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Running Pose in motion, Dr.Romanov
Photo by
posetech.com |
Does the above question make any sense to anyone who is involved in running?
Isn’t running a natural, simple and accessible for most people exercise for
health, pleasure and competition? Is there anything wrong with this picture? By
the latest statistical data, there are about 33.6 million people only in the
US, including people running in some exercise program, which makes running the
most popular and also most dangerous kind of sport, because by the same
statistical analysis, 2 out of 3 runners are injured every year. This
statistics was first shown in the 70’s, when the running boom started, and it
still remains the same at present in the beginning of the new century.
So, two “simple” questions could be raised on this matter: Does this number of
runners show that we know how to run, and I mean, actually run correctly? And,
if, the answer to this question is yes, and we run correctly, why the number of
injuries received in running, still remains so high, despite a much better
medical service, more sophisticated running shoes, more educated coaches and
athletes? The irony of this situation lies in the fact that everybody talks
about different causes of injuries, about volume and intensity of training,
running surface, shoe design, body alignment, but not about how we run.
So, no matter how you run, it’s ok. If you try to apply this “logic” to any
other human activity such as swimming, tennis, dancing, driving a car and so
on, it would sound totally strange, but not so for running…
This paradox has a long history, which could be summarized as follows. Despite
more than 100 years of scientific study in running, with tons of articles and
books, and practical experience of best coaches, we still didn’t come to some
commonly accepted model of running technique. As it was expressed by A.
Nitro(1987) that “these is no scientifically founded ideal technique, that
suits everyone.”
But following this way of thinking, we should then agree that swimming
technique is also completely individual, or hammer throwing technique, etc. I
don’t think so. If we accept this point of view, we’ll have to admit that
nature “doesn’t care” how this or that exercise is performed in relation to
gravity. I can’t agree with this, because I accept the philosophy of wholeness
of nature, and the existence of humans as a part of it, setting a lot of
limitations on their physiological, and biomechanical functions.
We have to understand, that nature does allow some deviations, and some angles,
but these are very limited – if you ignore them, nature will “punish” you, no
substantial deviations from nature’s “requirements” are actually allowed
unpunished. A human organism, developed and existing in the gravity field, the
greatest natural force surrounding us, should stay within a certain
biomechanical framework, some limits appropriate for gravity.
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Avalanche
Photo courtesy of
avalanche.org |
How powerful gravity could be can be illustrated by the following two examples.
As you know, snow mass sliding downhill, called avalanche, goes with the speed
of more than 200 km/hr and becomes a disaster. We can compare human being force
with gravity as well. For instance, the fastest sprinters in the world could
reach the highest speed of 12.5 m/s in 6 sec. But a free falling body during 6
seconds could achieve the speed of 58.8 m/s (v=at, 9.8 m/sec2 x 6 = 58.8m/s),
which is almost 5 times more than the fastest runner. We can make some
adjustments on horizontal directions in running, but it is anyway far away from
the power of gravity.
Certainly, behind gravity there exist some other forces involved in running,
such as a ground reaction force (GR), muscle elasticity (ME) and muscle
voluntary contraction (MVC). Speaking about movement, we have to understand
that it is the resultant force or group of forces acting upon the moving body.
Therefore the model of running technique is first of all a model of forces
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