lot of times, when we talk about knee pain, there are various things in your run that will cause knee pain. I’m going to lay them out for you. At the end of this blog post, I’m also going to give you the quickest tip on how you can avoid all the things I’m talking about without really having to focus on them.

HEEL STRIKING

So first of all, one the major underlying causes of knee pain is heel striking – putting your front foot too far ahead of you during your stride.ย If you’re looking to avoid knee pain, you really want to avoid heel striking. Ideally, you’re going to land on a midfoot strike.

OVERSTRIDING

The two biggest causes of knee pain are overstriding and heel striking, and many runners do both at the same time. What that looks like is this (see video for demonstration). You can see here that I’m overstriding AND I’m heel striking. When you bring your foot out in front of you, it’s that impact from the heel strike and your foot landing in front of you which can cause knee pain. Again, it’s directly related to overstriding. What happens is that runners reach out with their foot, they heel strike, they land, they brake, they put that impact on the knee, and then they paw their way across the ground to move forward. This style of running ‘technically’ works, but running this way is also potentially an easy way to get injured. And it’s also pretty inefficient, since you’re actually slowing yourself down when you’re heel striking.

LIFTING THE KNEES

Another thing I see a lot of runners do is that they lift their knee. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos and I see a lot of people talking about lifting your knee for power. While this style might be appropriate for power sprinting quick short distances, it’s much less efficient for longer distances and actually takes more energy, so we don’t do that at all in ChiRunning. We keep our knees down because we use our core and posture to help us fall forward. By lifting your knee higher, you’re going to be using a lot more leg muscle than we like to do.

If you want to become a more efficient runner, you’ll want to avoid heel striking AND you want to avoid lifting your knee as much as possible. You always want to make sure that your knee is bent and it’s soft when you land, instead of it coming out in front of you and locking.

FOOT SPLAY

You also want to make sure that you don’t have a ‘splay’ in your gait. That would mean that your feet should always be pointing straight forward. If your feet splay out like this (see video for demonstration), what’s happening is you’re torqueing your whole entire leg, which is basically affecting your entire kinetic chain from the hip all the way down.ย  Over time and miles, this is going to have a negative effect on your running and your body.

RUNNING CADENCE

Keeping a good cadence is another way to avoid knee pain and that will actually bring everything together. 170 to 180 bpm is the ideal cadence that you want to keep. This cadence will keep your strides shorter and quicker, which should naturally help you heel strike and overstride less.

HOW TO INCORPORATE ALL THESE WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT

Now, for my favorite tip on how to avoid all of those things without focusing on them…
What I have found as I’ve been teaching running technique to thousands of runners over the last 10 years is that when runners think too hard about not overstriding and not heel striking and not doing all the things they’re trying so hard to make it happen, that they’re really not RELAXED anymore.

So, the best way to go about it is to really think about moving from the center of your body (basically your center of gravity). In ChiRunning and in Tai Chi, we call it your ‘dantien.’ Basically, your dantien is going to be about a couple of inches below and about one to two inches behind your belly button. That is your center of gravity. It’s just a location in your body that is an energetic location but also your center of gravity or your center of mass.

So what you want to do is you always just want to make sure that you’re keeping the center of your body directly above your feet, so your feet should never come out in front of the center of your body. It’s going to look something like this (see video for demonstration). And the wrong way to do it would be to reach out in front of you like this.

So these are a few individual elements to avoid developing knee pain. These technique focuses all build on one another, but instead of focusing on each ‘individual’ thing that your leg should not be doing, just try putting your center (dantien) ahead of your feet, and this could eliminate the heel striking or lifting the knees as a result of this one change.

At this point in the workshop, people often ask me about opening up their stride and getting faster! That topic is a little too much to go into right now, so I’ll save that for another video. But yes, that’s how it will eventually happen. Your stride will open up behind you as you move your center farther forward and you pick up speed. Just keep in mind that, as you get faster, your stride doesn’t open up IN FRONT OF you (which can bring back the heel striking and lifting the knees), but BEHIND you (which avoids these potentially harmful and less efficient motions).

