I stumbled upon an old article called “Want to run faster? Here’s how.” And thought I’d read it and see what it had to say.
I’m not going to get into the beginning part of the article, but I do want to talk about the tips from David Jack, a Men’s Health adviser, on how to increase your speed and performance when running:
Fix Your Posture
If you spend a good portion of the day sitting at a desk, your posture is most likely taking a hit for it. Your chest gets tighter, your back weaker, and your shoulders roll forward. The result: Your sprinting becomes less efficient. “So if we concentrate on our posture, it helps us unlock everything and allows our body to move in a full range of motion,” says Jack.
If you spend a good portion of the day sitting at a desk, your posture is most likely taking a hit for it. Your chest gets tighter, your back weaker, and your shoulders roll forward. The result: Your sprinting becomes less efficient. “So if we concentrate on our posture, it helps us unlock everything and allows our body to move in a full range of motion,” says Jack.
Sitting all day leads to poor posture, back pain, and poor running mechanics.
I love how he states that our range of motion is dependent on our posture. This is something, as a Postural Alignment Specialist and Advanced Exercise Therapist, I have always stressed to my clients.
I remember one talk I was giving to a group of tennis players and one guy in his 50’s raised his hand and asked, “What can you do about tight hamstrings?”
I asked him how tight they are and he proceeded to bend forward trying to touch his toes and he could only touch his knees. Pretty tight! I asked him if he stretches them and he said, "Yes several times a day for 15 minutes for years."
I said, "I don’t think not stretching enough is your problem, I think it’s the position of your joints, your posture...that’s the problem."
I had him do one e-cise that had nothing to do with stretching his hamstrings, but rather focuses on re-positioning his posture and then had him stand up and try to touch his toes again. He immediately touched his toes! He said it was the first time in his life he can remember ever being able to touch his toes. He was obviously blown away and immediately signed up to do 8 posture therapy sessions with me because he said, “If one e-cise that have that big in impact on me, imagine what is possible!”
The article goes on to say:
I remember one talk I was giving to a group of tennis players and one guy in his 50’s raised his hand and asked, “What can you do about tight hamstrings?”
I asked him how tight they are and he proceeded to bend forward trying to touch his toes and he could only touch his knees. Pretty tight! I asked him if he stretches them and he said, "Yes several times a day for 15 minutes for years."
I said, "I don’t think not stretching enough is your problem, I think it’s the position of your joints, your posture...that’s the problem."
I had him do one e-cise that had nothing to do with stretching his hamstrings, but rather focuses on re-positioning his posture and then had him stand up and try to touch his toes again. He immediately touched his toes! He said it was the first time in his life he can remember ever being able to touch his toes. He was obviously blown away and immediately signed up to do 8 posture therapy sessions with me because he said, “If one e-cise that have that big in impact on me, imagine what is possible!”
The article goes on to say:
Think of fixing your posture as knocking the rust off, says Jack. “We can try and run as fast as we want,” says Jack. “But if we can’t get our body to get up straight and get our hips and legs to extend—we’re just paddling upstream.”
 Poor postural alignment which leads to inefficient movement and eventual injury and pain. |  Good postural alignment which allows efficient movement and prevents injury and improves performance. |
Hip extension and knee extension. Very important to running. Most of us spend hours and hours sitting each day which teaches our hips and knees to be in a flexed position, and if we aren’t doing anything to remind our legs they can also extend, we are asking for injury – hamstring pulls or tears if we try to sprint, knee and low back pain if we are running long distances, foot and hip pain, the list goes on and on. (The Egoscue Tower is a great e-cise to encourage knee and hip extension while also creating thoracic extension.)
The article continues:
The article continues:
If you’re not ready to make the switch to a standup desk—which can drastically improve your posture—Jack suggests taking moments throughout the day to stretch. While in a chair, reach your hands above your head and roll your shoulders back. Or try standing up, take in some deep breaths, and hold them for a few seconds—that’ll help loosen up all the muscles attached to your ribcage and hips.
 The Counter Stretch encourages knee and spinal extension helping to prevent forward head posture, text neck, and inefficient running form. |  Doing a Standing Overhead Extension creates spinal extension and counteracts the slouching sitting encourages. |  The Standing Quad Stretch gets your hips out of the flexed position of sitting by promoting hip extension. Hip extension is one of the most components of efficient pain free running. |
Yes! Take motion breaks during your day. I suggest getting out of your chair every 30 minutes and do 1 or 2 e-cises that will break your body out of the flexed position. (Besides the above e-cises, here are some other e-cises you can do at work)
If you are interested in a free posture evaluation and gait analysis, contact me today and I'd be happy to help you understand what is limiting your running or athletic performance and what you can do to improve.
If you are interested in a free posture evaluation and gait analysis, contact me today and I'd be happy to help you understand what is limiting your running or athletic performance and what you can do to improve.
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