The Cart, The Horse, and a Racing Spoiler on a Ford Festiva: What is WRONG with American Distance Running

It's 2010. A new year, and renewed excitement for fast times: indoor, outdoor, and over hill and dale.

And runners across the country flood message boards with hits and posts oozing excitement about the latest trends: the new training, the new gear -- "Free" (but not the least bit cheap) shoes, supersocks, beltless trench coats, ad nauseum -- the brilliant new coaching minds, and the fresh new talent. All of which buoys our hopes that, indeed, this year will finally be the year for The Breakthrough for US distance running. Or, at least, my running.

But, it probably won't.

Sorry.

There are Four Fundamental Problems with US Distance Running. And until they're recognized, we will never reach our potential. And you will never reach your potential -- no matter the Team, the Coach, the Workouts, or the Gear.

#1 - No One Teaches Us How to Run

How silly. Everyone knows how to run, right? It's just like walking but (presumably) faster, and more tiring.

Wrong. There's a right way, and limitless flawed ones.

Distance running is the only "real" sport where kids are simply not being taught the fundamental mechanics for success.

Take basketball: if a little kid shows up for the first day of practice, chucking the ball, "granny-style" to the hoop, that's a major problem, right?

Here's what the youth basketball coach might do:

"Hey Johnny, let me show you the CORRECT WAY to shoot a basketball!"

He would then demo those correct mechanics and might even use a clever acronym for the kiddies to remember (who else remembers "BEEF" from kid ball?).

Atta boy, coach. But what does the high school, and even college and "professional" running coach say?

"That's OK, Johnny! Just chuck that granny shot up there A FEW BILLION TIMES, and you'll eventually get really efficient at it!"

He/she might even add a few coaching pearls about dedication and perseverance, or a vital importance of weekly session of 50,000 granny shots being the key to "ideal mechanics".

This is unacceptable, and a major reason why the talent in this country fails to develop: the lack of biomechanical emphasis by coaches and runners at every level -- even at the highest professional levels.

Oh sure, there's "steps" and "skips" and "drills" galore for sprinters and distance runners, alike, but find me one coach who knows WHY those are importance -- and their direct application to stride mechanics -- and I'll find a hundred runners who haven't the slightest idea what they do.

#2 - The Fast Kids Become Sprinters, the Slow Kids Are Distance Runners

In the US, when you're considered "fast" as a kid -- in other words, when you possess ideal stride mechanics -- our youth sport system funnels you directly to the sprint coach, post-haste. The slow kids -- with form characteristics ranging from "distance" (in other words -- inadequate hip flexion/knee extension during max velocity running) to "clunky" are diverted to the mile, two mile, or whatever distance is longest. Where, of course, they lack coherent instruction on mechanics.

Thus, the vast majority of our track and field talent pool goes toward sprints, while the remains are swept over to distance.

#3 - The Complete Disregard for the Dynamic Nature of Running Strides

Across the board in all "skill sports" -- basketball, baseball, golf, bowling (and the field events!) -- sports that require rhythmic, multi-directional biomechanical motions -- heavy attention is paid to the complex and painfully frustrating dynamic nature of FORM.

Basketball and baseball players often cite "hot" and "cold" streaks relating to shots, swings, and pitches -- and they'll spend hours refining them. Golfers' swings are broken down in slow-motion with telestrators on TV, pointing out strengths and weaknesses. And field event coaches -- from the hammer ring to the high jump pit -- surround and bombard their athletes with step-by-step feedback and cues for approach and execution mechanics.

What are the runners and distance coaches doing? Fretting about splits and paces, spikes v flats v trainers, "VO2Max" v "Special Endurance II" v "Extensive-Intensive".

All the while wondering why -- after having done the same workouts with the same teammates in the same shoes on the same track -- they're slower and feel worse than a year ago. How is this possible?

Must be the iron levels. Are they eating enough protein? Too much?

No one is asking about their mechanics.

Even keeping all else equal -- coach, training, environment, and gear -- strides change. And, like the golf swing and the jump shot, can change fundamentally (and tragically) by the day, or moment.

This lack of awareness of dynamic nature of an individuals' stride is -- in my professional opinion as runner, coach, and healthcare practitioner -- the single greatest cause of poor performance, lack of career development/progression, and injury, burnout, and, ultimately "retirement".

#4 - The Over-Emphasis on Physiological Distance Training versus Biomechanics

This is a culmination of numbers 1-3. The physiological training aspects of distance running -- base mileage vs sprints vs intervals vs fartleks vs recovery vs altitude vs sea level vs core strength vs weights vs plyometrics -- absolutely dominates coaching theory, as well as internet banter.