A QUICK TRU REVIEW: HOW TO AVOID KNEE PAIN FROM RUNNINGย 

  • Avoid Heel Striking
  • Avoid Overstriding
  • Don’t Lift the Knees
  • Check for Foot Splay
  • Running Cadence of 170 to 180 bpm to Keep Shorter Quicker Strides
  • Move your center of mass/gravity (your dantien) forward (in front of your feet)

Let me know how it goes!

Fix Your Chin Position To Run Faster & Breathe Better

Posted on by by Lisa Pozzoni

Fix Your Chin Position To Run Faster & Breathe Better

Common Head Positioning

If you remember that scene from the movie Jerry Maguire, you may already know that the human head weighs eight pounds. ๐Ÿ˜‰ย 

All this weight can also down your run! Today, I want to talk a little bit about a technique tip that will really help you out with this. I see this happen a lot in finish line photos, where people have their chin way up high. Not only are they cutting off their airway, but let’s talk a little about what happens with the different positioning of your head.ย 

If you just notice (in the video), by tilting my head back, it’s throwing all my energy backwards and it’s slowing you down. Now, it might not matter at the very end at the finish line, because you’re done with your run. But I see it happen a lot when I do video analysis throughout my workshops. Let me tell you the quickest way to fix this, and you can actually follow along with me and even feel this out.

Improved, More Efficient Head Positioning

The first thing we always do (and this is, of course, part of ChiRunning) is that we get into our posture. So when we get into our posture, I’m going to give you just the quickest tip (there’s a lot more to this but..) go ahead and just lift through the crown of your head. So, (in the video) I have my ponytail in my hand and I’m gently pulling upwards and lifting through the crown of my head. This will help me engage my core.

NOTE: What often happens is that people think ‘lifting through the crown of your head’ is something different that what it actually is. If you’ve never done this before, it’s easy not to realize and feel like ‘crown of their head’ is your forehead. So what do many people first do? They tilt their head backwards to lift up their forehead. That’s not what you want to do! The ‘crown of your head’ is actually the highest point of your head. Like the point you used to measure and mark on the doorway when you were a kid! You want to lift through the crown (topmost part of your head). Here’s how to check to know if you’re doing this correctly.. put your hand right behind on your neck and your neck should be nice and flat. Now keep your right hand there and if I were to lift my chin, I’m crunching my right hand with the back of my neck. My chin is going up so that’s a good way to feel if your chin is in the right position or if you’re holding it maybe too high.ย 

When I do this correctly, you can see that my chin drops slightly. My next step in a run would be to fall forward. So, if my chin is facing in that direction, it’s going to help propel me forward, okay? If I tried to start running and my chin was up here I will still fall forward, but now because my head (which we already know now, weighs eight pounds or more) is lifted up this way, that’s going to cause me to slow down (weight more toward the back, rather than toward the direct I’m running/falling).

What else can I do to improve my running efficiency?ย ย 

You probably already know there are a lot of things involved in your running technique that can really impact what you’re doing. Many people just think that running is just when you put one foot in front of the other, but there’s so much that you could do in your body that’ll help make your run so much easier and more efficient, which then, of course, will make it funner!

I love to do running video analysis. I try to do one on myself periodically, just to check in to see how I’m doing. (If you go check out this video right here, you’ll see one of my very own video self-analyses.

What do you do with your arms?!

