In my previous blog I talked about the simplest and most effective way for walkers to reduce impact to their knees and hips. So, in all fairness to you runners, this post is for you.

Since runners, as a rule, are a bit more injury-prone than walkers, the simplest way to avoid knee pain or knee injury is not as simple as it is with walking. I’ve read that running can increase your body weight upon impact by 6-10 times depending on whether you’re running on flat ground or running downhill. That’s an incredible amount of weight for your knees and hips to bear with every foot strike. So, it behooves us all to do everything we can to lower that multiple. If I weight 145 lbs. that means I’m putting 870 lbs. of pressure on my knees every time my foot hits the ground.

There are two reasons for this increase in impact to your knees. Part of that increase in weight comes from the fact that you’re leaving the ground between strides and as you return to earth, your body is accelerated by the pull of gravity. The other part of that weight increase happens because of the braking effect created if your foot happens to land in front of your center of mass. For most runners I’d have to say that is the biggest culprit of increasing impact.

So what’s the simplest solution?

Don’t step in front of your hips when you run. You heard me right… and you’re also correct if you’re thinking, “That’s easier said than done.” It’s not really that difficult to do, but it does take some patience and practice. It all comes down to learning how to run with a midfoot strike because it’s the best way to prevent your foot from landing out in front of your body. You can further reduce the amount of impact to your knees by landing with your foot even slightly behind your center of mass. This will minimize any chance of braking as your feet hit the ground.

If you’ve read the ChiRunning book you already know about landing with a midfoot strike and how that’s accomplished. If you haven’t read the book, I highly suggest you check it out. Another part of this equation is keeping your hips loose and your pelvis rotating. This will keep you running level across the ground and prevent the impact that comes from excessive bouncing.

If you can change where your foot lands and minimize your bounce you can seriously reduce the impact to your knees. I was recently tested at the gait lab at the University of Virginia and found that my vertical GRF (ground reaction force) was only 2.4 times my body weight. That’s a far cry from 6-10 times mentioned earlier!

My long range goal is, of course, to get that number down to zero… so I can run on water.

Happy trails,
Danny

Because I’m a lifelong advocate of fitness walking and injury-free walking, I’m always trying to come up with the simplest way to get walkers to move along the ground in a way that produces the least amount of impact to the feet, knees, hips and lower back. The answer to this dilemma is different depending on whether you’re doing ChiWalking or ChiRunning. I’ll begin with you ChiWalkers.

When I watch people walk I’d conservatively estimate that over 90% of all walkers lock their leading knee as their heel touches the ground in front of them. The problem with this (and most people don’t know this) is that when your heel strikes the ground ahead of your center of mass, it creates a braking effect on your forward motion. So you’re essentially pushing yourself forward with your rear leg while you’re simultaneously stopping yourself with your leading leg. We call it “driving with the brakes on” and it’s not only an inefficient way to move down the road, but it can create long-term impact damage to your feet, knees, hips and lower back.

According to the Joint Implant and Surgery Foundation there are over 200,000 hip replacements performed in the U.S. every year! I was totally shocked at this number. Here’s a small section of an article on hip replacements that I’ve borrowed from the JISF.org website:

“Hip joint load is a function of body weight, activity level, muscular force, and the distance from the body’s center of gravity to the center of the femoral head. Publications have stated that the hip joint force increases up to 2.5 times body weight with speed in level walking.”

Let’s see… two and a half times my body weight is 290 lbs. That means that when I walk at any kind of speed on a level surface there’s a force of 290 lbs. going to each of my hip joints with every step I take. Now, if I’m reaching forward with my stride and locking my knee, that means that that same amount of force is also going into my heels (plantar fasciitis & ankle problems), my knees (300,000 total knee replacements each year according to the NIH), my hips (you’ve seen the numbers), and lower back (The U.S. spends $50 billion each year on lower back pain). You’d think that here in the 21st century we could come up with a way to prevent some of this. Well, there is something remarkably simple that you can do the next time you find yourself walking somewhere. Are you ready for this earth-shattering piece of inside information? OK, here it is….

