Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Run with ease
Malcolm Balk, author of The Art of Running.
When people are having lessons in the Alexander Technique, there comes a point pretty soon when they want to incorporate the principles into other parts of their lives. They want to use the technique to help them perform better at work or their sport or music or whatever. One very popular sport and pastime that often comes up into discussion, is how do we use the Alexander Technique when running? The simple answer to that is that we apply the principles of thinking 'free', lengthening and widening, just as we would at any other time, to maintain support and help our balance and co-ordination. We can make light work of it all if we're in this condition. But to run badly, off balance with over-tightening muscles and contractions in our body, we can cause terrible damage to our lower back, knee, hip joints and neck. It all depends on 'how' we run. We can look at this in a little more detail.
Running is a bipedal action as much as walking, but the movement is different and our balance changes. Fundamentally we need to be free in all of our joints and lengthening in stature as much as for any other occasion. So if possible we should free our neck, ‘send’ our heads upwards and allow our back to lengthen and widen as we run, making sure that we don’t make ‘effort’ to lengthen; only thinking it. However, with the momentum of running, our upright poise will lean slightly forwards to maintain balance, but it’s important that we don’t overdo this as we’ll get off balance. Keeping our attention on our head ‘going upwards’ (actually an angle of slightly forwards and upwards) will help our body adjust appropriately without us trying to calculate the degree of lean.
As we tire it is common for us to start leaning further forward and begin to shorten in stature. In other words we can start to stoop, run into the ground, plod heavily and get off balance. This is a contraction of our stature and the excessive tension involved works against us. We must keep ourselves free and ‘going up’. If we’re so tired that we’re collapsing it would be a good idea to stop or walk a bit to recover our poise before recommencing. A process of little and often will extend our abilities so that we can run longer and faster without causing us harm.
The actions of the legs are also important. In the process of walking or running the heel should touch the ground in front of us first and as we ‘travel’ over this leg, there will be a rolling action of the foot so that our toes eventually push off the ground for the next stride. It’s rather like pedalling a bike. As part of this action the knee will be bending and should point in the general direction in which we’re running but angled slightly so that the knee goes out over the big toe. The knee will splay out slightly but no more than the feet are. If we are knocking our knees, inappropriate tensions in our legs are pulling inwards. We should think of ‘sending’ our knees forwards in the direction we are running and allow them to go over our toes. The action of our legs is governed to a high degree on whether our neck is free and if we are lengthening and widening. It’s therefore important that we send our head upwards as we run, which will also help to avoid hollowing our back that over time can cause tight compression and damage to discs.
Good running shoes will help absorb the shock on our joints when we’re on hard surfaces but soft ground such as grass is preferable to pavements as it’s kinder to our system. Uneven ground will also vary the way our feet fall with every stride so keeping our joints more flexible and avoiding repetitive actions that cause strain and deterioration. Roads and pavements are modern inventions that are far removed from the natural environment of rough terrain that our ancient ancestors would have enjoyed. So it’s worth finding a park to run, and go off track!
Running is a great activity but like all things needs to be done well if unnecessary strain is to be avoided. Practise for short spells whilst improving your running style to avoid excessive tiredness that will undermine your efforts.
One of my clients allowed me to put her own story into my book 'Perfect Poise, Perfect Life' and I've copied it here for you....
Ruth enjoys running in the country. She does six to eight miles at weekends, and in the summer evenings after work. However, although she enjoyed the outdoor experience and exertion, she found that she tended to get an aching lower back and stiff knees. The situation seemed to be getting worse, and she was worried that she would have to give up her regular runs. She couldn’t understand why an activity that is considered to be healthy and athletic could cause her so much discomfort and felt that maybe she had a physical limitation and simply wasn’t up to it.
Having met Ruth, and watched how she moved, I could see that she had the distinct tendency to pull her head backwards off balance whilst also arching her back. Ruth also had the tendency to lean forward quite considerably, so that her body weight was falling in front of her as she walked or ran. She came to me for a short course of Alexander Technique sessions during which she became more aware of her balance and gradually started to apply the principles of loosening, and lengthening and widening to her running, firstly for short distances, then longer. She reported back to me that her lower back no longer ached and her knees were freer. Ruth was now no longer wasting effort in her unnecessary tensions and the efficiency of her running improved so that she could go further and faster, with seemingly less effort.
It's great to run. But it's important we take care about 'how' we run, to ensure we can continue to enjoy it without causing problems. There is no reason why we cannot enjoy running right into old age! :-)
[Part extract from 'Perfect Poise, Perfect Life', by Noel Kingsley]
Malcolm Balk (MSTAT-1984) lives and teaches the Alexander Technique in Montreal, Canada. A competitive Master's runner, Malcolm has completed five marathons and briefly held the Canadian sub-masters 1500 meter record. He is currently the Head Coach of the Cross Country and Track and Field programs at Concordia University. He is a co-author of The Art of Running.
