Running Injury Free: Frustrated by Being Constantly Sidelined?

As in T'ai Chi, if you wish to be running injury free, your posture must be excellent. It takes a new way of thinking, but most leg injuries such as shin splints come from using your leg muscles too much! This means that your energy and effort should be focused around your core muscles (your "center"), not your limbs.

There are many ways to visualize and practice a good posture, including:

1. Focus on aligning your shoulders, hips, and ankles before and during a run as in the picture. There should be an imaginary line connecting them.

2. Imagine a rod extending from the top middle of your head straight down. This rod is also your center.

3. Align your upper body by putting a flat hand below your belly button and one below your collar bones and move your hands apart. You should feel your spine straighten.

4. Tilt your pelvis up in the front with a hand in the front of your waistline and a hand on your tail bone. As you do this, you should feel your abs engage. This is called a "vertical sit-up." When you are moving down the road, this engaged core feeling should be maintained. Your abs do not need to be overly flexed, though.

Now that you have a correct posture, use it while falling forward. When you are ChiRunning, your legs are merely used to catch you. If your posture is straight and stable, you find you are leaning from your ankles with an aligned body.

Gravity is drawing you forward with each step instead of your leg muscles pushing you. As I trained for injury free running, I used Danny Dreyer's image of a giant rubber band attached to my chest pulling me forward while I ran. It also helps to keep your head down in a comfortable position.

It is the body's tendency to follow what your eyes are doing. If your head is back and you are looking up, your body will follow and lose the advantage that the gravity pull offers.

As you are leaning forward from the ankles, your feet are either landing directly below your body or even slightly behind it. Your legs extend out behind you and gravity moves you.

After you have practiced a good posture and lean, your feet should be landing either below your body or slightly behind you. This comes naturally as you are leaning from your ankles with a straight body. Your foot strike is simply a way to keep from falling down!

ChiRunning demonstrates that as your upper body is falling forward, your legs are moving in a circle to the rear. Keeping your knees down helps with this. When you are running injury free, your foot is coming down flat and moving straight back with a slight pelvis twist in that direction.

Most shin splint injuries come from running upright with your heel hitting first in front of you. Your muscles are tight as they hit the ground and do not absorb the shock well. This also hinders your forward movement.

Since finding ChiRunning, I have ran with a relaxed feeling I never thought possible. Instead of a tortured, exhausted look on my face, now I smile and take in the beautiful San Diego beach scene.

This is because my effort level is near zero when my posture is perfect, my lean is forward and gravity is leading me along. I am relaxing the joints in my arms and legs. My calf and shin muscles are loose. My arms are relaxed and swinging to the rear to keep the rhythm of my run. Most importantly, my core is engaged and my larger muscles are doing most of the work.

ChiRunning teaches you how to relax. There is a T'ai Chi principle called "needle and cotton" or "steel and cotton", which refers to the center of a person being strong and unbending while the outer elements are loose and soft. This has worked well for me when applied to injury free running.