When reading about running form I often see naysayers using the phrase "if it ain't broke don't fix it." I can somewhat understand hearing this phrase from someone who is just running for fitness, and doesn't want to be bothered by learning the fundamentals of the exercise they are partaking in.

Hearing this phrase come out of the mouth of athletes completely baffles and saddens me. It's even more upsetting when I see supposed mentors encouraging student-athletes to keep repeating the same things over and over while producing the same mediocre results. I understand that tinkering with a successful formula TOO MUCH is not wise, but the notion of not trying to improve at all is completely ridiculous and completely against the spirit of athletic competition.


The formula for success in athletics is pretty simple:
Great performances indicate that very little needs to change
Horrible performances indicate that a lot needs to change


Evaluate how you are doing, decide how you want to be doing, calculate the difference and fill the gaps.

Even if you're doing great, there is room to improve! There is ALWAYS more to learn, more to experience. Add in a few new drills, new exercises, small tweaks to your form and see how much better you can be. Never be fully satisfied until you are done competing. If you consider yourself an athlete, strive for the best.

If you are doing terrible, hate running, can't run without pain, then you may want to consider making some major changes to your routine. 

For track and cross country runners, don't get tricked into running like a robot, especially if you run cross country. If you want to be a great cross country runner, you will need to run with your WHOLE BODY, not just your legs. Run like an ATHLETE not a RUNNER. 

An Athlete acts and reacts from their body. An athlete thinks about form. An athlete has an understanding of the basic fundamentals of their sport because they were taught the fundamentals, probably at a young age.

Not runners. Runners just run. Runners act from their heads. They run by 100% thought/0% feel. Don't believe me? Go to any track meet and undoubtedly you will hear multiple people yelling various split times, and advising the runners to speed up or slow down based on their average pace. In this case the runner is not even running from their own head, they are running from their coaches head.

Could this be why a random soccer player decides to come out for track every year and ends up being faster than the majority of the cross country team? The soccer player runs like an athlete. Runners...we just run. 

What makes an athlete great? Lots of things. But one thing they ALL have is a superior mind-body connection. Runners appear to be one of the few sets of athletes that purposely try to sabotage their mind-body connection by running themselves into the ground. 

I think we've hung onto the insanity from the running boom but lost the essence. We forget that the good old boys from back in the day were having a blast as they crushed 160 mile weeks, week after week. It was FUN. Now all we care about is getting in the mileage. Actually, we prefer it NOT to be fun because we think if we hate it we will somehow get better results? No one has yet been able to explain to me how practicing suffering produces happiness. It seems to produce more suffering to me.

That's why I choose to practice happy. 

In my world, having fun is what its all about. Not only because it's more fun, it also produces better results! Having fun is how you learn and get good at something in the first place. 

Working on your running form is FUN if you have the right approach and right guidance. 

And remember, just because something "ain't broke" doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Stride to be your best. 

One of the more common questions I get asked is how Chi Running will affect speed. I’ve spoken with many competitive runners who have an interest in what Chi Running has to offer, but have some concerns they will not get any faster, or even get slower while practicing the technique. For these runners, running fast is a priority and they don’t want to do anything that might screw up their training. Fair enough.

I first read Chi Running in 2004, as a junior at Fitchburg State. Around the time I was reading the book, I was competing in outdoor track. My best time for the 10K was 33:30. The next outdoor track season my 10K pr was 31:15, taking off 2 minutes and 15 seconds from my previous best. So for me, reading Chi Running certainly did not make me any slower. There were other factors in addition to Chi Running that helped me improve, but the fact is, Chi Running was a huge part of my success in college. Of course, one person’s story tells us nothing about anyone other than that one person, so let’s take a look at two others.

In my experience, I’ve seen others implement Chi Running principles and run pretty fast. Take for example my friend Matt Germain. In 2004 Matt ran 3:59 for 1500 meters. Matt is the type of guy to put it all on the line, and after every race he would collapse down to one knee in agony. After a 3:59 (4:16 mile equivalent) this is understandable. Fast forward to 2007. I had just returned from the Chi Running instructor weekend and needed someone to practice teach in order to get officially certified. Matt, being the good friend that he is, happily obliged me, not because he was really interested in Chi Running, but because he was being a good friend and wanted to help me out. Well a couple months after that first session with me, Matt went on to break his 1500 PR running a 3:58. This time Matt did not collapse down onto one knee, he sort of just bounced off the track, smiling, eyes beaming with joy.

The other interesting thing about Matt is that he has a really fast metabolism. A couple years ago we would go to a burger joint for lunch and Matt would easily put down a 1 pound cheeseburger, side dish, and milkshake. Yes, you read that right…a 1 POUND burger…like it was nothing. Keep in mind Matt is a skinny distance runner. Because of his ravenous appetite, Matt used to really struggle on long runs. He couldn’t really get past 14 or 15 miles before bonking. Well, a couple years of Chi Running and Matt has now run 2:35 for a marathon and breezes through a long run at least once a week. Chi Running allowed Matt to run far more efficiently, reducing his need to consume tons of calories during long runs, allowing him to run longer, which got him faster.

Matt and I both got faster with Chi Running, but even more interesting than our stories is the story of our friend Caitlyn Clark. For one year, Caitlyn lived with Matt and I. Since Caitlyn was living with a Chi Running instructor, she figured she would give it a shot. She had battled some pretty nasty injuries in college and still had a competitive mindset, so anything she could do to run with less pain was a good thing. To make a long story short, Caitlyn had the best year of running in her life when practicing Chi Running. She ran 17:00 for 5K that year.

The interesting part is that Caitlyn got a new job and had to move out of the house. In her new job, she wasn’t really practicing Chi as much. Without me there as a reminder she would just head out the door and go for her run, not really thinking much about loosening up, her form, body sensing, her breath and so on. Her job and living area was stressful and she probably needed the Chi Running even more in that environment, but amidst all the chaos she let the Chi Running focuses slip away and ended up having a really tough year running wise. The reason I find Caitlyn’s story so interesting is because she implemented Chi Running and got faster, then stopped practicing Chi and got hurt and slower.

For whatever reason Chi Running has become popular amongst marathon and ultra-marathon runners. The track and cross country world has been less receptive. Even some of my close friends who are hurt don't want to give it a try. I don’t know the reasons for this and will save that for another post. The important thing for track athletes to remember is this: FOLLOW GRADUAL PROGRESS. As long as you implement things slowly into your routine, you should be able to keep your current momentum and use Chi Running principles to improve even more. If you read the book and then try to do EVERYTHING the book says, then yes, you will likely get confused, sore, and frustrated.  

Remember, Chi Running is not a wholesale change to your technique. It is implementing little cues and tricks to run more efficiently and injury free. You should not feel overwhelmed. You should not feel like there is too much “stuff” to think about it. If that is the case, you are caught in the details and missing the message.

The four Chi skills mentioned in the book are:

Focus

Breathing

Body Sensing

Relaxation

Think about your last race for a moment. Close your eyes and run through the race in your head. I’ll wait….

Now think about your next race. Picture yourself more focused and more relaxed. Feel a better overall sense of your body. Imagine your breath is more relaxed. Now you tell me, if you could be more focused, more relaxed, more in tune with your body, and breathing more efficiently – do you think you’d be faster or slower?