My first experience with minimalist running shoes goes back to 2011. I can tell it was one of my biggest discovery at running. I slowly transitioned into a pair of Vibram Five Fingers (TreckSport was the model to be accurate) and then increased intensity and distance as I progressed. I ran two full marathons in them in 2012, fastest at 3:11, and achieved the PB of 56:58 in City2Surf.

Despite ticking all the goals at high mark, the glory did not last long as I faced a benign Achilles tendinitis. I looked into the cause of that and found Pose Method of Running explaining it the best.

I certainly over-trained during that period but in addition to that the issue with my running form/technique was I used to push off the ground, mainly toe push off. I also had a wrong understanding of utilization of natural shock absorption in the legs which led me to forcibly stay on the balls of my feet holding my heels high all the time. I forced myself to hurt my right Achilles tendon, simply because of lack of knowledge.

What I gained during that glorious period was strong, lean and muscly lower legs. Interesting that recently bumped into this article as a proof to this experience of my own: www.shape.com/fitness/gear/should-you-wear-minimalist-running-shoes in which reads:

In a study conducted by Hong Kong Polytechnic University in conjunction with Harvard Medical School, researchers found that training in MRS (Minimalist Running Shoes) increased runner’s muscle mass and strength in the feet and lower legs…

I still run in VFF and recommend them to everyone however if you are not running in pose you might get yourself injured if you train too seriously in them. I always tell everyone, once you learn how to run efficiently you will realize how less important shoes are.

Coming at a different angle on this subject, we were looking for a new pair of shoes for my 4.5 yo son a few months ago, for sports other than running like soccer, and I could not choose anything better than Nike Revolution and then Nike Free, although was not totally happy with either due to their slight heel elevation (they are NOT zero-drop). All shoes at the shops we went to had lots of support in them which would not be approved by me the barefoot-running evangelist daddy especially when it comes to kids. Bad news is last week I took a video of his running form and was shocked when saw his over-striding, landing ahead of body and heel-striking! All the three devils were at the party!

I asked him to take his shoes off and run again. That came with another shocking moment that the evils were still there.

Cannot believe how easily we may deviate from the so-called natural front-foot landing technique, the outcome of human evolution in a few million years, over a short period of time running in cushioned shoes. Amazing how comfort leads us.

You must have heard of natural running but I have not come across any certain set of rules anywhere yet that clearly defines it. If there is any, it has to start with basics. If I try to write the basic rules down here I would start with these:

• Legs shock absorption must be fully incorporated
• Tendon elasticity must be utilized

These two are natural features in our legs that play important roles at running. Note that half of the tendon elasticity (second item) is within the first item, the shock absorption, meaning our tendons stretch out as our muscles load at landing time to preserve a portion of the kinetic energy. This is done along with the rest of shock absorption mechanism to slow us down on the vertical direction. After the last moment of vertical stopping, the tendons unload to unleash the energy, like a stretched rubber band that returns energy once released . This is a big saving that helps us getting off the ground for the next stride with less muscular effort.

The shock absorption feature is simply in the curvy bendy shape of our legs broken down with joints. Three major joints exist between torso and the contact point with the ground: hips, knees, and ankles. Tendons around these joints provide some room to smooth the impact of touching down, as well as the other soft tissues inserted inside and around the joints. The more number of joints engaged at landing, the better the landing shock is handled. That simply means landing on the front foot would engage ankles whereas heel-striking would by-pass it relying on shoes to absorb the shock, not to mention leaving knees and hips with more pressure to deal with.

Now do you see how shoes and legs differ in terms of absorbing the landing impact? The answer is the one done by shoes would send kinetic energy to waste whereas legs can release back a portion of it due to their elasticity. My honest advice, improve this elasticity and it pays back the initial training by saving a lot of energy as you go.

I would call a running form unnatural if the technique in it, no matter how or why or caused by what, prevents utilization of any of these two features, and call it natural if not only it uses these features but also it enhances them and make the running economy be relied upon them more.

If you are up to choosing proper minimalist running shoes consider these four specifications:

1. Bendable: can you bend both ends of the shoe to meet in the middle?
2. Big toe pocket: Our toes are meant to cling to the ground at landing providing a wider surface for balance to start shock absorption thereafter. This behavior is supposed to be maintained inside shoes.
3. Zero drop: There should not be any elevation at heels, so there must be zero drop in elevation going from heel to toe.
4. Light in weight

To name a few minimalist brands:

• Vibram Five Fingers: Many models but Seeya is the lightest
• Zem Gear: variety of options
• New Balance: Minimus (afaik only one unfortunately)
• Inov8 – variety of models

Just started reading this book The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease and it is already fascinating. Giving me insights into how we evolved and where we are heading to. Should write about it once I finish the book.

There are different grades and levels at every context with a flow of tips and knowledge going down from the elite level to the novice one. The same goes in the world of running and one of the great tips is to keep the cadence (number of strides per minute, both legs combined) at 180 or higher. While believing in it, I doubt everyone knows the reason behind this magical number of 180.

Stopwatches like Garmin 920XT measure cadence. It indicates 180 as a reference level and seems encouraging people to keep their cadence higher than that. Here am trying to explain why it matters and what is going to be achieved by adjusting cadence to this range.

To my understanding this cadence comes from the fact that the highest speed during a stride is at the airborne phase compared to the landing phase or the so-called ground contact. The longer we spend time on the ground the more likely we lose momentum. Simply put, to run faster we should leave the ground as soon as we touch it, which due to human body’s physiology it results in a cadence from 180.