Don’t lock your knees when you take a step forward. That’s right. It’s pretty simple. Just make sure your knees are always bent as your foot comes down onto the ground ahead of you. Here’s how you’ll be helping your hip joint specifically. When you lock your knee the impact of your footstrike travels in a direct line from your heel to your hip because all of your bones are lined up in a straight line. On the other hand, if you bend your knees, that impact is dispersed through your feet, ankles, and knees before it reaches your hip…and the resulting impact to your hip becomes almost negligible.

Of course, if you’re used to walking with your knees locked, this means a change in what is probably a longstanding habit. Remembering to do it is the hardest part, but it is much easier to do if you can remember to always work on walking with your posture well-aligned with your shoulders and head slightly forward of where you are used to carrying them. It’s just a very slight forward tilt of your upper body whenever you’re walking.

Another way to accomplish the knee bend when you walk is to shorten your stride and quicken your cadence. You’ll sense that you’re taking smaller, quicker steps, but your legs will feel very different as will the impact on your hips and knees. It might feel a bit strange at first, but if you go back and read the statistics about knee and hip replacements and think of the alternatives…you might be more willing to watch your step.

For more information on injury-free walking and fitness walking please visit the ChiWalking website.

I was recently asked, for the umpteenth time, a question that deserves a good answer.

“When I concentrate on striking mid-foot and keeping my
lower legs very relaxed, it feels and sounds like my feet are slapping the pavement much harder than before. Is this normal, or does my form still need correcting?”

For many first-timers to ChiRunning, learning to run with a midfoot strike is a very new experience. The new way your feet touch the ground, along with a distinctive full-bodied tilt can take a little time to get used to. What happens for some folks who are working on a midfoot strike, is that they notice their feet tend to slap the pavement more then they used to. If this happens to you it’s a sign that you’re on the right path to getting a midfoot strike, but it’s also a sign that there’s more work to do in other areas of your stride.

Here’s what I mean. Most people are used to swinging their legs forward when they take a stride…whether they’re walking or running. What this does is create a heel strike where your heel then becomes a fulcrum and your foot slaps down onto the pavement with each step. Not only is a heel strike unhealthy for your knees, the slapping can bruise the metatarsal heads and make your feet feel like they’re on fire.

In the ChiRunning and ChiWalking techniques, the foot strikes under your center of mass in a midfoot strike. This eliminates a heel strike and shortens your support time. The legs are always swinging to the rear, which noticeably reduces the amount of impact to the knees. When many people first try the midfoot strike they tend to focus more on the landing than on what the rest of their body is doing. The way to get rid of the slapping is to work on your pelvic rotation, which is mentioned on pages 179-180 of the ChiRunning book, and also mentioned at the top of page 82. In the ChiWalking book it is explained and illustrated on page 87.

As your foot hits the ground under you, your leg begins its rearward swing. Your leg then extends out behind you and when your foot returns to its original support position, it’s underneath you again…not landing out in front of you. As long as your foot never lands in front of your body, the slapping will go away.

Here’s the trick. Every time your leg swings out the back, let your hip swing back with it. This will force your hips and pelvis to rotate in the direction your rear leg is swinging, creating a healthy twisting motion along your spine. Your stride will open up behind you, as it should, and you’ll experience a new sense of smoothness in your gait because your legs will no longer be swinging forward which causes foot slapping.

Happy Trails,
Danny

Whenever I’ve been asked to be interviewed by the media, I’ve been asked this question…and then been given about 45 seconds to answer. So I challenged myself to come up with a brief description of how ChiRunning and ChiWalking combine the principles of t’ai chi with running and walking, and how that can improve your movement. So here goes… (I’m starting my stopwatch.)

“T’ai chi is the mother of all martial arts, based on the premise that all movement and power originates from your center, not your arms and legs.
For centuries, the Chinese have studied animal movement and found that all movement in the body revolves around a central axis (along the spine) while the arms and legs remain as relaxed as possible and act only as conduits for the force generated by your core.

When these principles of alignment and relaxation are applied in ChiRunning and ChiWalking, efficiency increases and impact with the ground decreases. You can run farther, faster or more often without increasing your risk of injury. Your body no longer breaks down because you’re practicing to run and walk with more fluidity with every step, while using the pull of gravity for propulsion.”

There… 41 seconds flat.