Posted on by by Lisa Pozzoni
Not too many people talk about arms when discussing running. The assumption is that running is all about your legs. This couldn’t be further than the truth. In ChiRunning we learn the importance of using all of our body to maximize running efficiency.
๐™’๐™๐™ฎ ๐™™๐™ค๐™š๐™จ ๐™ง๐™ช๐™ฃ๐™ฃ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ ๐™š๐™›๐™›๐™ž๐™˜๐™ž๐™š๐™ฃ๐™˜๐™ฎ ๐™ข๐™–๐™ฉ๐™ฉ๐™š๐™ง?
The more energy you use unnecessarily, the harder you are making it for yourself.
ย 
๐˜พ๐™ค๐™ฃ๐™จ๐™š๐™ง๐™ซ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ ๐™š๐™ฃ๐™š๐™ง๐™œ๐™ฎ ๐™ฌ๐™ž๐™ก๐™ก ๐™๐™š๐™ก๐™ฅ:
โญ Make running easier when you are doing it
โญ Help you recover quicker so you can do it more often
โญ Help you get faster
โญ Help you go longer
In this video I share a few tips that will help you use your arms so you can be more efficient.
ย 
๐™Ž๐™ค ๐™ฌ๐™๐™–๐™ฉ ๐™–๐™ง๐™š ๐™ฎ๐™ค๐™ช ๐™–๐™ง๐™ข๐™จ ๐™™๐™ค๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ ๐™ฌ๐™๐™š๐™ฃ ๐™ฎ๐™ค๐™ช ๐™–๐™ง๐™š ๐™ง๐™ช๐™ฃ๐™ฃ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ ๐™ค๐™ง ๐™ฌ๐™–๐™ก๐™ ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ?

ChiRunners VS Runners: What’s the difference?

Posted on by by Lisa Pozzoni

Why are ChiRunners different than other runners?

Since I’m the Community Manager of our Online ChiRunning/ChiWalking Community which is all ChiRunners and ChiWalkers, I definitely see that we have a different mindset than most other runners. Add that to reading some of these posts in running facebook groups and sometimes I can’t help but cringe at some of the questions and advice given there!

Then I remembered that Danny Dreyer, the founder of ChiRunning, had addressed this in the ChiMarathon book.ย  Here is what he shared on page 11:

The difference between ChiRunners and Runners

In this video I combine a few and add my own spin to them but here it is in a nutshell:

  1. Mind WITH body, not mind OVERย body: we don’t push through pain. We are our own body detectives. If we feel pain while running, our body talks to our mind, we reach into our toolbox to figure out why that pain may be happening, and then make adjustments in our technique to help the pain go away. You learn how to listen to your body and body sense.
  2. Intelligent movement vs physical exertion:ย our goal is to maximize running economy. Yes we do hill repeats, speed workouts etc. But we have a different spin: we try to figure how we can “push” our bodies but without increasing physical effort. How can the movement be more efficient? How can we maximize gravity, balance and relaxation vs powering through?
  3. Conserve energy vs burning it:ย as mentioned in the last one, this is a priority. Instead of pushing through to go faster or longer, we listen to our bodies, take into account external and internal factors and work from there.
  4. Core strength vs leg strength:ย we prefer not to use our legs for propulsion. This is a good way to get injured as well as wasting a lot of unnecessary energy. Most runners use their legs to propel forward. We use good postural alignment, which requires core strength, and gravity to help us move forward. When your legs aren’t working so hard, you’re less likely to hurt yourself and running is more effortless because you are not using all the muscle to push you through.
  5. Learn and listen TO our bodies, we don’t test or push:ย our bodies have the answers. Too many times people push through pain hoping it will go away or they will get over it. I’ve had too many people come to my ChiRunning workshops who have said, “I wish I knew this information before my {insert injury issue/surgery here}. If you are in pain, your body is telling you something. Ignoring it can possibly make it worse.

Who wants to be sidelined with another running injury? Not us!

Who wants running to be exhausting and hard?ย Not us!

Who wants to feel like crap right after a race or the next day? Not us!

Who wants to keep running in a way that your likelihood of injury is so much lower, where running can be easier and you can have a joyful, sustainable running practice for the rest of your life? That’s us!

Click here to win a free online gait analysis of your running form

To find out more about running technique visit ChiRunning

ChiRunning Self Video Analysis

Posted on by by Lisa Pozzoni

The video doesn’t lie!

Even though I’ve been teaching ChiRunning since 2010, reviewing my technique regularly helps me get better. This is my 1st Q 2022 review. I will be posting these quarterly because practice makes progress.

Background:

I did my first 100 miler over New Year’s on a one mile loop course. While I trained as much as I could, I ended up injuring myself. I had to cancel 3 ultra events that were scheduled after this.

