posted Aug-20-2005 01:50 PM               

Nice to see you're still here
In my earlier post, it was an Olympic skater that was told that if he continued to work with me, he'd be off the team. Yes they know what I'm doing, but it's a small world for skating and coaches control the ice rinks. Same situation, if Olympic skaters aren't using my technique, then ameatures won't either.

Tigger,

That's why I"m here. The drug thing pisses me off to be honest. That's why I decided to create a better way to run and find new methods to accomplish it. I would hope good runners will take to what I teach and beat them. It would make the drugs obsolete, and that's my goal.

Leon,

I teach peak speed. On a treadmill, I find the runner's peak walking speed, running speed and heart rate for each. From there I take them to the floor and reteach them how to take every step forward from there.

Back to the treadmill, I walk with them slowly until we've accomplished a 20% faster walking speed, their confidence in what I'm doing starts. The difference in heart rate is also noted. From there, it's taking them step by step in speed until their previous peak is reached. The heart rate drop is also recorded.

From there, with confidence in what I do, I cover the spedometer and coach them through until I can find their new peak ability. And with newbies, that can be 25% higher, seasoned runners, it's usually 20% or better.

Now, from there, it's up to them how they choose to go. Strength training is also radically different than what coaches preach, so some just keep their previous speeds for a longer duration of their marathons and improve their PR's, choose to run longer races, or push themselves to run faster for PR. That's their choice.

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posted Aug-20-2005 02:19 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by sport jester:
I teach peak speed. On a treadmill, I find the runner's peak walking speed, running speed and heart rate for each. From there I take them to the floor and reteach them how to take every step forward from there.

Back to the treadmill, I walk with them slowly until we've accomplished a 20% faster walking speed, their confidence in what I'm doing starts. The difference in heart rate is also noted. From there, it's taking them step by step in speed until their previous peak is reached. The heart rate drop is also recorded.

From there, with confidence in what I do, I cover the spedometer and coach them through until I can find their new peak ability. And with newbies, that can be 25% higher, seasoned runners, it's usually 20% or better.

Now, from there, it's up to them how they choose to go. Strength training is also radically different than what coaches preach, so some just keep their previous speeds for a longer duration of their marathons and improve their PR's, choose to run longer races, or push themselves to run faster for PR. That's their choice.

---

Can you deliver on the claims you make to ANYONE, no matter what distance they run, or what level athlete they are?

If, for example, Paul Tergat contacted you, could you train him to run 20% faster in just an hour? Could you do the same for Asafa Powell?

Are there any restrictions? Yes or no?

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posted Aug-20-2005 05:18 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by hopper3011:
[QUOTE]What Sandy proved is that no arm swing is even faster because he's better balanced.

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Hope that clarifies things.

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posted Aug-21-2005 10:47 AM               

quote:

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Nice to see you're still here

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quote:

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The following link is to one of my speed skating student Sandy Snakenberg, world record holder in endurance skating.

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quote:

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Oh, and the Office of Science and Technology has offered me a grant to train full time to compete and prove my technique in competition.

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Leon,
This guy is clearly mentally unstable, he also claims to have found a new way to row:
http://www.rowersworld.com/Content/Jester/bio.php
And a better way to skate:
http://www.wweek.com/html/cultfeature070799.html
He has never published in a peer-reviewed journal. I said he was a troll early on, but I don't understand the effort he puts into his posts, which leads me to believe that he has mental issues. He certainly suckered VictorN.

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posted Aug-21-2005 11:17 AM            

quote:

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This guy is clearly mentally unstable

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It's incredible that someone actually believes he can teach people to run 20% faster in an hour. World records would be falling left and right.

I was hoping we could put an end to this madness by asking him the question about Tergat and Powell. He hasn't responded, so perhaps we succeeded.

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posted Aug-21-2005 01:09 PM            

http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=2279

"What kind of crazy sh*t? Well, for example, Vervloet remembers a discussion about disciplining children. "I told them with my son, I just bit him on the ear," he says. "That's how lions and other cats discipline their young. You've got total control, and you can whisper to them while you're biting."

[This message has been edited by fredurie (edited Aug-21-2005).]

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posted Aug-21-2005 03:37 PM               

Even if I can't reach that level of percentage improvement, I can still improve their running technique regardless.

I realize that's an amazing statement, but as Fredurie discovered one of two articles written about me, I don't study humans, I study animals for their biomechaic efficiencies. Humans are very inefficient athletes if you compare ourselves with the rest of the animal kingdom.

I'm only one of about 20 people in the world who are sport biomimeticists. Google Biomimetics and you'll find out more of my world.

