Running according to the effective method of Romanov

Many runners and professional athletes land on their heels. This is the wrong approach. How your body is built for running can be seen in the bones of your foot: the phalanges of the toes and the large bones of the metatarsus that form the instep of the foot vary in thickness. The largest and thickest of these bones are the thumb bone and the metatarsal bone, which is connected to the thumb. These bones have adapted and grown larger over the course of evolution, as they had to support more weight.

Failure to obey the wisdom of this design and the associated motor skills will inevitably lead to injury and ineffective movement. The function of the little toes is to give you a better sense of the position of your foot. They are not designed to take the load upon landing.

An exercise

1. Take off your shoes, get into a firm stance, feeling your body ready to move in any direction.
2. Slowly transfer your body weight to different parts of the foot – from the front to the heel, from side to side, in a circle (like a clock hand).
3. Now transfer your body weight to specific areas of your feet, feeling pressure there:

a) the front of the feet;

b) heels;

c) even distribution of weight on the forefoot and heel;

d) the outer edges of the feet;

e) inner edges of the feet.

4. Shift your body weight to the optimal position – to the front of your feet.

5. Repeat, gradually increasing the rate of transfer of body weight.

The running posture is the moment when the entire body weight, taking into account the load increased due to the running speed, falls to the ground. This pose provides maximum energy potential for acceleration. Stability and correct posture in this pose are very important.

If you are in the correct running posture, you can mentally draw a straight line from the front of the supporting foot through the hip and shoulder joints to the head. You must feel ready to fall forward, even to desire it.

An exercise

1. Get into a running pose.

2. Make sure you do not pull your foot behind you or lift your knee in front. With the correct running posture, the foot is under the pelvis.

3. Feel the pressure on the forefoot.

4. Hold the running posture for 10 to 20 seconds, using balance rather than muscular effort to maintain pressure on the forefoot. If you lose your balance, gently return the pressure to the forefoot.

5. Repeat the exercise on the other leg.

As strange as it sounds, natural running is just a free fall. You fall and catch yourself over and over. The main thing for falling – without landing flat, use gravity to move forward.

This approach goes against the conventional wisdom that a runner’s speed and forward progression is the result of active leg extension coupled with pushing off and hip extension, a muscular activity that induces an active progression phase in running.

An exercise

1. Get into a running pose.

2. Let go of the body and fall forward like a felled tree. Remember to maintain a running posture without straining the ankle of your supporting leg.

3. Grab yourself with the swing leg, landing on the forefoot. The pelvis should be motionless.

4. Pull this foot into a running position.

5. Repeat the exercise with the other leg.

Despite the generally accepted approach that the force pushing the runner forward during the flight phase requires pushing off the ground, the opposite is natural for running. You are in flight by pulling your supporting leg off the ground at the end of the fall phase, before the dominant leg lands again in a run position. You pull your leg into a running position to fall and pull it up again. The purpose of the pull-up is posture.

In order for you to get off the ground and enter the flight phase, several mechanisms must work. The first is the elasticity, or kickback, that occurs when you release your weight from a support using the work of your shoulders, arms, and swing leg. The second is a forward fall, when the pressure on the ground disappears as the body weight leaves the support. Both of these mechanisms work at the same time.

An exercise

1. Get into a running pose on your left leg, focusing on lifting your left leg off the ground under your pelvis before the other leg drops.

2. Move your right foot forward as you fall.

3. When the right foot passes the left leg, lift the left foot under the pelvis while the right foot is still in the air. This will shift your weight onto your right leg as you land. When changing supports, raise your shoulders to facilitate the removal of body weight.

4. Allowing your right foot to fall freely to the ground without muscular effort, land on the forefoot in perfect posture.

5. Repeat the exercise on the other leg, pulling the right foot under the pelvis, transferring body weight and landing on the left foot in the ideal position.

An exercise

1. Run a minute depending on your level of fitness.

2. Walk for a minute, asking yourself the following questions:

– What do I feel in a running posture? Do I feel pressure on the forefoot of my supporting leg? Do I bring my swing leg under the pelvis?

– What do I feel when I fall? Is your ankle tense? Do I feel effortless forward movement when I feel like I’m falling? Do I feel like the fall gives me natural progression, like a rolling ball?

– What do I feel during pull-ups? Do I feel the pulling up of my swing leg right under the pelvis before the other leg lands?

3. If any of these three key elements do not work, do the appropriate exercise.

4. Go straight to a half minute run.

5. Write down your feelings in a journal, focusing on positive criticism:

– Have you ever had moments when you ran easily and effortlessly?

– Did you manage to complete a series of steps when it seemed to you that you were doing everything technically correctly?

– How do you feel when you do the task correctly?

– How do you feel when you fail?