The other benefit of having such a cadence is to utilize the elasticity of the tendons in our legs better. Tendons are elastic which means they help runners bounce off the ground after landing. Tendons get loaded as the landing phase starts and are meant to unload as the next stride initiates. Having low cadence results in killing this bounce or limiting the extent it can make running more efficient. It is a natural feature in our legs that to my opinion is negatively affected by too-supportive shod running.

According to pose method of running, elasticity in our legs can improve efficiency at running up to 50%, which always surprises me for being too high but that is what they claim and please do not shoot the messenger. In my own experience incorporating it makes running an easier activity. It recycles a chunk of energy that is going to waste (shoes and low cadence waste energy). To facilitate this recycle process you should train your musculotendon system to be more responsive, agile and bouncy. Exercises like fall jump, box jumps or simply doing skipping rope would help a lot.

On the implementation side of this cadence, one would not be able to manage a proper one by pushing off the ground hoping to leave it soon enough to increase running cadence. Pushing off the ground, as explained in my previous posts , conflicts with cadence. For an effective push-off you would need longer contact time with the ground whereas for a proper cadence you need to leave the ground very soon after landing. The solution I know of – unfortunately or fortunately it sounds like a religion because it is the only right way of doing it – is to remove push-off and incorporate lift off the ground instead. Since push-off is the main source of propulsion in many runners removing it results in a big drop in speed and performance if not substituted with something as effective if not more. Therefore, the lift off must be accompanied with a technique that generates propulsion and there is no better way than using gravitation torque for propulsion. English translation would be to stay at a constant fall angle and catch yourself at every stride. Gravity is free and all you need to do is to pull your back foot and put it in front of you while staying in the constant fall (two focal points). It takes time and practice to learn new coordination but makes a big difference.

Recently happened to take a closer look at the features of Garmin 920 XT GPS watch (release date October 2014).  To name a few, it can measure vertical oscillation, cadence, and average ground contact time (GCT).

The one am going to discuss here is average Ground Contact Time and its relation to Pose Method of Running.

Ground Contact Time, as the name self-explains, is the amount of time each foot spends on the ground at each stride. There is a consensus in the running community that the lower this value the better. The reason is, travelling in the air is the fastest phase of a stride life time compared to the contact with the ground which is the braking time; landing is inevitable of course and it wastes energy but the less we spend time at it the better. The faster the next stride occurs the faster we move.

I searched online today to see whether or not GCT has any specific green zone range. I found a few websites that came up with some values and also highlighted how important it is to decrease GCT. What I pursued further was to find solutions on how to improve it.

All of these websites I found stated the key success factor of gaining speed in regards to GCT which is to spend more time in air than on the ground. That is totally correct but could not find many coming up with a proper solution that I could agree with. For instance this one, Lumo, http://www.lumobodytech.com/is-your-ground-contact-time-slowing-you-down/ says:

with a forceful push-off off the ground you can launch your body forward and travel much farther with only gravity working against you.

In pose method, Push-off is waste of energy. First of all, it is not necessary. There is a free source of propulsive force instead of push-off. If you do not know what it is here you go: Gravity! Secondly, pushing-off the ground throws the runner upwards which contributes adversely to vertical oscillation because of its vertical component. The horizontal one generates speed and that is what makes many runners fall for this technique due to its simplicity. Last but not the least, regarding that phrase on gravity working against the runner, in pose method gravity works in favour of the runner most of the time not against.

Right after the above paragraph on Lumo comes this:

Another way to think about this is to visualize your foot absorbing ground impact on each step. When your foot hits the ground, your body experiences something called braking, which is the change in your horizontal velocity. In other words, each step you take temporarily slows you down until you push off of your foot again to propel your body forward to pick speed back up. Minimizing the amount of time spent on the ground on each step can help reduce your braking and help you improve your running speed.

There is an irony in this. How can someone minimize the amount of time on the ground while trying to maintain push-off as the source of propulsion? would not it need a longer/proper time on the ground to make an effective push-off?!

Unfortunately such trends are very common in the running community. In my opinion, their mistake lies in the very first assumption they have over the way they run: they think they know how to run. Based on that assumption they merely look for tips and tricks to gradually tweak their running techniques in hope of achieving higher speed and avoiding injury. It never occurs to them that the basics of their techniques are inefficient and also work against them in several ways.

Pose Method comes with a simple way of running that all these minimal GCT, proper Cadence, and minimal vertical oscillation, etc come out as by-products. As an instance for GCT, as discussed in my previous post, the source of propulsion in Pose running is gravitational torque. That means the standing leg should just be removed off the ground to let the travelling foot fall on the ground (under the hips). Removal of the standing leg can start to happen once the travelling foot passes around the standing leg’s knee. This process, which is called Pull, is done with hamstrings. Hamstrings pull feet upwards. During this move, feet are passive meaning they do not push off the ground or anything else. They leave the ground “dead” as per how I describe it for my clients.

At this method, the amount of time feet are on the ground is minimized in the way that they are only used for landing and once the job is done they depart the ground. Simple, is not it? Sounds so, but the hard part is to maintain the fall angle to make running constant falling. A pose runner has to make a pledge to herself/himself that falling forward is the only source of propulsive force. That means pushing-off the ground is cheating ;) The only two focal points for a pose runner are: fall and pull.

Switching to pose should be normally done during off season or when you are not in apprehension of falling behind your plans for a race. Adopting coordination takes a some time (subject to adaptability of runners) which usually slows down runners in the interim until they get the hangs of it to start building up within the framework to achieve their usual pace and distance and hopefully going beyond their previous boundaries by practicing more in pose.