Yes my claims on surface are absurd I'd I'm sure that they seem outrageous. However, I chose to have different athleteic coaches and I'm merely sharing that. Contrary to popular opinion here, there is science behind my words and claims.

Think about it; if you want to be better than the best of any sport, who are you going to ask to teach you?

The Guiness Book of World Records lists the Cheetah as the world's fastest runner. I was simply willing to let them be my running coach. If you can find me a faster runner, then I'll gladly learn from them.

The best NBA players can jump maybe 50% of their height. Have you ever seen a cat jump to a 6ft fence? That's 5-8 times their shoulder height and they do it with ease. So who's a better jumper, fluffy or Michael Jordan?

Haven't you ever watched a cat stalk it's prey? They shift their weight backwards on their hind three legs and won't transfer their weight to their lead step until they're certain it won't make a sound. They PULL their weight forward.

That's why you see them always start their stalking with their hips and shoulders on the ground. The closer their hips to the ground, the futher their forward reach and thus longer stride. The fewer steps a cat has to take, the less chance of being discovered. Their stride length is their biomechanic advantage over their prey.

So to make the connection for you, the reason the women of Kenya are as efficient as they are, is that they walk like cats. As Kenya is also habitat to the Cheetah, they shared the plains with them and learned their efficiencies.

Didn't Jesse Owens race horses in the 30's? Michael Johnson tried the same feat and couldn't do it could he? An average race horse has a 20ft stride, while Kentucky Derby record holder Secratariat's stride is 26ft...

So while running coaches tell you that short strides are most efficient, I've got every racehorse trainer telling me otherwise and the world's fastest runner telling me that stride length is key to their survival and speed.

Now translating that into humans was my trick. So you ask where a 20% increase in speed comes from? Its in the more efficient use of the hamstrings as the cheetah taught me. For distance, its in the more efficient use of the aductors and gluteus maximus.

The following quotes are a little more relevent to why human runners should pay more attention to horses this is what the article missed. We have more in common than most think. And before you ridicule the ideas, then maybe you should ask why the NFL funds horse suregery for human applications.

Colorado State:
http://www.newsinfo.colostate.edu/index.asp?page=news_item_display&news_item_id=2069928979

The horse phrase and Paso Fino references:
http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmag/bk_issue/2001/janfeb/cmnh2.html

horse human development quotes:
http://equisearch.com/shop/newproducts/agerelationship012403/

Dr. Bill Moyer quotes:
http://www.tamu.edu/univrel/aggiedaily/news/stories/00/040400-11.html

lockjaw quotes:
http://www.obpvaccines.co.za/main_farm2_horse_001.htm

Fredurie,

Did you post your efficiency comments before or after reading the article. As to the biting comment, the lion is the king of the jungle, and also the one that raises the young. If humans are more willing to kill their young, then learning discipline from other fathers is valid.

With no full time fathers around me, I had no roll models or anyone to ask. I was a full time father when my son was born, put on his first diaper, took off his last. And he's tested to be a genius as well, so I think that lineage is valid.

Yea there's a lot to my story, but the idea that you tried was straight from how cats run. So your post is unique in that light because no running book has ever described such efficiency have they? Thank a cheetah.

In this world of drug induced records, I simply chose different athletes to learn from. For Mother Nature, their game of survival is far more vicious than you can comprehend.

If I'm going to learn, its going to be not from a winner, but a survivor. Mother Nature has spent millions of years of creating the best athletes this planet has. You can turn your back to their skills, I chose to admire them, study them, and write to how they accomplish their speed and enurance.

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posted Aug-21-2005 04:27 PM               

quote:

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I'm only one of about 20 people in the world who are sport biomimeticists.

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quote:

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And before you ridicule the ideas, then maybe you should ask why the NFL funds horse suregery for human applications.

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quote:

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So while running coaches tell you that short strides are most efficient, I've got every racehorse trainer telling me otherwise and the world's fastest runner telling me that stride length is key to their survival and speed.

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quote:

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the lion is the king of the jungle

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posted Aug-21-2005 04:28 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by sport jester:

Yes, until an elite level proves otherwise, I can teach anyone to run 20% as I quote.

= I have never worked with an elite runner.

I've worked quite hard to find an elite level runner to work with.

= I haven't tried hard enough. And none would believe me anyway.

Even if I can't reach that level of percentage improvement, I can still improve their running technique regardless.

= I can't teach an elite runner to run 20% faster. But I can fidget with their form, if they'll let me. But I doubt it.

I realize that's an amazing statement

= Actually, I don't believe it myself.

I don't study humans

= It would make more sense if I did, since that's what most exercise physiologists do.

Yes my claims on surface are absurd

= I'm having trouble believing them myself.

