The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [158]
1. Use gravity (via forward lean) for forward motion instead of push-off and muscular effort.
2. Land on the balls of the feet and aim to have the feet land under your center of gravity instead of in front of you.
3. Never fully straighten your legs. Keep a slight bend in your legs at all times to prevent push-off.
4. Pull each foot off the ground and towards your buttocks (rather than pushing off) using the hamstrings as soon as it passes under your center of gravity.
5. Maintain at least a 180 step per minute rate, which means at least 90 steps per minute with each leg. This will use muscle elasticity to your advantage. Michael Johnson, who held the 200-meter world record for an astonishing 12 years, and also won four Olympic gold medals at different distances, was known for eschewing a high knee lift in favor of short steps. His per-minute step rate? Around 300.
Brian suggests training tempo using a Seiko DM50L Metronome, and I found it easiest to use 90 beats per minute for one leg and count when that heel was highest (near the buttocks) as opposed to tapping the ground.
RUNNING BY THE NUMBERS:
USING VIDEO TO CAPTURE THREE SNAPSHOTS
Brian explains running as a four-step process: lean, fall, catch, and pull.
Forget pushing off: “The support phase, the foot hitting the ground, should be thought of as catching you from falling, not a push.” He videotapes all trainees at 30 frames per second with a Casio High-Speed Exilim EX-FC100 camera. He believes, as do I, that you can learn more in one hour of video analysis than you can in a year of self-correction without video.
Looking at my third 400-meter repeat to get an accurate picture of semi-fatigued form, Brian reviewed the following numbers:
1. Frames from ground contact to under General Center of Mass (GCM)
2. Frames on the ground
3. Frames in the air
The “Figure 4” or “Fig. 4” indicates the Pose position, in which the bent leg crosses the support leg and looks like a number 4.
Bear with me. This gets geeky (but cool).
TRIAL 1—UNCORRECTED
Frames from ground contact to under General Center of Mass (GCM): 3.5 (goal: ¾ of one frame).
Frames on the ground: 6 (goal: less than 3).
Frames in the air: 3 (goal: 5).
TRIAL 2—24 HOURS LATER
Frames from ground contact to under General Center of Mass (GCM): 2 (goal: ¾ of one frame).
Frames on the ground: 4 (goal: less than 3).
Frames in the air: 4 (goal: 5).
TRIAL 3—2 HOURS AFTER TRIAL 2
Frames from ground contact to under General Center of Mass (GCM): 1.5 (goal: ¾ of one frame).
Frames on the ground: 3 (goal: less than 3).
Frames in the air: 4 (goal: 5).
In less than 36 hours, based on the metrics used, I improved my running economy22 100% in the first two phases (3p1.5, 6p3) and improved desirable air time 33%.
Over the full two days of the certification, we covered more than six hours of whiteboard mechanics and hundreds of details. In practice, four things helped me most:
1. Focus on at least 90 steps per minute with each leg. Particularly if fatigued, focus on this stride rate, which automatically produces the other characteristics of good running mechanics (landing on the balls of the feet, fast pull, etc.). Scott Jurek reinforced this: “If you focus on higher stride rate, much of the rest corrects itself.”
This, to me, is the crucial insight. Ken Mierke, a world-champion triathlete and exercise physiologist, studied Kenyan runners frame-by-frame and now trains his athletes to mimic this “running on hot coals” approach of smaller steps and higher cadence. The result? Some of them—like Alan Melvin, who was a world-class triathlete to begin with—do the seemingly impossible, as described in the book Born to Run. After five months of training at 180+ beats per minute, Melvin ran four one-mile repeats, and every lap time was better than his previous best in the 400 meters.
2. Lean, but fall like a tree instead of bending at the hips. There should be no sitting back. Think of falling forward from the pelvis rather than from the head.