I’ve worked with Jody, my acupuncturist right after the injury. I’ve been focusing on shorter distances, strength training and stretching (not consistently though). I know focusing on that and my technique again will help get me ready for some bigger mileage goals that I have in the next 2-4 years. Gradual progress and patience have been key for me during this time.

Click here to win a free online gait analysis of your running form

Some of my key takeaways for this quarter:

  • Make strength training a priority minimum 2x a week but goal of 3x
  • Lower leg relaxation more specifically ankles. Will focus on more ankle mobility as well.
  • I continue to work on upper body rotation. It’s better but still some work to do there along with shoulder/upper body relaxation. I love rocking and doing Original Strength work to help with shoulder stabilization.
  • Drop my chin a bit more for a more neutral head position

Click here to win a free online gait analysis of your running form

To find out more about running technique visit ChiRunning

50 Miles of Gratitude: (1) ChiRunning

Posted on by by Lisa Pozzoni

โ€ฆ.and My Story Runs Onโ€ฆ.

I think one of the reasons I want to write a post a day for 50 days is because I want to keep reliving this amazing, life changing experience I had! I promised these to be short and sweet. ย Please note that these are not necessarily in any order although ChiRunning is in the top 5 reasons why I had a successful race. ย How do I measure my success? ย Well, not by speed, obviously!ย I measure success based on how I felt during training, the race and after. ย Although there are several other factors that contributed to my success, ChiRunning is a HUGE part of it.

It was just last year that I suffered from plantar fasciitis and had to take several months off from running due to overuse and not listening to my body.

I would never even consider doing this race if it weren’t for ChiRunning. ย If you are a ChiRunner already, you know what I’m talking about. If not, I highly suggest you look into it.

First and foremost, it’s about proper running form. Technique is the key to success with any sport. ย In ChiRunning, you learn to minimize using your legs to run and use your core and gravity to do the work for you. When you use your legs less, you are less prone to injury and you use less energy which in turn can translate to better recovery time, speed and/or distance.

Most people run upright, overstride in front of them and use their legs way too much! This causes most running injuries and is an inefficient way to move forward.

Most people run upright, overstride in front of them and use their legs way too much! This causes most running injuries and is an inefficient way to move forward.

I had no pain while training and I was averaging 50+ miles a week for awhile. ย I had no pain during the race at all even though we were in sand most of the time and climbing because I knew how to use my body properly for these (you learn to adapt your technique to the environment you are running in). ย Of course, I did quite a bit of ChiWalking as well! ย I’ll admit that the day after my body was a bit sore and I was waddling around but on Monday, I barely felt any soreness. I know this is also due to my conditioning but I know my technique had a lot to do with it.

One of the reasons I love ChiRunning, is that the more you focus on it, the better you become at it. I’m a Master Instructor and have been teaching it for 6 years. I focused heavily on my form on my training runs with my ChiSchool audios and ChiRunning app and have felt a huge improvement in my form and efficiency. ย I felt great pretty much the whole time during the 50 miler.

ChiRunning is great for beginners wanting to learn to properly the first time around and also elite athletes that are looking at getting better/faster at their sport. ย As we say, “Practice Makes Progress” and you never know how a little tweak in your arm swing or your head position can negatively impact your running form….and when you are running 50 miles, you want to be as efficient as possible.

ChiRunning just used this comment in one of their facebook posts and I wanted to share: “ChiRunning and Total Immersion share the belief that you are ALWAYS working on your technique, because you can always improve on some level, whether it’s getting more physically fit, focusing your mind, elevating your mood or learning the art of internal stillness in the midst of activity.”

And for the record, ChiRunning has changed my run but more importantly my life in so many ways! I highly recommend checking it out if you are a runner! Imagine the possibilities!

I personally don't want running to be hard...why would I keep doing it? The easier it is on my mind and body, the more likely I'll keep doing it and be able to do it!

I personally don’t want running to be hard…why would I keep doing it? The easier it is on my mind and body, the more likely I’ll keep doing it and be able to do it!

50 Miles of Gratitude: 50 Posts about my first 50ย Miler

 

 

From My Running Story to Yoursโ€ฆ.
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so belowโ€ฆI want to hear your story too!)