Contrary to popular opinion here, there is science behind my words and claims.

= It's the science of distillation (i.e. Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, ...).

Think about it; if you want to be better than the best of any sport, who are you going to ask to teach you?

= I didn't think anyone would mention me.

The Guiness Book of World Records lists the Cheetah as the world's fastest runner. I was simply willing to let them be my running coach.

= Really stupid of me, considering that cheetahs run on 4 legs and humans run on 2 -- totally different means of propulsion, different muscular and skeletal systems, etc. So how all of this relates to humans is beyond me.

Now translating that into humans was my trick.

= It would be easier if cheetahs stood upright, like this:

So you ask where a 20% increase in speed comes from?

= Frankly, I don't know.

One thing is certain. All of this is ...

---

[This message has been edited by veritas1 (edited Aug-21-2005).]

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posted Aug-22-2005 04:04 PM               

In the world of reading about running, everything known has been printed already. I got tired of reading summaries of running technique in classes. With a medical textbook collection that starts in 1830, and spending countless hours reading biomechanic and kinesiology textbooks at a variety of colleges, I got bored rereading the same thing in 30 different books.

The one fact that hasn’t been posted by anyone is accusing me of plagiarism.

It’s only after getting into other animals that differences in human runners exist and are describable. Especially when you study animals with no arms to swing in counterbalance.

It isn't about how many legs an animal has, it goes back to the difference between a predator and it's prey. One is faster than the other, and both have four legs. So my comparisons weren't between number of legs, it was between two different runners with two different running styles and the same number of legs. That difference is what’s significant for human athletes. There is a principle of physics that separates them. Learn the physics and you can apply it yourself.

Horses, mice, chipmunks, chihuahuas, gazelles, and humans all run with the same principles of balance. They push themselves forward and they all overstride no different than humans do. Their front legs slow them down. Applying that to racehorses and training is to teach them to shift their weight to their hind legs to take the stress off of their front legs to limit their overstriding. Humans are no different. That’s the sprinting aspect of my earlier post.

And as my reference quotes, human knees and horses knees are identical in structure. So how does a 1200lb animal run to protect their knees from injury? That’s why I start with studying sports injuries to determine what animals to study. How horses run to protect their knees is easily viable to human runners.

All of the above animals push their weight while felines pull their weight. That's what creates their speed. That's their difference. You can ignore that fact or learn from it. That’s up to you. You can take drugs to become better, or take in another perspective as to how others run to compare yourself.
In busines school it's called triangle management. So why have humans ignored the rest of this planet's runners in the first place?

And the "King of the Jungle" was the analogy; I do know where these animals live. I can honestly say that I never had to hit or spank my kid to discipline him unlike a lot of other parents I’ve seen. If I learned that skill from cats, I’ll take it…

As to my education, the one difference between anyone with a degree and myself is that I'm the first one to create a more efficient way to perform a human sport based upon mimicking other animals. For everyone with degrees as you demand, then where are their articles? What have you learned from them?

What do penguins have in common with humans? What about Frogs for human application? Elephants as well, what applies? Even with the degrees you so proclaim important, what have they written with human application? Oh and for Charles Roberts at OSU per the article, is studying the Ostrich, even he hasn’t done anything.

I’ll even write his thesis for him right now. If you want to know the human application of studying birds for running, then read Nature Magazine 31st of January, 2002, (page 494) then you can find the math behind the idea of pulling your weight and one foot in front of the other. It’s a story of the theropod, the first species of dinosaur found to have feathers.

And if you followed the story of another similar species Tyrannosaurus Rex, and soft tissue analysis, they were found to have DNA related to the Ostrich. To have a 163 million-year-old running coach isn’t the norm, but why argue with a history of running a lot longer than humans ever have?

Their fossils prove that they modified their running gait from parallel legs to a linear foot placement to double their natural stride length. And theropods are two legged, if that satisfies your four-leg argument of research.

Since these degreed individuals haven't done anything yet, studying an animal with no clue to its human application is a waste of time to me. A lot of degreed people said the world was flat, that surgeons didn’t need to wash their hands or instruments for surgery. Name me one of those experts?

When I hear an “expert” tell me that creating a better way to run is impossible to do, then my response is that all they’re saying is that they lack the intelligence to do it. And your reference for judging my work is that developing a better way to run is impossible to do, so therefore I’m a crackpot. So what if a better way to run does exist? How would you go about figuring it out how to do it?

I think that’s why I’m not the only one studying animals toward human application. If I were, then I’d truly be a crackpot and admit it. I just took a different approach than those with degrees and I beat them to accomplish the supposed impossible.