A simple word search of the ubiquitous LetsRun message board found the following search results:

TRAINING: 141,000 results
WORKOUT: 35,166
INTERVAL: 6,576

STRIDE: 6,101
MECHANICS: 1,838

That's nearly a 100:1 ratio of training-related v mechanics-related discussions on arguably the most popular distance-running message board.

This is representative of how runners and coaches at all levels prioritize the sport. Attend your state's annual coaches clinics, and I will bet my next paycheck the bulk of discussions will be on training theory, zippy mental tricks or, my favorite -- "My Team Did Really Well This Year, So I'm Gonna Tell You Why We're Good".

To have training theory -- at its current level of hyper-analysis and obsession -- dominate over basic running biomechanics is, by definition, putting the cart before the horse.

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I have resided in Track Town USA long enough -- and interacted with enough elite track and field athletes and coaches -- to have become sufficiently jaded with this flawed approach to US Distance Running.

For youth and collegiate runners, it's disappointing to see such glaringly misplaced priorities: obsessing about this training theory versus that, or debating the merits of weights versus plyometrics, static versus dynamic stretching, etc.

Well-known Coach Brad Hudson put it well on his own website, stating (in paraphrase) that distance runners need not obsess about the latest gimmick; they simply need to run more. And while I agree with that philosophy, I'll take it a step further:

Distance runners need to run more with optimal stride mechanics.

For post-collegiate and professional runners, the incredible sacrifices they make to achieve their goals -- all the while ignoring fundamental flaws of stride mechanics -- is simply tragic.

These are people leaving loves ones behind, delaying families and careers, living in near-poverty (often without healthcare, even at the highest levels). Yet they continue to train with often glaring biomechanical faults.

That some of these athletes train and perform at such elite levels with such basic (and changeable) flaws in mechanics is both amazing and, frankly, embarrassing.

Think a Division I or Professional basketball player dribbling a ball with two hands, or underhand shooting free-throws. I put these examples on par with some of the more fundamental (and, shockingly, "accepted") biomechanical flaws, including:

• Trendelenburg hip gait
• Extreme lumbar lordosis ("gut out")
• Inadequate hip flexion/knee extension ("The Distance Stride")
  

It's embarrassing, not only for the athlete, but for the coach who allows these habits to persist all the while hyper-emphasizing other "esoteric things" such as peak base mileage or 5 repeats instead of 4.

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Why is this a problem? Improper biomechanics result in:

• Decreased maximum speed --> SLOWER PERFORMANCE
• Decreased maximum efficiency --> the body absorbs more energy than it transmits --> more tissue stress --> slower recovery --> lower training volume tolerance, or INJURY -- SLOWER PERFORMANCE
  

I heard one elite runner lament about how injury-prone she is, even though she "works way harder than her teammates at stretching, icing, and nutrition".

Perhaps it is because they are more biomechanically efficient. Pouring in quart after quart of oil every day does not fix the leaky engine.

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In summary, to train so incredibly hard and sacrifice so much -- all the while sporting a significant biomechanical deficit -- is akin to this:

A SPOILER might be vitally important to achieving your top-end speed, but...might you wanna turn that Festiva into a Ferrari first?

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The solution? Recognition of biomechanics as the most important aspect of distance running. If it's important to analyze and perfect the 13-stride approach in high jump, might the 26,000-step approach to the marathon finish warrant similar scrutiny?

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NEXT POST: The Solution, with specifics. It's not that difficult. If high school quarterbacks can memorize a playbook, a kid can learn how to put one foot in front of the other.

And so can the coach.

"We Can Rebuild Him"

A recent foray onto the internet today had me stumbling across weblogs of a couple local ultra runners (Dan and Matt). As an avid trail runner/outdoor adventurer, I also consider myself an aspiring ultra runner. It's just a matter of time. But 'til then, I live vicariously through the stories shared and pictures taken.

It shouldn't surprise me that, among obstacles and challenges discussed, injury reports were sprinkled amongst the posts. When your training log not only lists daily/weekly mileage (often triple-digits) but also elevation, then you know they're putting more "wear-and-tear" on their bodies than the average woodchip shuffler like myself.

When guys like these (and I'll take the liberty of lumping myself into this category, for this example) get injured, I imagine the Monday morning water cooler talk goes something like this:

• Cubemate #1: "Hey Dan, what's with the ice pack?"
• Dan: "Oh, my knee's been bothering me quite a bit lately -- I had to cut my long-run short at 20 yesterday."
• Cubemate #2: "20!?! Well no wonder why your knee hurts! "
  

...which invariably is followed by several "heh-heh-heh's", some head-shaking and perhaps an eye-roll or two.

