Intuitive Running

Mark Foster Stefano Buttera Lewis Pugh

#understandingvstechnique #intuitiverunning #heelstrike

I’ve recently taken up running….Don’t worry, I haven’t abandoned swimming - I can’t imagine that ever happening since my new found love of it. However, let’s face it, running in my local park is easier, cheaper and quicker than heading off for a swim in my not-so local pool.

The thing is I’d always struggled with running. I always felt heavy when I ran. I landed heavily every step, my legs felt like lead, every step was hard work. The thing is, I’m not actually heavy - I’m kindah skinny (6ft 2 and a bit and probably less than 80kg).

So, what could I do…?

Well, I did what everyone does nowadays… I jumped on YouTube to find an expert runner. Turns out that there are quite a few….

I found one who advocated lots of stretches…thing was, he was about 18 years old! He was already super flexible. He wasn’t some old bloke who hadn’t done much running apart from footie and a bit of touch rugby… I’d never be able to stretch like this guy…And anyway, static stretches don’t work! (controversial but Google it!)

I found another expert - she was a professional athlete, a famous one. Although I forget her name. I started doing her drills. I copied her movements. I did as I was told. She was an expert. So, surely, copying her would work for me. It didn’t. I simply didn’t get it. Those drills were simply actions that I was performing but I didn’t understand why I was doing them. I couldn’t see why I should bother. I wasn’t seeing any benefit. The drills simply felt weird. They weren’t working for me.

Next step was to ask for advice from those I knew who were expert runners. But of course, they couldn’t relate. Running was easy for them. It came naturally. They gave me lots of advice, hints n tips, and technique fixes, even down to recommending what trainers to buy.

The problem was, who to trust? What to apply and what to ignore?

And despite all the advice, I still couldn't solve the problem of heaviness...

This led to more frustration.

But wait, this was starting to feel familiar. For years, decades in fact, I had struggled with swimming. And I went through the same sort of process of asking for help, copying others, doing what I was told and trying out different techniques. If you’ve read any of my journey blogs, then you’ll know that no matter what I did it never helped me figure out what was wrong with my swimmming.

Until of course, I rediscovered swimming by unlearning everything I’d ever known about swimming and re-learning it. I started to think for myself, adopting and adapting what I knew and making things work for me. Most importantly, I began using MY Alexander Technique training - It wasn’t about to changing my posture (the traditional view of AT) but changing my thinking.

This led to the creation of Intuitive Swimming Method.

So, now, I realised that I could use the same principles, concepts and processes that I coach to my swimming clients and apply them to myself to transform my approach to running! Duh, obvious really.

(In my defence, it is hard though to trust yourself when you’re surrounded by ‘experts’. In the old days, my Dad was my go to expert - Turns out he gave me terrible advice at times. YouTube has sometimes been much, much worse than my Dad but of course on certain other topics, YouTube has been a life changer).

First step:

In my coaching, I have the phrase ‘Make Every Swim an Experiment’. I took this phrase and instead of trying to run a certain distance or speed or copy a running video I started to ‘Make Every Run an Experiment’. No more drills or exercises to perform. Only experiments from which to learn.

In my swimming coaching, I encourage Swimming Freedom. This is taking the technique on offer and being able to, feeling empowered to, trusting myself enough to ignore the things that didn’t work for me and adopt or adapt the things that did work for me. So, I needed Running Freedom.

In Alexander Technique there is the concept of Intention - letting your thought guide your action. e.g. ‘Catch the ball’ vs ‘trying hard to catch the ball’. Intention is all about getting out of your own way. I’ve taken this concept and added in something unique from my way of AT teaching. In my coaching I’ve turned Intention into Intention Led Movement.

For example, in swimming, you’re told to put your arm in a certain position or perform a specific movement. Instead, give your arm movement an Intention and let your mind/body unity work it out. Get out of your own way. Trust your SELF. Make it an abstract thought - not an instruction, position but a thought.

For my running, I created the Intention to ‘pedal with my feet’. I wanted to stop the up and down movement, my habitual way of running, to make my running lighter with less impact, less heaviness, more forward motion. I took the idea of running like RoadRunner and well, ‘ran with it’. (Ahem!)

In fact, I came up with a bunch of Intentions:

“Pedal with my feet. Pedal with my ankles. Pedal with my knees”.

All this simply to encourage a circular motion in my running. To reduce the downward motion, to lessen the impact, to reduce the up force, reducing the effort required to run.