That’s what separates my world. Biologists study animals hoping for finding the human application, and they haven’t written anything. Yet without what I found to be educational limitations, I’m the first one to create more efficient ways to perform human sports, and with that regardless of degree, I’ve done what they haven’t.

And the foundation of the article you’ve read is that for every sport, there are references to state that my work is valid. If my ideas have no merit, there wouldn’t be an article to begin with. Even the writer has learned my running technique and states that it’s a very smooth way to run. Without that proof, he wouldn’t have written it in the first place. And I think the reference of Toney Veney as “genius” is relevant here. What wasn’t printed was his quote “If I were a distance coach, I’d be all over this.”

The article for me was that at least I am a story. Nontraditional life, untraditional work, but I go back to the fact that I’m not the only one with my ideas, but that I’m the first one to do anything. So I’ll take the heat for that.

That’s why I start with human injuries and work my way backward to find the animals that apply. Without funding for my work, I had to be more efficient in my approach. And I have a number of physicians and surgeons, who understand and appreciate my work, so without their referrals, I wouldn’t be teaching it. Read Victoria’s quote in the article.

Oh, and if you know anyone who rows, ask them how fast? At the time I was pulling 1:18 per 500 meters. I can out pull the measuring systems of any rowing machine on the market.

For myself personally, I was in a vehicle accident as a pedestrian. My shoulders were destroyed and I can't competitively row anymore or I would have stopped there and gone after an Olympic medal as a single rower. For rehab, I took up walking for exercise because it was all I could do. At the time I was training for a place on the US Olympic rowing team when I set the above time. It was from there that I started to teach and write.

So the conversations with me as a person, I’ll gladly get into if that’s what’s important with you. I look at it another way; attack my technique. As stated nobody’s accused me of plagiarism. Yes my perspective is radical, but you can’t find anything I’ve written anywhere else, can you? And if you truly want to prove me BS, then complete the sentence for me

“Robert pulling your weight is a slower way to run because_________”

And my favorite quote is, “Once a mind is stretched, it can never go back.” And that’s what’s important for me, that my ideas are out there however anyone reacts to them.

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posted Aug-22-2005 05:17 PM               

quote:

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And as my reference quotes, human knees and horses knees are identical in structure.

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quote:

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And the "King of the Jungle" was the analogy

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quote:

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Tyrannosaurus Rex, and soft tissue analysis

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quote:

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The one fact that hasn’t been posted by anyone is accusing me of plagiarism.

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quote:

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For myself personally, I was in a vehicle accident as a pedestrian. My shoulders were destroyed and I can't competitively row anymore or I would have stopped there and gone after an Olympic medal as a single rower.

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posted Aug-22-2005 07:47 PM               

Go back to my article, teaching a group of volunteer firefighters to carry 60lbs of equipment with no change in heart rate compared to walking without the added weight.

Can you do the same?

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posted Aug-22-2005 08:10 PM            

Of course, I'm sure that you'll choose to ignore the factual evidence, as you've done with all my other posts.

[This message has been edited by aurang (edited Aug-22-2005).]

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posted Aug-22-2005 10:02 PM               

However, I do believe one should always stir the pot. If we aren't willing to challenge the status quo, then we will stagnate. That goes for a lot of things, not just running. As I stated earlier, although I didn't and don't believe any of Robert's theories, his article and subsequent discussion did get me to rethink my body position while running. I've always been a proponent of the lean forward/push back approach. While I'm not leaning back and pulling as Robert proposes, I am experimenting with a more upright approach as Michael Yessis suggests. So Robert stirred the pot for me and I came away with a morsel. It wasn't the morsel that Robert was offering, however.

Clearly, some of the arguments make no sense. For example, Robert suggests we learn from the Cheetah and other four legged animals. I don't buy it. Four legged animals use their legs in pairs when they want to run fast. The front two legs land first and hold the body up while the rear legs come up and propel the animal forward. Here's a better picture of a cheetah running and it clear to me that this animal is pushing, not pulling.

http://omahareact.tripod.com/react_animalsa_cheetahr.htm

But that is neither her nor there. If I try to get on all fours and gallop, I wouldn't make it across my front yard before I hurt myself. So how does studying a cheetah help me? Not much if at all, but I did notice that this animal runs with what appears to be the equivalent of hams, glutes, and back, not quads. Not sure what that means. Probably nothing for a human trying to run faster.

When a four legged animal is walking or trotting, they do swing their arms. Well actually they are walking on them, but the the pattern does sort of mimic what we do when we walk or run: one leg goes back and the arm on the same side goes forward. So if anything, the study of animals makes me believe even more in the importance of driving ones arms. I don't see the swing of ones arms as a counterbalance but more as a means of propulsion.