Dan, or whichever one of us this situation befalls, is left standing there, frustrated and annoyed (and with a family-size bag of frozen peas Ace-wrapped to their knee!)

Why? Because it's all relative. If a person's never run a mile (let alone 20), they cannot understand how it is physically possible to do so without crumbling to pieces. However, the Dans out there are frustrated by this simple logic:

"If I can run ten miles (or 20, or even 30) a hundred times in my life,
why does my knee hurt on the 101st? "

The cubemates -- as well as most family MDs and orthopedic surgeons -- would argue the following:

• The "Your Body Can Only Take So Much" Argument (aka "The 30 Years Rule"?)
• The "You're Getting Too Old" Argument
  

Both arguments have but limited validity. Yes, the body's limits are finite -- though closer to "in-finite" than most people can possibly imagine. And Yes, we cannot do at age 90 what we can do at 20.

Instead, I'll borrow from the world of structural engineering: the material stress model:

Stress = Force/Area

where Stress is the injury-producer and Force is how we choose to treat our bodies.

Age and genetics are the biggest determinants of the amount of Stress it takes to injure: individual bodies react differently to Stress, and the same body differently across a lifespan. It also varies in accordance to training adaptation.

And Force? A lot is said about Force. However, a ten miler's worth of "Force" may seem ridiculous to one but an easy day to another. Again, adaptation.

But the forgotten variable is Area. What is Area? In the case of a building material, it is the space through which that force is distributed. The greater the area, the more that force is "shared" amongst all parts of the material.

What's Area to a runner? EFFICIENCY.

There's a reason feet pronate and supinate, knees and hips flex and extend, trunks rotate, and arms swing -- to absorb, store and release Force toward a goal of locomotion.

EFFICIENCY is the idealized distribution of Force throughout the body. And, when all other parts of the equation are kept constant -- age, genetics, adaptation, and load -- it is the only thing we can control to impact stress.

Yet it is the Forgotten Man. Few, if anyone -- including most sports med professionals and athletes, themselves (especially runners!) -- believe that Running Biomechanics can be changed -- for the better or worse. There's a belief out there that "You're stuck with what you've got", and instead, the focus shifts instead to the Force variable:

“You might want to consider transitioning to lower mileage—
--you’d be surprised how well you can still race on 30 miles a week!”

Here's what I say: "You might wanna consider optimizing your running efficiency!"

Injuries like Dan's occur for the following reasons:

• Too much, too soon, but more likely,
• You're doing something inefficiently, or less efficiently than you used to
  

It is that change in efficiency, for better or worse, that is the biggest determinant in running mortality than anything else. The crushing simplicity of that little equation, S = F/A, and the reality that the "S" it takes to cause injury gets smaller and smaller as we age, means that -- in order to continue to do what we love, something has to give: run less or run better.

It's that simple. Only The Efficient survive.

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What does that mean to the Dans, Marks, and Joes out there? It means we must recognize the importance of form and technique, and its dynamic nature. Running is the only sport out there where little if any time is spent TEACHING someone to run; instead we're told, "Just run!", with the expectation that whatever permutation results is "OK".

Here's where The Skilled Physical Therapist comes in: the PT, by definition is The Movement Expert. That is our job. We don't diagnose visceral disease. We don't prescribe tissue-altering medicines. We watch how you move and, if need be, we intervene to change it.

This approach can be used with running form, and has been, with great success. I am living proof. My own knee injury of nearly a year was abolished -- not with RICE, massage, ultrasound -- but with a biomechanical and motor control renovation.

It didn't happen overnight. It took a team approach between me as the patient, and my physical therapist. And, like a golfer honing his swing or a pitcher learning a new pitch, it took a ton of practice, repetition, and feedback.

But it did change, and how! Besides recovering from the knee pain, it has revitalized -- and revolutionized -- my running career. Because of my increase in efficiency, my "Area" is significantly greater. The result? My form isn't perfect, but the Force my body can take -- even as a 30+ year old -- is vastly greater than anything I could handle before, even in my early 20s.

How do we do it? Here are some nuts-and-bolts examples of what we do at Eugene PT:

• Comprehensive physical examination: What's weak? What's tight? What joints aren't moving, or moving too much?
• Real-world gait analysis
• Neurological/motor control testing: How do you control your body in space?
• Sport-specific intervention: strengthening, stretching, and drills designed to promote EFFICIENCY.
  

So there is hope. You don't have to stop. We can get you better. We can make you faster. We Have the Technology. We Can Rebuild Him!

...and it won't even cost Six Million Dollars.