Discussion: Running Form

This morening, I was trail running and I decided to make a conscious effort to look farther ahead, down the trail, rather than just two meters in front of my feet as I tend to do naturally when the ground is uneven. When I did this, I was surprised to find that my heart rate decreased even though my speed remained the same. Why is that?

interesting...well, I'm not expert at all...could it be that you can breathe better? but oxigen consumption stays the same, so hr should stay the same...no idea...

ILooking ahead improves your posture a lot - it makes you stand taller and helps open up the rib cage. Looking down also puts tension on the nervous system, probably compromising everything that is ran under the nervous system.

Sounds good, but you must have stronger ankles than I do!

Lee: Yes, I think that changing where I was looking straightened up my posture. Perhaps that does help the breathing. And perhaps amore upright posture casues meto carry my upper body more efficiently, that is, using less muscular energy?

Barbie: "Looking down also puts tension on the nervous system". How do you know that?

Bash: Are you saying that you always look down near your feet, in order to to avoid a mistep that injures your ankles?

Not right at my feet, but unless it's a smooth trail ahead, I'm usually looking at roots, rocks and holes within the next few meters. I seem to trip the most when I run close behind someone on a trail for conversational purposes. That's when I can see the trail far ahead of me, but I can't see what's coming up immediately, because the other person blocks my view. Having said all that, I'm intrigued by your observation, and I need all the help I can get, so I will try harder to keep my head up on trails with good footing.

You might be surprised how well your brain tracks where stuff is after it passes out of your field of vision. This is why people can catch a baseball, hit a racquet ball, or steer a formula-1 car through a turn at 150 miles an hour. The only way to perform those tasks is to pick up objects when they are far enough away that your vision can track them. Once you're close to something moving that quick, your eyes can't follow it.

When I was racing cars (not formula-1, sadly enough), the best drivers all stressed looking as far ahead as possible so you were making adjustments to your line as early as possible. This resulted in a smoother line. I've found this holds true in orienteering as well. If you can look further ahead in the woods, you pick better lines through the forest and get through faster and/or with less effort.

Agreed - for orienteering, it's heads up as much as possible - and I let my Active Ankle handle the consequences. I was thinking about trail running, where navigation is less of an issue, and where the chiro says I should be trying to wean myself off the Active Ankle so that I can develop my proprioception. There are probably still advantages to looking way ahead, but I never see those craftily-disguised, ankle-destroying mini-depressions until the last minute, so I'll just have to practise looking up AND down!

Is there a way to train technique to limit the damage cause by a turned ankle? I am thinking of martial arts people practicing specific techniques for disapating the energy of falling down, so that they can fall without injury.

I think that I avoid some ankle injuries when I turn my ankle by dropping my upper body towards the ground to unweight the turned ankle as much as possible until the other foot begins to bear my weight again.

Does anyone train this sort of falling technique for orienteering?

Maybe I'm being too contrarian, but how do you know your running speed stayed the same? Seems it would be difficult to measure on a trail. I have found HR to be very consistent relative to the work being performed, ie it varies with speed and incline.

martial arts to practive falling down? It does make sense. I practiced for one year when I was very young. The goal was exactly that: learning to fall down without injury (I was interested in soccer at the time).

Since then, even if I have lost some flexibility, I can still fall down without hurting myself too much (especially I feel sometimes like I fall by reflex to avoid a bigger peril, like putting some strain on a special part of my body)

However, I have some quite strong ankles and until now, never turn them in a damaging way, so perhaps it is not related.

Yeah coach, It could be a mistaken perception. I think I was going the same speed/effort, but it is difficult to be exactly sure. And the drop in beats BPM was not significant either. I should run some form experiments on a level surface to try to eliminate some of the variables.

On martial arts moves: they are also useful when blocking those underbrushy branches from poking me in the eye as I run... Wax on! Wax off! Don't orienteers describe thick underbrush as "fight"?