A primary difference between running and walking has to do with the amount of time the feet spend on the ground. When we walk, the feet spend a good amount of time on the ground and energy from the impact of the foot on the ground is dissipated. When we run, some of the energy from the impact can be stored in our tendons and muscles for the fraction of a second that our foot is on the ground and utilized for propulsion. That alone is enough reason for me to dismiss Robert's premise, but it didn't stop me from reconsidering my form.

If nothing else, this topic has led to some humorous and insightful posts by post by aurang.

Victor

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posted Aug-23-2005 08:54 AM               

quote:

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However, I do believe one should always stir the pot. If we aren't willing to challenge the status quo, then we will stagnate.

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[This message has been edited by hopper3011 (edited Aug-23-2005).]

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posted Aug-23-2005 10:12 AM               

Percy was fascinated with race horses and many of his theories came from his study of them. Percy claimed that he had a 9 foot stride in his younger days ( around age 50 ).
That is rather a lenghthy stride for a man of about 5 1/2 feet tall.

Percy's ideas on arm movement during running were very different than the man from Portland.

I believe that there might be some merit in studying animals in order to leran some movement patterns that might be beneficial to humans, but I also believe that a 20% improvement for a world class runner is as likely as the Palestinians electing Ariel Sharon their next president.

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posted Aug-23-2005 03:30 PM            

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posted Aug-23-2005 09:45 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by sport jester:
Four legs VS two legs is the most common question I get. “You can call me when you find a two legged animal to study,” is what many say to dismiss my work. That and, “So ya got anymore of that to let me smoke?”

In the world of reading about running, everything known has been printed already. I got tired of reading summaries of running technique in classes. With a medical textbook collection that starts in 1830, and spending countless hours reading biomechanic and kinesiology textbooks at a variety of colleges, I got bored rereading the same thing in 30 different books.

The one fact that hasn’t been posted by anyone is accusing me of plagiarism.

It’s only after getting into other animals that differences in human runners exist and are describable. Especially when you study animals with no arms to swing in counterbalance.

It isn't about how many legs an animal has, it goes back to the difference between a predator and it's prey. One is faster than the other, and both have four legs. So my comparisons weren't between number of legs, it was between two different runners with two different running styles and the same number of legs. That difference is what’s significant for human athletes. There is a principle of physics that separates them. Learn the physics and you can apply it yourself.

Horses, mice, chipmunks, chihuahuas, gazelles, and humans all run with the same principles of balance. They push themselves forward and they all overstride no different than humans do. Their front legs slow them down. Applying that to racehorses and training is to teach them to shift their weight to their hind legs to take the stress off of their front legs to limit their overstriding. Humans are no different. That’s the sprinting aspect of my earlier post.

And as my reference quotes, human knees and horses knees are identical in structure. So how does a 1200lb animal run to protect their knees from injury? That’s why I start with studying sports injuries to determine what animals to study. How horses run to protect their knees is easily viable to human runners.

All of the above animals push their weight while felines pull their weight. That's what creates their speed. That's their difference. You can ignore that fact or learn from it. That’s up to you. You can take drugs to become better, or take in another perspective as to how others run to compare yourself.
In busines school it's called triangle management. So why have humans ignored the rest of this planet's runners in the first place?

And the "King of the Jungle" was the analogy; I do know where these animals live. I can honestly say that I never had to hit or spank my kid to discipline him unlike a lot of other parents I’ve seen. If I learned that skill from cats, I’ll take it…

As to my education, the one difference between anyone with a degree and myself is that I'm the first one to create a more efficient way to perform a human sport based upon mimicking other animals. For everyone with degrees as you demand, then where are their articles? What have you learned from them?

What do penguins have in common with humans? What about Frogs for human application? Elephants as well, what applies? Even with the degrees you so proclaim important, what have they written with human application? Oh and for Charles Roberts at OSU per the article, is studying the Ostrich, even he hasn’t done anything.

I’ll even write his thesis for him right now. If you want to know the human application of studying birds for running, then read Nature Magazine 31st of January, 2002, (page 494) then you can find the math behind the idea of pulling your weight and one foot in front of the other. It’s a story of the theropod, the first species of dinosaur found to have feathers.

And if you followed the story of another similar species Tyrannosaurus Rex, and soft tissue analysis, they were found to have DNA related to the Ostrich. To have a 163 million-year-old running coach isn’t the norm, but why argue with a history of running a lot longer than humans ever have?

Their fossils prove that they modified their running gait from parallel legs to a linear foot placement to double their natural stride length. And theropods are two legged, if that satisfies your four-leg argument of research.

Since these degreed individuals haven't done anything yet, studying an animal with no clue to its human application is a waste of time to me. A lot of degreed people said the world was flat, that surgeons didn’t need to wash their hands or instruments for surgery. Name me one of those experts?

