Striking a Pose

REVOLUTIONISE YOUR RUNNING AND KNOCK MINUTES OFF THOSE PB’S WITH THE POSE TECHNIQUE BY AARON SCOTT

If you told a friend that you were having a golf lesson at the weekend they wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Tell them you are going for a lesson on how to run and you can be sure that you will be laughed at.

This seems strange when considering injuries and niggles are a proverbial pain in the backside for runners – sometimes literally. So, you would have thought that surely every runner would put time and energy into their technique, but sadly this is not the case.

This means runners spend hours on the treatment table. Or waste time scratching their heads wondering what is so wrong with their body for it to fall apart after a couple of miles. Thankfully, help is out there.

“Learning the POSE running technique can dramatically improve training and racing performance, help prevent injuries and give a competitive edge,” says Mark Hainsworth, a general practitioner and certified coach of POSE. “The technique can take as little as two hours to learn for some. Although funnily enough women tend to be better at it than men – who often over analyse matters.”

Hainsworth teaches the POSE technique to runners across the country. With the help of lectures and internet forums on websites such as FetchEveryone – a fountain of knowledge if ever there was one - the word of POSE is slowly spreading. The feedback so far has been positive from converts to the technique.

“I tried returning to running under my own steam several times,” said Steve Baxter, who in the past ran with poor technique and always got injured straight away. “A couple of months after starting to learn the POSE method I have improved enough to follow a schedule without getting injured. It looks like I’m going to be able to run again thanks to POSE.”

Other testimonies have reiterated this notion. With runners claiming that the technique has rejuvenated their training and put old injuries to bed. Could running injuries be a thing of the past?

The technique is the brainchild of the two-time Olympic coach Nicholas Romanov. His research into the technique suggests that with coaching some runners can in the space of six months get rid of the orthotics and stability shoes. The POSE revolution has really taken off in the US and parts of Europe and the UK looks likely to follow.

“The UK at the moment currently has the third highest percentage of POSE runners in the world,” says Hainsworth. “The French love it. It has been adopted by the Parkour runners and if you want to see an example of POSE just take a look at the Citroen add. The man who modelled that is a POSE runner.”

Running in its essence is a system of movement that is a series of falls and catches. The impact we put through our joints and muscles when we run is significant - in excess of our body weight in fact. So it is easy to see why so many runners with poor technique get injured so frequently.

“A runner leaves the ground for a part of the gait cycle. This means the ground reaction force has to be proportional to more than the bodyweight of the runner,” says Hainsworth. Remember Newton’s law – every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If a runner spends half a gait cycle on the ground and half in the air then the ground reaction force has to be proportional to twice the body weight.”

At its core the POSE technique teaches runners to rethink the way in which they run. It focuses on making runners aware of what their body is actually doing while they are running – called proprioreception. In doing so the traditional method of running heel to toe is forgotten.

“The POSE method teaches the runner to align his body to maximize the use of gravity. It teaches you to use the lean and to land under the body rather than in front,” he says. “It teaches you to land on the ball of the foot to minimize impact on the joints and use the body’s natural cushioning.”

To learn this technique Hainsworth recommends the use of drills and form intervals to reinforce the POSE ideals. “These drills which can be practiced for a few minutes everyday reinforce the perception and allow the technique to become second nature.”

It would not be fair to say that POSE is the only technique out there gaining a rapport- with Chi and CORE running gathering a large following. However, there does seem to be a great deal of common ground between such teachings.

“Of course POSE is not the only method that one can learn to run efficiently. After all many runners run very efficiently without the benefit of being taught pose,” says Hainsworth. “They run to pose standards as a result of efficiency born of long hours training or learning another method.”

Within the running world there is a definitely a shift towards technique within running. Efficient running form is therefore not restricted to only talented ‘naturals’ like Haile Gebreselassie. As Hainsworth says “there are specific characteristics of elite runners that you can learn and practice. You can learn the secrets of efficient runners and make them your own.”