Archive for April 27th, 2010

When it comes to running form, bad race photos tell all.  I’m grudgingly grateful for the information they provide, despite the cringe fest.

As a lifelong sloucher, the pushups & chinups I’ve been doing this past year have helped quite a bit, but I still tend to fold at the middle when running.  It varies by degree and might not even occur when I’m fresh, but it’s there in most of my race photos.  I’ve read enough articles and books on running form to know that slouching isn’t just ugly, it inhibits your breathing and distributes weight where it shouldn’t be, which in turn affects your speed and endurance.  Major bad stuff.

To fight it, sometimes while running I make a point to pull my shoulders back and straighten my spine but that tends to tire me out since I lack the basic strength to hold it there. So when I mentioned in the last post how I wished my back was as straight as the Up With People guy (or anyone I’m ever photographed running next to, for that matter) Ewen made a smart comment that it’s not my back so much as a bent core.   Uh…wow, lightbulb moment.

I’ll be honest, I never do core work because my abs look good and I figured core work was all about doing sit-ups.  Instead, I’ve always blamed my bad form on my upper back and shoulders.  But the more I look at all the Boston race photos, I realize I had it wrong, it’s not the top of my body at fault, it’s a weak middle letting the upper body fall forward.

This is a very cool discovery because it’s fixable and the payoff in running improvement could potentially be big.  As for my plan of action, Jim led me to a great article with some simple core exercises for runners from Greg McMillan that takes only 15 minutes 3 times a week.  Totally my speed.

I figure by Fall, I should be in excellent fighting shape with yet another solid training cycle under my belt and a more upright form to go with it.  Sure, I will still despise bad race photos and am guaranteed to have many more in the future, but for now, the bad ones are worth their weight in gold.