When I hear an “expert” tell me that creating a better way to run is impossible to do, then my response is that all they’re saying is that they lack the intelligence to do it. And your reference for judging my work is that developing a better way to run is impossible to do, so therefore I’m a crackpot. So what if a better way to run does exist? How would you go about figuring it out how to do it?

I think that’s why I’m not the only one studying animals toward human application. If I were, then I’d truly be a crackpot and admit it. I just took a different approach than those with degrees and I beat them to accomplish the supposed impossible.

That’s what separates my world. Biologists study animals hoping for finding the human application, and they haven’t written anything. Yet without what I found to be educational limitations, I’m the first one to create more efficient ways to perform human sports, and with that regardless of degree, I’ve done what they haven’t.

And the foundation of the article you’ve read is that for every sport, there are references to state that my work is valid. If my ideas have no merit, there wouldn’t be an article to begin with. Even the writer has learned my running technique and states that it’s a very smooth way to run. Without that proof, he wouldn’t have written it in the first place. And I think the reference of Toney Veney as “genius” is relevant here. What wasn’t printed was his quote “If I were a distance coach, I’d be all over this.”

The article for me was that at least I am a story. Nontraditional life, untraditional work, but I go back to the fact that I’m not the only one with my ideas, but that I’m the first one to do anything. So I’ll take the heat for that.

That’s why I start with human injuries and work my way backward to find the animals that apply. Without funding for my work, I had to be more efficient in my approach. And I have a number of physicians and surgeons, who understand and appreciate my work, so without their referrals, I wouldn’t be teaching it. Read Victoria’s quote in the article.

Oh, and if you know anyone who rows, ask them how fast? At the time I was pulling 1:18 per 500 meters. I can out pull the measuring systems of any rowing machine on the market.

For myself personally, I was in a vehicle accident as a pedestrian. My shoulders were destroyed and I can't competitively row anymore or I would have stopped there and gone after an Olympic medal as a single rower. For rehab, I took up walking for exercise because it was all I could do. At the time I was training for a place on the US Olympic rowing team when I set the above time. It was from there that I started to teach and write.

So the conversations with me as a person, I’ll gladly get into if that’s what’s important with you. I look at it another way; attack my technique. As stated nobody’s accused me of plagiarism. Yes my perspective is radical, but you can’t find anything I’ve written anywhere else, can you? And if you truly want to prove me BS, then complete the sentence for me

“Robert pulling your weight is a slower way to run because "it's easier to carry it."

And my favorite quote is, “Once a mind is stretched, it can never go back.” And that’s what’s important for me, that my ideas are out there however anyone reacts to them.

---

So you've read a lot of books. Coaching and reading are two
totally different ideas. Sorry, but your theoretical mumblings
are just a load of "mumbo jumbo". If you could teach an runner to improve their times by 20% then you would be
an amazing coach.

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posted Aug-24-2005 04:23 PM               

Do you live in Portland? If so then I’d like to settle this debate and ask if you’d like to have a running lesson from me for free?

Victor,

You got it, you couldn’t have written a better confirmation of what I teach.

“Four legged animals use their legs in pairs when they want to run fast. The front two legs land first and hold the body up while the rear legs come up and propel the animal forward. Here's a better picture of a cheetah running and it clear to me that this animal is pushing, not pulling.“

Your above statement is highly true and you just wrote what biomechanically defines overstriding in humans. The front legs in reality slow them down as I wrote earlier and so you get the idea. All these animals simply transfer their weight over their front legs until their hind legs can propel them forward with power.

Cheetahs and horses both run on two legs like you state and that’s my point. That’s their similarity to humans. In reality both cats and horses run on two legs no different from humans as you posted. Thank you for that connection.

“but I did notice that this animal runs with what appears to be the equivalent of hams, glutes, and back, not quads. Not sure what that means. Probably nothing for a human trying to run faster.” Oh contraire…

If the fastest runner in the world has no quad development and humans do, then Victor, what you state as probably nothing, I asked, “Why?” Why would the best runner in the world run with no quad development? We can all make the same observation, but how you proceed from there isn’t about education, it’s about curiosity. I was curious and you weren’t. No teacher can teach that difference.

Your perception of the Cheetah pushing is true in their strength from their hind legs. What defines their pulling is where there hind legs make contact in relation to their center of gravity. That contact point is in front of their center of gravity and why they have no quad development. It’s called the Catapult Effect in biological terms. Humans use their quads to push the body forward, while cats use their glutes to throw their body over their paws.

