yoga for runners
Ancient Chinese Yoga, Posture, and Long Distance Running Training
I am a long distance runner. I competed with my high school track team and I ran on my college team at University of California at San Diego. Now I train on my own. My present goal: qualify for the 2012 Olympic team trials.
Only potential Olympic competitors and and their coaches truly understand the daunting nature of this challenge. Walls are hit and overcome. Runners understand how fractions of a second off a time is sometimes a major achievement and how reliable techniques to work past blocks and get over walls are invaluable. This article is about an unusual technique that I’m using to get over one of those walls.
My running specialty is the 10k track. Although a challenge for some, for me it is my passion and meditation. I’ve been doing this run now for five years. Only long distance runners can appreciate the importance of this, but since 2006 my time has been stuck more or less around 32:45. Now, suddenly, getting past this wall seems to come from an unexpected source: the unusual training methods of Chinese internal martial art master John Bracy. Over the past three or four months we have worked together to apply his training methods to my running. The past week perhaps shows the astonishing potential of my work with Bracy best: while running what based on nine years of running experience is 6:25 per mile pace I began to apply his methods and dropped down to as low as 5:00 per mile pace with no increase in overall effort.
Based on corrections to posture, breathing, meditation training and his adaptation of Chinese yoga, Bracy’s techniques seem to be working for me and they are significant enough to write about here. I faced a variety of challenges, highlighted by a spinal condition known as kyphosis.
The Big Challenge: Kyphosis
As a runner, one problem I faced during my later teens and early twenties is a condition known as excessive kyphosis. Kyphosis- shown in figure 2- refers to the natural curvature of the portion of the spine called the thoracic spine. This is often defined as a curvature greater than 35 degrees (30-35 being the norm). Kyphosis can be caused by a variety of issues including bad nutrition, emotional issues, or even simply bad posture habits.
My father also had a kyphotic spine in the past. One of the first clues that Bracy’s Chinese yoga techniques might be helpful to me is my observation of how it helped my father. While training in John’s Chinese martial art of Ba Gua Zhang (also written baguazhang and Pa Kua Chang) he significantly altered his own kyphotic tendencies to such an extent that none of my Dad’s old tailor-made suit jackets now fit. After a couple years of training with John, the previously required personal alterations to accommodate his upper back arch would no longer fit.
The first step to understanding how Bracy’s training can apply to long distance runners is to understand the body in terms of more versus less efficiency. In the drawing shown in figure 3, the grey triangle represents a fulcrum. A fulcrum, defined as “the support about which a lever turns,” decreases the amount of effort for a lighter object to lift or move a much larger object. According to Bracy, the human body develops fulcrums through unconscious habits of a body living a denatured lifestyle of constantly flat and level ground. What this means for most of us is that the body is constantly, usually at an unconscious level, seeking less effort and responds by choosing (bad) posture habits that enable less work. Translated to our body, less effort means instead of lifting the head with the muscles of the neck, the preference is made for the head to hang. In turn the upper back reacts to the flat and level of modern civilization by slouching back over the body’s centerline. The pictures below show a comparison of unconscious fulcrum habits and natural suspension of the body with the influence of fulcrums minimized.
Bracy believes that these principles of body laziness and their countermeasures explain the lost knowledge of the great Tai Chi masters. Apparently this art, considered by many today to be only a form of moving meditation, was once known as an ultimate fighting system (which the name Tai Chi Chuan, also written taijiquan, translates).This is so because Tai Chi uses principles of body mechanics and subtle energy flow discovered by Taoist yogis.
Bracy believes these same principles are adaptable to modern life as an alternative treatment for pain patients and athletes such as long distance runners. According to Bracy’s model–and this is where the Taoist yoga comes in–efficiency has to do with increased circulation of blood and vital energy called chi (also written qi) and efficient biomechanics that minimize the influence of the unnatural “resting points” in the body we talked about earlier. These methods have already proven remarkably effective both in relieving chronic neck and back pain and in taking martial arts practice to a much higher level.
As an aid to improve my running time, the the physical training I am being taught by Master John revolves around a set of principles from ancient Chinese yoga called tao yin. Literally, “pulling and twisting,” for me the point of this training is not primarily aimed toward mastering chi (viatal energy) or attaining a lofty form of enlightenment, but as an aid to mastering long distance running.
I began intensive work with Bracy several months ago with my form in mind. Runners all know that the ability to run tall, light, and relaxed is a very important component of running success.
John’s training method makes it possible to develop new habits and thus get at the root cause rather than provide temporary fixes. In the last three months, I have greatly improved my posture and ability to have a straighter far more relaxed spine. This has made my running smoother and easier and also led to a general improvement in both energy and confidence.
These training methods are really about harmonizing movement. There are already a number of applications outside of martial arts, for example Star Trek star Alice Kringe (Queen of the Borg) has used it to improve her acting. Alice describes John’s training in the following way:
“John’s instructions of what he calls “the wave” was extremely helpful in my acting career. I learned to consciously tune in to the optimal flex of the cerebrospinal fluid to release areas of habitual tension. This process allows me to arrive at an optimal state of openness, sensitivity and receptivity in my work as an actress and access higher mental (and physical) function.” -Alice Kringe
My training focuses around holding a pose known as “Tiger” for ten minutes each day and a variety of supplementary exercises to loosen tight areas and teach me how to do the “stretching and pulling” discussed earlier. These exercises and poses have taught me to both have a loose, relaxed spine and use my muscles, tendons and surrounding fascia in a far more effective and coordinated manner. Applied to my running, I have recently observed that the better I get into states easily held while doing “Tiger” the faster I go.
Yoga for Runners
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