What are your running habits?

I've just been out for a lunchtime dogwalk and saw several people out for a lunchtime run. What did I notice about their running - that they had all developed habits that affected their running, some good & some bad. The first person who ran past me had his head tilted to one side quite severely probably around 5 degrees, the second person I saw was putting a lot of effort into his running and pulling his head right back, I next saw two people running together with contrasting running styles, one ran using most of his foot with a small amount of heel strike the other ran so lightly on the balls of his feet with minimal effort.

All of the habits developed apart from the guy who was running lightly on the balls of his feet will be affecting their running performance and may in the long term result in some form of injury.

To find out more about your running habits & good technique see  discover the art of running

Have we lost something in our search for advancement

I have recently been on holiday to Vietnam and was able to witness something first hand something that most of us lost the ability to do many years ago, that is the ability to squat.

As a toddler our first steps onto two feet involved us being able to squat. Try and observe young children and you will see that they do this all the time without thinking.

Then what happens we go to school sit slumped over our desks, laptops & tablets and we stop using our hip joints and start to bend with our spine. Yes our spine is curved and its design with vertebrae and discs does allow it to bend slightly but it is not really what it was designed to do. Instead we need to maintain a straight posture and bend at the hips. I would say in my experience as an Alexander Technique Teacher the majority of people I work with have completely lost the sense of where their hip joint is and how important it is in bending. People know they should bend with the knees but forget about the hip joint so when they bend they tend to bend at the knees and in the spine thus overusing the back muscles. No wonder back pain is so prevelant.

So what can we do to avoid this. Try this exercise to locate our hip joints by placing our hands on the point usually just below the front pockets in jeans. Now stand in front of a chair and fold over this joint allowing the knees to release forward as you go into the chair. Try to remember the hip joint whenever you bend and your back will become less tired as a result.