Your above quote is what defines the difference of pushing and pulling your weight, because the glutes are firing first. In order to pull the weight, the glutes have to fire and pull the Femur rearward before the quads fire second. That’s why they look undeveloped in a cat. If the cats truly push their weight as you observed, the quads would have been more developed no different than humans. You at least noticed that difference, which I appreciate.

The advantage to humans is that we already have a highly developed quad and thus can capitalize on adding the other muscles to the running process, which is where the speed increase in my technique comes from.

In order to reach in front of your center of gravity, means the hamstrings are utilized to pull the lower leg back behind the cat’s center of gravity until the quads can take over and add their power to the lower leg extension. That’s why they don’t need to be as overdeveloped as they are in humans.

It’s also why knee surgery patients like what I teach because it removes the walking stresses from the knees and quads by transferring it to the hamstrings and glutes.

“When a four-legged animal is walking or trotting, they do swing their arms. Well actually they are walking on them, but the the pattern does sort of mimic what we do when we walk or run: one leg goes back and the arm on the same side goes forward. So if anything, the study of animals makes me believe even more in the importance of driving ones arms. I don't see the swing of ones arms as a counterbalance but more as a means of propulsion.”

The above quote contradicts your accurate assumption you posted earlier. Horses have to walk on their front legs to balance, but as you stated earlier, the strength comes from their hind legs.

The only propulsion the human body can have is the foot strike on the ground and forward propulsion of the leg. That’s why to train a racehorse, you have to pull their bodyweight from their front legs. The front legs of a horse slow them down as you noticed, no different than a human arm swing slows runners down as you admit, but don’t recognize the connection. You don’t want a horse to rely on their front legs to run faster and you don’t want a human to rely on their arm swing to run either. That’s why human arm swing is detrimental to your peak running speed as well.

“A primary difference between running and walking has to do with the amount of time the feet spend on the ground. When we walk, the feet spend a good amount of time on the ground and energy from the impact of the foot on the ground is dissipated.”

The energy of impact has to be absorbed, not dissipated. (Dissipated from dictionary.com-To use up, especially recklessly; exhaust: dissipated their energy. See Synonyms at waste.)

In that context you're right, the energy is wasted and therefore lost, which is why cats and horses don't waste it through impact. And to absorb it because the impact forces cannot be transferred elsewhere, becomes the foundation for injury. And since humans aren't designed to run on concrete, that injury factor is where 70% of runners injure themselves in the first place.

And by pulling instead of pushing one’s weight you naturally increase the time the foot spends on the ground. You give the muscles of the legs and glutes greater range of motion and greater time of doing what they’re designed to do.

And to absorb that impact you mention, your muscles tighten right before impact in preparatory contraction. That’s what limits weight transfer efficiency and slows you down.

“When we run, some of the energy from the impact can be stored in our tendons and muscles for the fraction of a second that our foot is on the ground and utilized for propulsion.”

That’s the biggest myth in running when you compare yourself to other animals as running athletes. When you impact the ground as humans run, your bodyweight is in downward motion. That momentum has to be minimized through preparatory contractions by tightening, which slows down the muscles and the runner until the torso comes to a complete halt and then has to waste even more energy to alter torso momentum 180 degrees back upwards for your next push off. There is no storage of energy whatsoever. The muscles tighten on impact and restrict their firing efficiency, which limits muscle stress but transfers the impact to our joints.

And that’s why I studied cats and horses in the first place. With 1200lbs of bodyweight, the bodyweight impact to a horse is far more than their kneesacould handle if they ran like humans. Considering their size, how do they eliminate bodyweight impact was my question.

Mother Nature doesn’t let her runners waste energy, which is why both cats and horses run with no linear rise or, “bounce” as human coaches like to describe it. Coaches rationalize the energy waste as storing of energy. Minor detail; every coach also says you aren’t supposed to bounce, but none give description of how to get rid of it. If your body did store energy as assumed, then why not store as much of it as possible? Why not let your butt hit the ground with every stride?

As for Yessis’s idea of running upright, (I do own his book) he leaves out the most important aspect of that change in balance. Any change above the hips has to be balanced with a change below the hips. Our natural center of gravity is in our pelvic cavity. Nowhere in his book is the description of how one has to alter their leg biomechanics to balance and allow a more upright body posture. If you don’t change how you use your legs, trying an upright posture without altering leg biomechanics is a fantastic recipe for back strain or groin pull. He also doesn’t factor in the natural difference in leg strength of our natural dominant leg to improve running efficiency, cats, horses, and dinosaurs do.

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posted Aug-24-2005 05:04 PM               

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Cheetahs and horses both run on two legs like you state and that’s my point.

