I spent today at a one-day CrossFit running cert at
CFNZ, conducted by the inventor of the Pose Running system himself, Dr. Nicholas Romanov. The cert was my birthday present from Lynette and a really cool one it was too.
My legs hurt all over, but that's no indictment of the cert, it is one of my pitiful physical condition.
Dr. Romanov is a great teacher. His Russian accent is very strong, but he knows it and works around it extremely well. He's funny, sarcastic and extremely knowledgeable about his subject. I was genuinely impressed by the guy.
The cert is the first day of the two day coaching certification course, but we couldn't afford both days with the trip in July coming up. Dr. Romanov is working with a British colleague now based in Dunedin, so hopefully I'll have an opportunity to certify as a Pose coach next year.
The cert consists of a series of powerpoint slides explaining what Pose is and why it is how running should work, some videos illustrating elite athletes demonstrating good and poor technique and then the drills and tests. He videos you first and then again later in the day. The drills don't always make sense at the time as they don't seem to be leading you to anything that could resemble running, but little by little they refine what you're doing from the over-reaching heel-striking shambles most of us made of it to something that actually looks fairly efficient. I still over-reach, that was my worst sin according to Dr. Romanov, I actually do quite well running on the spot, it's only when I move that I over do it. As I can't exactly run on the spot and claim I've done the equivalent of 400m, my cue is to run as though I'm running on the spot and lean forward to move me into a run.
The video analysis was fascinating:
Frame by frame you look at your stride and count the number of frames from when your foot touches the ground to when you're in the pose position and then the number o frames your foot remains on the ground after that. You add the two numbers together for your score.The goal is 1 frame before, one frame after. I achieved 2.5 and 2 both in the before and after videos. I was doing better in the practises, I went to pieces when he put us in front of the camera.
Very useful was learning that he only need us to run at a comfortable speed for 20m or so for the videoing and about that after trying a drill. I can sit a video camera in the carport and run up and down the driveway and do that, so I have a great set-up to practise at home and record my technique.
As to my running. For me Pose wasn't a magic switch to effortless running,. It did teach me a way to do it that I'm going to consider the "proper" way to run and while it didn't make my running effortless it did make it lighter, more efficient and much much easier on my joints. Pose running uses a whole different set of muscles from "normal "running and there just isn't any of the thumping an jarring. Surprisingly there also isn't any strain on your calves when you get it right, something Dr. Romanov mentions. In my own attempts to learn the technique I had gotten shockingly sore calves. I'l find out tomorrow how much damage I've done today, but I'm going to say that I believe that Pose running really isn't as hard on them as I thought.
Overall a very well spent day and a great birthday present. Thank-you very much Lynette.
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