Have a great day,
Danny

Here are a couple of tips for runners and walkers from Mary Lindahl, one of our master instructors who lives in Seattle. She was with us on our recent trip to China and came home with these pearls of wisdom, I’ve added my own notes in italics. These are great tips. The walking one is for anyone interested in making their own walking easier and more efficient. That means you runners need to read it too…it’ll help reduce effort in your leg swing. -Danny

ChiRunning Tip – Your Body Moves First
Tai Chi Master George Xu repeats the phrase “Your Body Moves First,” like a mantra. To apply this to running, he advises visualizing your body three or four feet in front of where you are, letting your body move first toward that vision and relaxing your arms and legs. I repeated George’s mantra to myself while running up a long hill in China and visualized my body several feet in front of me. That experience has forever changed my uphill running. It is as if an invisible force is pulling me up the hill. I lean more into the hill and I can feel my shoulders relax. This works on the flat and downhill also, though I notice the difference most on the uphills. Your Body Moves First.
George once told me to visualize that I had a cord attached to the top of my head which was being pulled upward and forward by a giant kite (like the kind the kite-boarders use). It made an instant difference in my ease of running. Like Mary, I use this one on the uphills with great success. I also use it to help balance myself in my forward lean for extended periods of time, so that I’m not too far forward and I’m not too upright. It’s amazing how most activities we do seem to always come down to something about balance. - Danny

ChiWalking Tip — Training Your Leg Muscles to Relax
• Lay on your back, with your left knee bent and your right leg straight.

• Visualize a string attached to your right knee cap. Slowly raise your right knee as if someone was pulling upward on the string, letting your right heel slide closer to you. Slowly slide your heel away until your leg is straight again. Repeat while placing your hand on your lower abdominal muscles. Feel how your core muscles are engaged and notice how your hamstrings, quads, calves and shins can stay relaxed.

• Repeat with your left leg.

• Come to a standing position, align your posture and repeat the exercise. Feel how your core muscles are engaged as your knee tracks forward and notice how your leg muscles stay relaxed.

• Repeat daily, gradually increasing the speed which with you can do this exercise while keeping your leg muscles relaxed. Memorize and reproduce this feeling when ChiWalking.

This is one of the best tips I’ve come across in ages. If you really take it on and practice the exercise, you could reduce your leg swing effort substantially within a month. -Danny

I’ve been focusing lately on relaxing my quads so that I can get them to work even less than they already do. (It’s a regular practice of mine to use efficiency as my mantra.) Here’s what I’ve been working on. As my leg swings out behind me I allow my spine to twist which in turn allows my hip to go rearward along with my leg. (This is covered on pages 179-180 in the ChiRunning book.)

But, here’s an important aspect of allowing your leg to swing to the rear instead of thinking of swinging it forward. If I think of my leg as swinging to the rear instead of forward, my leading leg (opposite) is much more likely to come down in a mid-foot strike. Whereas, if I lift my leg forward it is more likely to swing too far forward, creating a heel strike. In order to avoid lifting my leg forward, I found that as soon as my rear foot leaves the ground, I need to relax my quads so that I do not engage them to lift my leg forward. The reason why I want to avoid using my quads is because they are the largest muscles in my body; they require lots of fuel and oxygen; and they take time to recover.

What I discovered today was this; in order to keep my quads from engaging I need to keep my knees as low as possible as my feet return to the midfoot strike position. The job of returning my leg to the support phase is left to the recoil action of the tendons in my psoas and hip flexors, which are stretched like elastic bands with each rearward leg swing. The recoiling action of the large tendons in the core muscles takes the place of the quads having to do the work of returning the leg to the support phase.

BUT, keeping my knees low does not imply that I’m keeping my feet low. Quite the opposite. I make sure that my feet are coming up behind me and that my knees bend more as my speed increases.

I know this probably sounds a bit technical, but just take your time digesting it. And when you think you grok what I’m talking about, go out and try it. I will say that this gets into some of the advanced material. I would not expect (or even require) a beginning ChiRunner to be able to apply this to their running in the early stages of learning the ChiRunning form, simply because the basic focuses are more important to think of when you’re first learning this technique.

Happy trails,
Danny