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posted Aug-24-2005 05:29 PM               

The question is where and how they get their strength. The four beat as you mention is due to constant speed as they run. What's their beat count when they start to run?

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posted Aug-24-2005 05:37 PM               

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posted Aug-24-2005 07:00 PM            

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Originally posted by sport jester:
Nike,

Do you live in Portland? If so then I’d like to settle this debate and ask if you’d like to have a running lesson from me for free?

Victor,

You got it, you couldn’t have written a better confirmation of what I teach.

“Four legged animals use their legs in pairs when they want to run fast. The front two legs land first and hold the body up while the rear legs come up and propel the animal forward. Here's a better picture of a cheetah running and it clear to me that this animal is pushing, not pulling.“

Your above statement is highly true and you just wrote what biomechanically defines overstriding in humans. The front legs in reality slow them down as I wrote earlier and so you get the idea. All these animals simply transfer their weight over their front legs until their hind legs can propel them forward with power.

Cheetahs and horses both run on two legs like you state and that’s my point. That’s their similarity to humans. In reality both cats and horses run on two legs no different from humans as you posted. Thank you for that connection.

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Well then s'plain to me why a moose runs like a trotter & can out race and out last a horse?

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posted Aug-24-2005 11:05 PM               

Another example to add to your Newton example that is more specific to running is Noakes and his Central Governor Model. This approach is certainly controversial, yet as you read his book you feel at least he has done the research and he hasn't “skipped the understanding phase.”

As to whether changing my form will make me a better runner, only time will tell. I take a very long-term approach to adjusting my form, so it will be months, as opposed to an hour. And I don't expect to improve 20%. I'd be happy for a couple percent.

Robert, I think if you were willing to admit when you are wrong you might have more credibility. For example, Leon and others have asked if you think you can improve a world class runner's speed by 20%. There is no way this is possible. Even if I believed in your approach, I wouldn't think a world-class runner could improve by that much. I don't think any change in technique could improve even the most technique deficient sub-elite (if there is such a thing) by 20%.

You mentioned that storing the energy from foot impact for subsequent propulsion is "the biggest myth in running". I have problems with that. Here's an interesting article, and one where the research has been done and referenced:

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0950.htm

Of interest is this quote from the second page:
Each time a human foot hits the ground while running, energy is stored as ‘elastic strain energy’ by the key ‘springs’ in the human leg – mainly the connective-tissue strips which run along the bottom of the foot, the Achilles tendon and its associated muscles, the relevant muscles and tendons around the knee and the relevant muscles and tendons surrounding the hip. All of these structures are stretched when the foot hits the ground, and this stretching process stores energy – i.e. increases the potential energy of the leg. When the structures recoil elastically during toe-off, they manage to return about 90% of the work required to stretch them (with only 10% lost as heat). If the tendons and muscles of the leg were not able to store energy during impact with the ground, the muscles would have to increase their work output and energy expenditure dramatically. In fact, Alexander estimates that when humans run at middle-distance speeds, the spring-like properties of the Achilles tendon and the arch of the foot alone cut the work the leg muscles have to do by half. Here lies the answer to our paradox: human leg muscles are still working with only 25% efficiency during running; they do not really become more efficient just because running is the chosen sport. If the mechanical cost of movement is two joules per kg body weight per minute, half of this cost is furnished almost for free by the legs’ springs.

The above article is saying we are more efficient than most animals. A cheetah is fast, yes, but are they efficient? Can they run a marathon? These animals have very different power/weight ratios, muscle fiber compositions, and levers and mechanics than the long distance runner so to say that we should learn from them because they can sprint a hundred yards faster than any creature doesn't make sense to me. A cheetah's back has incredible flexibility and it puts its whole body into each stride. Humans can't run like that, we don't flex they way they do, it just isn't applicable.

I don't think you can apply the running technique of any animal to that of humans. But if you really wanted to pursue that path, then why not study the ostrich? At least it is a two legged creature. But if fails to adhere to your statement that linear foot placement is better than parallel legs. The ostrich runs with parallel legs.

http://photo.ucr.edu/photographers/muybridge/index773.html

Robert, I think you have driven this thread a long way from your original premise and any discussion of animal running technique is not going to help support your theory that Kenyan women's efficient walking technique is the reason Kenyan men dominate distance running.

It doesn't seem like anybody is going to be able to make it to Portland for your free training offer. Perhaps you could get some of your runners to post here so we could discuss their successes.

Victor

[This message has been edited by VictorN (edited Aug-25-2005).]

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posted Aug-25-2005 11:06 AM               

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What's their beat count when they start to run?

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Go back to my article, teaching a group of volunteer firefighters to carry 60lbs of equipment with no change in heart rate compared to walking without the added weight.
Can you do the same?

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