Tag Archive for: running technique

Moutain Mama: a Q & A With Single Dad And Full Time Adventurer Thomas Minton

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After I posted a couple interviews with single moms, readers responded. “I love what you’ve written about single moms, but what about single dads?”

So I sat down with Thomas Minton, one of the most inspiring parents I know.

Thomas is a physical therapist who focuses on running-related and sports injuries, a Pose Method Certified Running Technique Specialist, a USA Track and Field Coach, and a Red Level Bike Fit Professional. He’s also a single dad. Basically, Thomas is an all-around bad ass.

I was in the thick of it, working an office job for forty-hours a week and mostly raising a toddler alone, and Thomas Minton’s advice saved me. When my son was an infant, it was easy to tie him to me and go for a hike or run with him in the stroller. Once he started walking there was no containing him.

Thomas showed me how to turn a playground into a gym.

 

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About Thomas Minton

Thomas Minton is a Pose Method Certified Running Technique Specialist located in Asheville, NC. Click here to find out more about T. Minton and to contact him.

 

 

 

The Track and Field Experiment

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Champions Club Chronicles vol. 2

Coaching track in high school might be the simplest job in all of sports – despite what “track people” make it out to be. There are no plays. There are no defenders standing in your lane. There are no pre-snap reads. There are no curveballs. And there is no contact.

Track is literally just Pose, Fall, Pull. Then practice at your race-speed to get a desired stimulus; unless you need to slow it down to focus on one particular area of the Pose, Fall, Pull continuum. And if possible, do CrossFit to support the foundation.

With this formula, Brian Hassler and I conducted an experiment over the course of four seasons: can lacrosse, softball, and CrossFit athletes be molded into good track runners? It soon became our job to find the best athletes in the school from other sports and bribe the hell out of them to run for us. We talked to parents, coaches, teachers, and students offering a Nike track bag, spikes, and three months of sunshine and daisies for anyone good who wanted to come out. This, as it turned out, was a horrible idea. Not only did the best athletes decline, but the ones who ended up joining carried a lovely aura of entitlement with them. Ugh, it’s not their fault though; I was desperate.

 

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About the Author: Chris Sinagoga is the owner of the Champions Club/CrossFit Athletic Group in Madison Heights, MI, whose obsession with coaching CrossFit is only surpassed by his obsession with the game of basketball. Chris is heavily influenced by MGoBlog and Hip Hop and writes for the Champions Club website. Among other prestigious credentials, he has achieved certified master status in both Pokémon Red and Gold versions. Contact Coach Chris Sinagoga for more information and training. 

 

From Pose to the Podium

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Champions Club Chronicles Vol. 1

In 2010, Brian Hassler and I were invited to help coach Track and Field at Bishop Foley High School in Madison Heights, MI. I was 20 years old and playing college basketball, while Brian served as the Athletic Trainer at the school (also my alma mater). While the numbers on the team were low, we knew that could be an advantage regarding how much attention we could give our athletes. This proved to be critical later in the year.

Mike Rossman was a senior who finished 4th in the Division III state finals the previous year in the 400m dash. He knew me from our grade school days at St. Dennis and he trusted Brian, so when we asked him if we could change some things about his form he was about as open as anyone could be; which is kind of odd considering the lack of experience coming from Brian and myself.

I ran track in high school, but never took it as serious as basketball or football. I was good compared to local competition but not ready to compete at the state level. Brian, on the other hand, was a 215-lb. teddy bear who lifted heavy things while listening to Jack Johnson. His only track experience was 20 years earlier when he went out for one high school meet, mistakenly all-out sprinted the first 200 meters of a 400, died for a minute, then quit running forever. At the time we accepted the coaching job, we both had been doing CrossFit for four-and-a-half years. Our knowledge in running was limited to CFJ video clips, Dr. Romanov’s companion DVD of Pose Drills, and Brian Mackenzie’s CrossFit Endurance website. Those, it turned out, made all the difference.

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About the Author: Chris Sinagoga is the owner of the Champions Club/CrossFit Athletic Group in Madison Heights, MI, whose obsession with coaching CrossFit is only surpassed by his obsession with the game of basketball. Chris is heavily influenced by MGoBlog and Hip Hop and writes for the Champions Club website. Among other prestigious credentials, he has achieved certified master status in both Pokémon Red and Gold versions. Contact Coach Chris Sinagoga for more information and training. 

The Dangers of Overstriding—and How to Stop It

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Want to run healthy forever? Start here.

It is well-known that 65-75 percent of runners experience an injury every year (1). This makes running a highly injurious sport, causing researchers to look into what factors lead runners to injury.

The list of risk factors is extensive but near the top is overstriding. Running stride is the distance from where your foot hits the ground back to an invisible line down from your center of mass (anatomically, this is the fifth segment of the lumbar spine).

Once this line passes a certain length, we consider it overstriding. Overstriding has been shown to increase stress on the body. Some people have enough strength to absorb the increased stress but many do not. Even with enough strength, it is not efficient to run accepting more mechanical load (stress) than is necessary to produce forward momentum.

But wait—it gets worse. The longer the stride, the greater amount of vertical displacement. This means the further out you stride, the higher you jump in the air and, therefore, the harder you land on the ground. Increased vertical displacement is another top risk factor in running injuries.

Further, overstriding leads to a straighter knee and a more aggressive heel strike which significantly reduces the knee muscles’ ability to absorb shock. The shock is then transferred to the knee menisci, knee joint and on to the hip and back joints.

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About the Author: Dr. Eric Schweitzer has been a Doctor of Physical Therapy for 14 years and is board certified in orthopaedic physical therapy. He is one of the few clinicians in the country that specializes specifically in running medicine including running injury prevention, running injury rehabilitation & running performance. Eric is certified as a Pose Running form coach as well as a certified manual therapist. Eric owns Premier Physical Therapy & Yoga in Clearwater. This is the only yoga studio in Tampa Bay where the yoga is guided by a Doctor of Physical Therapy. His other clinic, Premier Run & Fit, is a running specific physical therapy clinic inside a retail running store, The St. Pete Running Company. Find more about Dr. Schweitzer at www.PremierRunFit.com, Twitter: @RunTampaBay

The Rise of Matthew Dellavedova, the Playoffs’ Unlikely Star and Biggest Pest

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When Dellavedova arrived at the prestigious Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) training institution in 2007 in Canberra—where fellow NBA Aussies Aron Baynes, Andrew Bogut, Dante Exum, Luc Longley and Patty Mills attended—he was locked in on obtaining that “1 percent edge,” his former AIS coach Paul Goriss said.

That included seeking out Debbie Savage, a former Australian standout runner who works at AIS teaching the Pose Method of running, which is a style of falling forward through a gravitational torque while pulling the support foot rapidly from the ground using the hamstring muscles.

Like Savage, Dellavedova had issues with his feet and shins from running too heavily. “It always looked like he was running in mud,” Goriss said. About four days per week at AIS before his basketball practices, he would work with Savage for about 45 minutes on running, moving laterally and changing directions.

“The technique really did help me become lighter on my feet and helped me become quicker,” he said.

In addition, Dellavedova kept a daily diary at AIS, charting things like his shots and training sessions. He would mark down what he needed to improve each day and then his strengths and weaknesses after every practice.

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