We’ve all heard the old saying, “It takes money to make money.” Well, here’s my latest take on that. I was out running yesterday, having an ok run, but not feeling particularly energetic. I’m sure you’ve been there. I was running my favorite out and back trail run with my dog. It’s quite a hilly trail with virtually no flat spots anywhere.

It has an uphill start (which I never recommend) so I started off walking to warm up my legs before taking on the first incline. Once I began running on the trail I walked some of the steeper uphills in order to not over-use my legs early on in the run. This has always worked well for me in the past. Once my legs were warmed up they began to feel much more comfortable on the up hills. I ran to my turnaround point and began my return trip, as I usually do. But on the way back, my legs were beginning to feel exhausted running some of the last hills, even though I was shortening my stride considerably and slowing my pace. I felt as though someone had pulled the plug on my energy. I was body sensing and my legs were telling me that they were tired.

One of the interesting things about the Chi skill of Body Sensing that is explained in the ChiRunning and ChiWalking books is that as you watch and listen to your body, it is important to be as non-identified and impartial as possible. So, here I am, running along and saying to myself, “This is just a sensation.” I intuitively knew that my legs weren’t really tired, because I had done this same run only a couple of days earlier and had a great run. So, then I asked myself, “What can I do about this?” I was on an uphill section, so I shortened my stride, relaxed my legs and began swinging my arms forward and upward wildly, creating a huge range of motion. When I crested the top of the short rise I kept swinging my arms as I had been and leaned into the subsequent downhill slope. I did everything I could to lengthen my stride, rotate my pelvis and bend my knees. I must have looked like a crazy-man. I kept this up for about a minute or two and then relaxed my whole body. What I noticed after doing this, was that my whole body felt much lighter and energized. I had no problems with fatigue for the rest of the run. In fact, I ran smoother and faster than usual.

After my run, I realized that if I hadn’t chosen to swing my arms and focused on getting my energy moving, it wouldn’t have changed over and I might have finished my run feeling tired and worn out. As it turned out, I felt very energetic afterwards. And that’s when the phrase, “It takes money to make money.” popped into my head.

Whenever you feel you have a lack of energy, it could mean that your energy (chi) just isn’t flowing and you need to do something to “wake it up.” Doing something physical is always best, and don’t always think that just because you’re tired, that you have no energy available. It’s there, but you have to consciously “jump start” it to get it moving. This technique can, of course, be applied just as effectively to situations in everyday life. Try it…you might like it.

Keep the chi flowing,
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

Being able to walk or run injury-free doesn’t happen by accident… and believe it or not, neither do most injuries. Although there are many people out there who are naturally talented in running and walking, there are very few people who never get injured. Even the best fall prey to training mistakes or momentary lapses in their technique. We’re all human and therefore subject to everything that entails, which means we spend our lives dealing with the consequences of our choices whether they’re made consciously or unconsciously.

Making the choice to live a life of injury-free running or walking involves making efforts to observe what you’re doing so you can lower the odds of being sidelined for any reason. You can choose to be injury-free by doing everything in your power to run or walk in a way that won’t hurt your body.

This choice applies to injury-prevention as well as injury-recovery. Whether you’re intent on avoiding injury or whether you want to recover from an injury, make the choice to run and walk as efficiently and as biomechanically correct as possible and you’ll carry with you the best health insurance policy there is…for the rest of your life.

The choice to be injury-free begins with self-observation. Listen to your body. Do you “hear” complaints from any body parts, in terms of aches or pain? Whenever you do, ask yourself the simple question, “Why is this happening?” Many possible answers will come, but keep asking that question until you discover the true source of the problem. Many times injuries are layered and the primal cause is not clear at first. But if you keep asking your question at each successive layer, you’ll eventually get to the origin. And when you do, you stand in the unique position of being able to choose to rid yourself of the problem forever by addressing the real cause.

When you feel that you’re onto the answer to your question, you can either refer back to the ChiWalking book or the ChiRunning book, or go to the library of articles on our website to see which focuses you can apply to correcting the problem.

Here’s where choice comes in. Once you know what it is you need to do, make a choice to instate the corrective focus(es) with every step you take until the problem goes away. Your ability to move forward into health lies in your ability to be relentlessly mindful in your movement. This is the true nature of mind-body work. Making the choice for health requires constant focus… but think of the alternatives.

Namaste,
Danny

Sprinting

ChiRunning can be adapted to sprinting very easily, but first you need to learn the technique at slower speeds and then integrate the focuses into your faster running over time. If you start learning the ChiRunning technique and begin to do too much speed before truly learning the technique you could end up with some sort of hybrid version of your old form and the ChiRunning form. It’s best to learn the ChiRunning technique on your base building runs to keep your learning pure. If you read the book and/or follow the instructional DVD to learn to run, you’ll notice that not much attention is put onto short distance speedwork. This is because sprinters make up such a small subgroup of runners, that there was little need for the information. The ChiRunning technique is geared toward long distance running. Because if this, you’ll have to do some adjustments for faster running that are not in the book. With sprinting, there is much more emphasis on use of the upper body (arm swing and lean) during running. Any time you are running faster than is normally required from most human beings, there is a need for more muscle usage, which is opposite to all you’ll read about in the book. But if you can learn to make your running highly efficient at all times, then when you need to run at sprinting speeds you’ll become a very efficient short distance runner…which equates to speed.

Sprinting, as with running hills, involves an increase in upper body work so that the legs don’t have to carry the total load of running at higher speeds. Your arms should be swinging forward…not to the rear as with the slower paces. Your hands should swing upwards as you lean forward. At sprinting speeds it is most important to be even more relaxed in order for your body to function as a total unit. I suggest also working on strengthening your core muscles, especially your abs. This will allow you to hold your upper body more forward as you take off. If you watch high level sprinters take off, they keep their heads down as long as possible in order to maintain their increased lean for a longer period. You should practice imagining your body as a balloon that is expanding in all directions as you take off…your legs are straightening to the rear as your arms are reaching forward. This creates a balance in your movement. Learn to drive with your pelvis, not your legs and you’ll be able to sustain a higher rate of speed for a longer period of time. This will engage your obliques and all of your core muscles to power the motion of your legs, instead of just using your quads to do the job.

Cheers - Danny

If you’re feeling any soreness in your quads it can be due to several issues:

• It is often due to bending at the waist when you’re running. (see pages 161 & 162 in the book) This will put undue stress onto your quads because they have to “catch” you with each foot strike. When you bend at the waist your feet naturally swing out in front of your body which then creates a heel strike, which is always a direct cause of tired quads. The best thing you can do for your quads is to always run with your center of gravity in front of where your feet are touching the ground so that your stride opens up behind you as soon as your foot hits the ground. If your foot lands anywhere in front of your body, you’re “braking” with each step and you’ll feel it in your quads.
• You might also have too long of a stride which will cause the same result. Running with a shorter stride allows you to keep your foot strike under your body instead of in front of it.
• You are also probably not rotating your pelvis with each stride. (see pages 179 & 180 in the book) Allowing your pelvis to rotate as you run is a great way to cushion the shock to your quads because much of the impact of your foot strike is taken by your pelvis, not by your quads.

Cheers - Danny