After all, it works for the RoadRunner!

So, I began to run like the RoadRunner. Meep Meep. My legs are like a whirling dervlish under your my hips. They’re going round at a million miles an hour. My feet are now landing on the pads of my feet, not my heels. Instant change -

Interestingly, I feel like I’m not getting anywhere with small strides - but that’s simply my Limiting Running Beliefs talking. It’s the same for limiting swimming beliefs - I challenge those beliefs all the time when I talk with swimmers. (e.g. my legs are too heavy because I go to the gym, practice makes perfect, kicking harder makes me swim faster)

I use the AT concept of Inhibition to put a Pause on habitual thoughts and in the next moment to bring about a change in my thinking. Inhibition is a big thing in the AT world. Hmmm, future blog post potential.

So, now I’m running short strides. I’m not hitting the ground with every step. I have more bounce in my running.

I’m no longer running habitually. I took the advice, the technique and made it my own. I worked out what worked for me (and what didn’t) and applied it to my running. It’s a revelation. I’m Running My Way. I have the same thing with my swimming, telling my clients to Swim Your Way.

I’m running faster, further and more importantly lighter than ever before and I don’t need someone holding my head in position. This confidence and self belief has given me Running Freedom - a freedom to run in a way that works for me. It’s the same with my swimming - I have Swimming Freedom - I want my clients to have that same freedom (self-belief) in their swimming.

I also RunHappy in the same way that I SwimHappy. I now really enjoy running when before it was always a hard (and heavy) slog.

So, after all that, it turns out that I have started Running Intuitively. Now, I don’t have an online course on this (yet) and I don’t coach it over Zoom. I could, I guess… but I haven’t lived that journey in the same way that I lived my transformation of my swimming. But if anyone wants to hear more about my Substack ramblings, I’m sure I can come up with more of this stuff!

For example, I have mentioned Anti-gravity, Landing on toes, Non-doing or Expanding Awareness for tiredness.

Of course, there were some hints and tips from YouTubers that DID work….

I mentioned how a YouTuber video of him running backwards helped with my swimming. Well, walking backwards and running backwards is helpful simply because it’s not a ‘normal’ thing to do. It’s non-habitual. Anything non-habitual gets us thinking, experiencing, noticing things in a fresh light. It brings a new awareness to our movement.

Furthermore, running backwards really helped me understand the problem of Heel Striking.

What is that Heel Striking? Well, if you’re ‘lanky’ like me, you’d think that long strides would be great - I certainly looked the part - or so I thought. Probably a cross being Basil Fawlty and Usain Bolt! But the further ahead your leg is, the more your heel hits the ground. And that impact is like slamming on the brakes every stride.

Check out the image above - the heel is going to hit the ground first!

Ouch!

For instance, jump on your heels. It feels almost painful. That’s what you’re doing if you heels are landing first - if your stride is too long. Running backwards shows how much bounce, spring, lightness is possible. I took this even further and combined it with my Intention. So, runnning backwards, I’m landing with less impact, more bounce, less up and down, more circular motion.

However, I didn’t simply run backwards habitually - I ran backwards with my new concept of Intention Led Movement thought to encourage a new way that circular way of moving.

Final Word

In the end, it wasn’t simply my bodyweight, physique or technique that was the problem. It simply ‘how’ I was moving. It was ‘how’ I was thinking. I thought the problem would be solved by my running technique whereas in fact, the problem/s were actually solved by my understanding - My understanding of the connection to the ground, my movement and my thinking as I ran.

#understandingvstechnique

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Experimentation:

In my Swimming Coaching I have loads of written experiments for clients to try out for their balance, movement and awareness. Here are a couple of simple experiments for you to explore your running:

Try this, walk…walk faster, walk faster….oh, you’re now running….Maybe this way of running is different to how you normally run?

Try this, run on the spot. How does it feel? Now start running. Is there a difference in the spring in your step? Do you feel heavier when you run?

Oh and definitely, run backwards. See what happens. Notice what’s different. (do this on grass, in a wide open space - safety first! I take no responsibility for your actions. That’s your job!)

And then as you’re running backwards, as one foot lands transition into running forwards. Notice how your momentum, balance and even your awareness shifts. (I’ll talk about Awareness and Attention in another blog - if people read this one!)

In these experiments, see if don’t jump into your habitual running mode…Let your running sneak up on you! It’s a way of getting out of your own way. That’s Alexander Technique all over!