Foot Power

[LabRat]

From what I just read, the POSE method is just a fancy term for good form.

Basically, by not wasting energy doing things like exessively swinging your arms left to right, instead of front to back etc. you save your energy for forward propulsion. Just like in any sport, better form = better overall performance and less injuries.

[hideouse]

Originally Posted by LabRat

From what I just read, the POSE method is just a fancy term for good form.

Labrat, you are correct. Bad form is rife in running sports and apparent even in Olypmic level racing: people like to heel-and-toe thus heel striking and braking during their stride. I did it most of my life and still strike my left heel a bit albeit less than I used to. switching to thin flat lightweight shoes (chuck taylor all stars in my case) has allowed me to feel my mistakes sooner so I can work on correcting them. The indy500 mini marathon is May fifth. I'll do it in my converse sneakers. I'll report back.
Regarding Scott Sonnon, he has put forth the notion that the archetypical "wall" that athletes encounter is mostly mental and may be dealt with by considering it more of a shifting of gears, as a car's automatic transmission shifts when it feels an changing load. He goes into what he calls "the neuro-endocrine response" as the way the body adapts to stresses during the hitting of the wall.
I think i've done a poor job of describing it. I'll try to dig up a quote.

[hideouse]

From Scott Sonnon:

When you push the threshold of your activity, you expend more oxygen in your muscles than you have taken in, popularly called Oxygen Debt. To repay this debt, your body implores you to heave heavily to replenish your system with oxygen. If you continue to push by and through this debt, you cause a sub-cortical adaptation which adjusts your circulo-respiratory process. This shift enables you to continue strenuous or prolonged physical activity with renewed vigor and greater comfort - often referred to as 2nd Wind. You may transition with dramatic suddenness or subtly unnoticed until somewhere in the activity you realize you’re no longer in distress and actually enjoy the groove you’ve found.

This phenomenon is called Circulo-Respiratory Distress (CRD), something scientists still cannot explain though some neurologists surmise that the cerebrum adapts to the physical distress of exercise by facilitating more efficient neuromuscular coordination. Basically, your wind gets better because your body grooves the activity to use less effort for the same motion.

I prefer the term gear over “wind,” because I believe that you can encounter multiple (increasingly more efficient) levels of distress in one activity. You can encounter layer after layer of resistance in an activity, like gears on your vehicle's transmission: as you wind out the RPMs the engine strains until the shift occurs and engages a new level of performance effiency. The most gears I've ever detected were four in a 42 mile run - my longest and most grueling.


Why do you push into this level of discomfort? Why do you do such a thing? Your life is not threatened. And not threatened, your body creates all manners of phantom pains, nausea, emotions and thoughts imploring you to STOP!

In sport psychology, it’s called your threshold – your Mental Toughness. If you push through distress, you create a neurological adaptation and you become one increment tougher. By pushing the envelop you allow your body to overcome the resistance by adapting to it.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by hideouse

... Basically, your wind gets better because your body grooves the activity to use less effort for the same motion...

Neat way to think about that.

[hideouse]

Update:
I finished alive but achy. around mile eleven i started cramping in my right calf, i was able to deal with it by conciously relaxing. at mile twelve the pain in my right metatarsals got bad enough that i couldn't ignore them and i had to take a ten minute walking break. I was able to resume my shuffling pace and finished at just under three hours. My wind was fine. My legs were not fine. I need more training for leg endurance. So I can do better next year!