Well, I finally did it. After 38 years of running I finally bought myself a heart rate monitor. Why now? After that many years of running you’d think by now I would be able to Body Sense everything I needed to know to run injury-free and run long distances without burning myself out. The truth is, I can do that. But what I’m currently in the midst of is developing specific training programs for beginner, intermediate and advanced runners for everything from a 5k to a marathon…and beyond.

The key to training and conditioning oneself properly for long distance running and walking (and the most sane way), is aerobic training which was used quite effectively by Arthur Lydiard, one of the best running coaches ever. Training in your “aerobic zone” means that you do the vast majority of your workouts at a pace where you’re not gasping for breath or feeling like your heart is trying to jump out of your chest. So, if I’m going to be giving advice I need to make sure it’s good, accurate advice and not just theory.

There have been volumes of books written about how to train for all of the distances I mentioned, but what is needed today more than ever is a system that helps runners and walkers to realize their fitness goals in the safest and most energy-efficient way. To me that means not just putting out another training manual that tells you how many minutes or miles to run during each workout. That’s easy. But if you’re training for a 10k race, you’ll get a lot more bang for your training buck if you add great running technique onto all of that great conditioning. My goal is to offer training programs for running and walking that not only help you too increase your conditioning level by training within your aerobic zone, but actually help you to master your technique at the same time. As long as you’re going to be out there, why not kill two birds with one stone?

So, to make a long story (what could be an entire book, in fact) short, I bought a heart rate monitor so I can measure the effect that any of the ChiRunning form focuses might have on my performance and efficiency…measured in heartbeats per minute. For me it’s a biofeedback tool for measuring whether or not my efficiency is effected by making slight adjustments in how I run or walk. I’ll let you know how it goes.

My first use of the heart rate monitor was to measure my resting heart rate as soon as I opened my eyes… it was 41. I’m going out for a hilly trail run this morning, so we’ll see if I can get this thing to help me run hills more easily.

See ya later,
Danny

I get lots of questions about whether or not ChiRunning can help sprinters and middle distance runners. I’ve posted a blog on sprinting which I’m sure I’ll add to over time. But, if you’re a competitive runner in the 200m – 5K range, ChiRunning can definitely help your running too. One thing it will take is constant practice. In the ChiRunning book, the training paradigm that I promote is F.D.S. ….practice Form, then train to hold your form for longer Distance, Speed. That’s the order in which the highest level of success is guaranteed. Work on your form first. Then, as you get better at the form, you learn to hold the form at greater distances (or for more time), once your body is acclimated to running with a new technique and has the core-strength conditioning to withstand greater distances, then and only then should you work on adding in speed.

The longer the distance you run, the more amount of time you’ll need to spend landing on your midfoot instead of your forefoot (as sprinters do). If you spend too much time up on your toes, the small muscles of your legs will become overworked and/or over trained and you could end up being a candidate for some form of overuse injury of the lower leg (shin splints, calf pulls, achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and even metatarsal fractures).

This runs parallel to much of what Arthur Lydiard promoted with his runners…a very deep base of conditioning before adding in speed. When learning the ChiRunning technique, if you add speed in too early on, you risk defaulting back into power running and/or overusing your legs. This is a technique which uses less muscle because you rely much more on your forward lean to reduce your leg muscle usage. Being able to hold a forward lean over a period of time takes additional strengthening of the core muscles of the body. The more you train yourself to rely on your core muscles to run with, the less reliance you’ll have on the small peripheral muscles of the lower legs.

At the same time, looseness in the hips, spine and pelvis are needed in order to get to faster speeds. The idea is to take most of the work off the legs by running with your center of mass, over or slightly ahead of your center of gravity (your point of contact with the ground), while training your body to let go of any extraneous tension which inhibits fluidity in your motion.

For this reason, relaxation is a key component of the ChiRunning technique. You don’t get faster by being tense, or by using more muscle. The Kenyans are not fast because they have the strongest legs. They are fast because they have a great training base, AND they are the most relaxed and most efficient runners in the world. They have relatively low VO2 max numbers compared to athletes they’re competing against and beating. They are also extremely light on their feet and very loose in their pelvic area…something which their competitors have much to learn about.

I’ll be talking about advanced techniques every now and then in this blog. I have been reluctant to talk about speed, because ChiRunning is more about the process than the result and many competitive runners tend to be result oriented. Needless to say, if you work on your technique and then holding your technique for longer distances, the only thing you’ll need to add, in order to pick up speed, is more lean and more relaxation. Speed is a byproduct of having good technique, a relaxed body, and the ability to hold more of a lean (Core muscle strength) for a longer period of time.

Happy trails,
Danny