Posture

Posted on February 15, 2009 by CoachJay

Last summer I had lunch with one of the best HS coaches in the state of Colorado. The name of a local runner, who also happened to be a national-class runner, came up and the HS coach noted, “he’s really good, but he needs to work on his form.”

“He leans forward to much,” I ventured.

“How’d you know?” blurted the HS coach, “have you seen him run?”

I had not, but my guess that his problem is his forward lean is correct over 90% of the time (at least when a coach thinks a particular runner should work on their form).

Now, I need to be clear here; I don’t understand the biomechanics of running and/or sprinting the way many, many coaches do (Tom Telez and Loren Seagrave obviously understand this idea; I’ve been fortunate to ask Vince Anderson and Dan Pfaff question on this topic). That said, the phrase I say the most over the course of the year to every athlete I work with is, “Up Tall,” whether they’re running a long run or a running 150m in-n-outs; what we don’t want is the distance runner who appears to be chasing a soccer ball 10 feet ahead of them. Or, like my college coach would often say to a runner who was looking down at the track, “The only thing down at your feet is defeat.”

I made this point as a quick aside last Friday at the Colorado High School Coaches Association clinic as part of my suggestion that distance coaches should focus on the posterior chain (i.e. the muscles and fascia that make up the back of the body) when assigning General Strength (GS). The next day I was going through some things in the garage and I found a Sports Illustrated dated August 2nd 1971. While I knew the issue had an article by Bill Bowerman in it, the real reason I had the magazine was the cool photos of Oregon runners, most notably a clean shaven, young looking Steve Prefontaine.  I skipped the prologue and went straight to the words Bowerman had penned:

The most important element in developing and maintaining a smooth, efficient running style is an upright posture. This is just as true for the sprinter as for the jogger. Ideally, when you are running, your posture should be so erect that a plumb line could be dropped from your ear lobe straight down through the line of the shoulder, the line of the hip and then on to the ground (note Prefontaine’s carriage). Unfortunately, many people, including athletes, seem to feel it is necessary to lean forward in order to generate maximum thrust while running. This is wrong.

I literally had goose bumps when I read that. Why? Because as much as I know posture is important, and as much as I’m trying to get athletes to strike under their hips, I still can’t tell you where the origin and insertion of the Psoas muscle is. Just 60 seconds ago I realized that the Iliopsoas probably means the Psoas Major, Psoas Minor and the Illiacus as one muscle group. Does this matter? Yes and no. Yes in that we should all be striving to be excellent in our field, especially if we feel we’ve found our avocation (thanks Vig for teaching me that word). On the other hand, it doesn’t matter. For example, when I watched the young men from FSU working their butts of in this video I couldn’t help but notice that most of them couldn’t perform the “can-can” without leaning forward or backward, exposing either hamstring/gluteal weakness and or inflexibility. And these FSU guys are good, but as Bowerman pointed out over a quarter century ago, most runners struggle with this issue and even a talented, accomplished group of collegiate males will struggle with the same issue(s).

So what should you do? Well, first you should buy Phil and Jim Wharton’s DVDs–their AIS method is magical and in three weeks you’ll be a different runner. What else? I’ll keep coming back to this issue when I share videos because I’m learning that while it starts with inflexibility (which can be remedied with the AIS method) the long term issue is strength and the ability to generate force with the back side of your body.

I look forward to your questions and comments, so fire away.

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  • http://stevemagness.blogspot.com stevemagness

    good post jay.

    That article by Bowerman was one of the first articles on running mechanics one my coaches gave me. A while later, he made me go through that same article line by line correcting the “mistakes.”

  • http://coachjayjohnson.com CoachJay

    That's really funny Steve as I was reading the article again this morning thinking, “I don't agree with many of these points.”

    I think we've got some great content on tap in the next 7-10 days, but I have a feeling I'll come back to the article point by point and go through it – some great stuff but also some things, similar to Lydiard's enthusiastic endorsement of milkshakes, that many not be as important as Bowerman had thought.

    …but the photos in the article are stunning, even a quarter century later; so glad I have a copy of the original magazine.

  • patricktrack

    great post jay,

    Yesterday watching Fernandez run 7:47 it was amazing to see up close how relaxed and “tall” he runs. I'm not a kinesiologist but he is one of the most efficient runners I have ever seen. Everyone standing around the track was talking about the same thing, absolutely hrilling to watch.

  • http://coachjayjohnson.com CoachJay

    Interesting…three years ago I was watching an Ohio State state athlete, a young man in the 3,000m, with great mechanics and that started a conversation with Robert Gary about the same issue. Some athletes have the postural strength to run every step of training and races that way, but for most athletes they have to train it. Would be interesting to know if Fernandez is the former or the latter.

    Thanks Patrick for the comment.

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  • jamespkelly

    In the summer of 1971 I was training for a freshmen position on the Fordham U cross country team. I remember that issue of SI and the cool photos. I had a good career at Fordham but I'm still enjoying a second career , going on 20 years now, as a competitive age group triathlete and road racer.
    I heartily agree with Bowerman and tell the HS kids I coach about proper form. Though I am an experiment of one I undeniably notice that when I tire toward the end of a run or race my upper body leans forward, my form suffers and I slow down. So I am ever watchful on this point.
    The most important discovery early in my second competitive career is the value of Core/Balance and Strength trainig and I also pass this along to my kids.
    Anyway thanks for mentioning that article – at the time it was a big inspiration for me and gave me the inspiration to work a bit harder knowing I was on my way to compete with the big dogs.