Today’s episode features running coach, biomechanist, and endurance athlete, Helen Hall. Helen is the author of “Even With Your Shoes On”, a comprehensive manual on teaching running in a natural manner based on the sensory capabilities of the human body. She is a minimalist ultra-distance runner, 6 times Ironman and credited with being the world’s first ‘barefoot’ Iron(wo)man. Helen is the owner of the Perpetual Forward Motion School of Efficient Running, as well as a running injury clinic. Helen uses the latest movement science and gait analysis technology to help people find solutions for their pain and injuries.
Helen is a level 4 Anatomy in Motion practitioner (former podcast guest Gary Ward’s system). Helen’s framework of building running technique based on sensory feedback, joint motion, and self-organization is unique and a breath of fresh air, given the lack of importance many coaching systems place on body awareness and natural learning. Even if you aren’t interested in running, the principles from Helen’s system carry over to sprinting, jumping and any other human movement that involves the gait cycle.
In the last five to ten years, many of my own ideas on what constitutes effective technical coaching have been reformulated, based on the sensory and self-organization capabilities of the human body. Helen’s book has been a capstone of sorts on this period of learning in my own life, so I was excited to get her on the show to talk about her approach to coaching.
On the show, we talk about how and why running shouldn’t be an injury-inducing form of exercise, as well as many points on Helen’s philosophy of improving running and human movement. Some specifics include the importance of awareness, why moving joints is superior to manual “muscle activation”, using lunge variations to determine glute contribution to running, as well as building running technique from a sagittal to frontal to transverse plane sequence, specifically addressing the role of posture and fixing “crossover” running.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:31:02 — 72.9MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Pandora | iHeartRadio | JioSaavn | Podchaser | Gaana | Email | Deezer | Anghami | RSS
View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.Key Points
- The question of jogging and running as a natural form of exercise, and if we as humans are actually “born to run”
- How a person can find their own best running technique through a process of noticing one’s own body
- Answering the question if there is ever room for internal cues in a coaching system
- Why activating and moving joints is superior to concentrically activating muscles for performance
- Using lunge variations to see if a runner could activate their glutes while moving
- How to build running technique through awareness and joint mobiliziation drills from a sagittal, frontal and then transverse plane sequence
- How to optimize running posture using wall-based spinal alignments
- How to fix crossover gait using frontal plane drill work
“I passionately believe we are (born to run) because toddlers are at it before they really even can walk well”
“Running is just another speed, another gear. A whole array of different speeds is what we do well. Going further and going long is what we do best of all. Enduring is in our evolutionary history”
“People are disconnected from the way that they are doing anything… nobody notices anything.”
“When a person runs and gets injured, is it how their body wants to run, or is it what they’ve been taught or think they should be doing. If it’s not what their body wants to do, but it’s being inflicted on the body by an opinion, then it’s quite possible that the body might not like it”
“It’s not about telling people “how to”…. There’s a lot of confusion because so many of these “guidelines” contradict each other”
“Let’s start by exploring, how do you walk, and when you go from your walk into your run, what changes?”
“When people have cushioning between their feet and the ground, they will land harder. When gymnasts are landing on foam mats, they land harder as if their feet are trying to seek the floor, saying “where is the stability?””
“Having correct running technique starts with noticing “what do you do?””
“The tech supports what we do, it doesn’t dictate it”
“If you are contracting a muscle, rather than thinking about a joint movement, the contraction of the muscle as you move affects the timing of what you are trying to do”
“If we can access internal rotation, adduction and hip flexion (in a lunge) then after a few of those, if we compare with a before and after, we should be able to see, and the person feel a change in their muscle activation”
“It’s not about being rigidly upright, it’s about being erect at ease”
“Gait is complex, everything is happening in 3 dimensions all at once, so where do you start? A wall is a great place to start”
“When the bones are stacked effortlessly, (the body) is in a position for maximal rotation, which is maximum potential because we are transverse plane rotational mammals in the field of gravity, which is our efficiency above all other mammals”
“(In natural sagittal plane manipulation) Wherever the pubic bone goes, so does your nose”
“Supination, which is the locked rigid lever by which we propel is 5/7ths of the gait cycle if you break the gait cycle into 7 easily identifiable parts”
“Unless you pronate, you can never move into supination”
“When people are doing ab-crunches to create their 6-pack, their heads are invariably going the wrong way”
“If one thing doesn’t move, something else is going to have to move more”
“There is a goldilocks tracking width, there is a “sweet spot”… where do they access the full breadth (ball of big toe to ball of little toe) of each foot?”
“If the ball of the foot isn’t making good contact, with the pinkie as well, then your pulley systems (which half the load of the body) are null and void, so now the effort getting you off the ground is muscular instead of elastic”
Show Notes
These videos are from “Even With Your Shoes On” and represent the learn by “noticing” aspect of Helen’s coaching, as well as moving the joints of the body in a manner that represents the section of the run to be worked on.
Head Alignment
Frontal Plane Foot Mobilization
“I’m a Little Teapot” Frontal Plane Work
Sagittal Plane Alignment
Lunging for Glute Optimization
“WUJWUM’s” or “Wake Up Joints to Wake Up Muscles”
About Helen Hall
Helen Hall is the author of “Even With Your Shoes On”, a comprehensive manual on teaching running in a natural manner based on the sensory capabilities of the human body. She is an endurance athlete, minimalist ultra-distance runner, 6 times Ironman and credited with being the world’s first ‘barefoot’ Iron(wo)man. She has completed “the hardest ironman in the world”, Ironman Lanzarote in 2011.
Helen is the owner of the Perpetual Forward Motion School of Efficient Running, as well as a running injury clinic. She specializes in the solving of chronic pain and repetitive injuries, be they in the neck, shoulder, back, hip, knee, ankle or foot and connected to sports or not.
Helen uses the latest movement science and gait analysis technology to help people find solutions for their pain and injuries. She is a cofounder of Barefoot Audio, an audio tool merging evocative coaching cues to inspirational music composed specifically with efficient running in mind.
She is the author of the YMCAfit Barefoot/Efficient Running course and manual and was the coach to the inov-8 Natural Run program.
Helen is qualified as an Anatomy in Motion Level 4 Practitioner, has multiple CHEK certifications, as well as certification in lymphatic therapy.
Free Speed Training eBook - Velocity 101
Improving speed is one of the most popular topics in the athletic performance equation. Where there are many ideas and thoughts out there, as to particular training exercises, or setups, the more core aspects of speed training often go without mention. These include the fundamental aspects of what makes an athlete fast, specific sprint-power concepts, the relevance of "3D" motion, motor learning and more.
Velocity 101 will help you take a leap forward in understanding of what makes athletes fast, and how to train it effectively