Well…a bit frustrated, but nothing serious. It seems that the Pose Method warm-up activity and stretches were a bit too intense or aggressive for my right Periformis or Upper Hamstring, because after yesterday’s workout, that area was complaining pretty loudly. Which means that I will probably skip the leg stretching portions of the warm-up and focus more on the drills until it clears back up.

Which kind of sucks, because I can now see “the why” in how many of these lower body movements will help me get strong enough to run with the forefoot style that Dr. Romanov advocates. However, if the body is in pain or discomfort, I will not get stronger and will blame the current activity for things getting worse not better.

Lesson 3 – Falling

“When you fall forward, gravity is the downward force vector acting on your body’s torque—arguably the most crucial physics concept at the heart of the Pose Method.”

This is the hardest part of the Pose Method for me wrap my head around and goes the most against my experience and training. Yes, Chi Running and some other methods also hold this to be true, but every time in the past that I have attempted to do this part of these gravity-based running methods, I cannot get it work for me.

On Bennie’s walk this morning I was thinking about all this changing my running form stuff and the falling forward part of the Pose Method after reading Lesson 3 at breakfast. I think that I finally have figured out a big part of my problem with Pose or Chi Running and how they “claim” to use gravity (it remains a topic of debate by other experts). As a former sprinter I was taught to toe-off hard with my big toe and that is something that I know that I still do.

When working with gravity based program, from what I can see there is no toe off, it is more falling forward and then “pulling” your leg up. So that might explain a bit of the issues I have about figuring out how to do this stuff.

Focus Preparation

Today I am going to:

• do a modified warm-up/stretching activity and avoid stretching the Periformis more than necessary, which basically means not doing most of the leg work.
• Do the Pose hold drill for 20 seconds on each leg for 3 sets.
• Complete 3 sets of the wall-fall drill from the springiness position.
• Complete 3 sets of the wall-fall drill from the running Pose
• Complete 3 sets of the timber drill on each leg.
• Go for a short run (dependent on the Periformis) for 1-2 minutes.
• 8 reps for each of the strength routine, plus overhead press, curls, and upright row with light weights on barbell.
• I am not going to ride my bike, to see if that is bothering the Periformis or not and will do another walk when I get done with the Pose Method work.

Post-Session Review

I skipped most of the leg work and only did the bend over leg stuff until the right leg began to complain a little during the stretching and warm-up. Also the 4th metarsal from the big toe on my left foot felt a little sore, so I decided not to do any of the jumping exercises either.

I will admit that I am having a hard time with the falling forward and not toeing off then pushing through the ankle. Doing the Timbers really showed me that I am not even close to relaxing my foot and falling forward.

When I went out for the short run, my right leg/butt cheek bothered enough that I did not/was not able to properly do the Pose Method. I ran, but everything really felt forced and off. 0.13/0:01:16:42/9:48 pace better than yesterday, but still not feeling like I am doing anything correctly. However, this is only day 3, so I cannot expect miracles, especially when I am attempting a lot of the new stuff while injured.

Did you maintain the integrity of the running Pose as you fell forward and made ground contact? No, my right leg problems interfered with my ability to run comfortably with the Pose Method or even my old running style. I did attempt to stop and start over several times, but outside it seemed as though I just couldn’t get the Pose correct (like I was afraid of face planting) and definitely was not falling. It catch myself early, me wanting to toe-off and push through the ankles for my stride.

Did you land on the ball of your foot? Most of the time, but it was a clunky landing and not a quick, light step that is for sure.

Did you allow falling to truly be the cause of landing on the ball of your foot? Not at all.

After running I went through the strength session, but did not do squats, instead I did a few other stretches (easy), added in 10 pushups, 10 fire hydrants, some yoga poses and thought about how the session went.

Also I got some metatarsal pads to try and the right one seems to help quite a bit, but they do feel weird to wear, but I will try them for a while. These are very close to wearing Correct Toes, so I will be interested to see how they feel on the feet in a week or two.

What are your goals for your next training session?

I will repeat the falling lesson again and work on relaxing my ankles and not attempting to push off with the big toe.