Positive Running – Some Comments
I have great respect for people who are innovators, people who are willing to put their ideas out and put their asses on the line. This is what Frans Bosch has done with his idea on Positive Running. In no way does he propose this as the answer. He is trying to raise some questions, to get all of us to look with different eyes. There is no doubt that the top sprinters of today “look different” to me. In speaking to him, he noticed the same thing, so he set out to hypothesize why. The result is his idea of positive running. I am very familiar with the work of Ralph Mann, having been very involved in the research going into and including the 1984 Olympic Games. His work was a paradigm shift at the time. He forced everyone to take another look at sprinting mechanics. Dr Peter Weyand at
I also would like to address another comment by Mark Day – this is not about selling a book or a DVD, this is about stimulating a good intellectual discussion of what is happening in top speed mechanics. These guys (Bosch & Klomp) are two very honest and sincere individuals who are forcing us to look differently at one of the primal activities of man – running, especially running at top speed. For me the book and the DVD are both artistic and very intellectually stimulating. No one is being forced to buy the book or the DVD. Their work is quality. Let’s accept it for what it is, a challenge to conventional wisdom that must be scientifically validated or refuted. It just reminds how much we do not know. There are so many assumptions and myths in coaching that when someone challenges those assumptions they are often looked upon as a pariah.
posted by Vern Gambetta @ 11/18/2006 10:09:00 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Everyone who reads this blog and Vern's recommended reading does so through different eyes. From my end of it, BK is not so controversal. Runners who have PF pain & MTSS do have the pelvic issues they address. You don't need a dartfish to see it. I've been applying some of the skipping techniques since I read the book a year ago. Rhythm & tempo are missing from most rehab programs. This fall I inherited 5 athletes who developed "shin splints" over the summer. I was able to cure all but one, who was doing ballet concurrently and probably has a stress fracture. No laser, no ultrasound; only a few exercise bands, med balls, some tape, my hands, and the ground. If this sounds idiotic and un-scientific, I did get a "D" in physics.
Vern,
I sure did not mean that all folks create new words to sell books/dvd's. You have to admit though that those less knowledable than you might feel the need to buy a book if they feel it has something completely new in it that they need (even though it really is just a play on words). I will confess I was really interested to see what "prehab" exercises were until I got to see it was realy nothing new.
Mark Day D.C., CSCS, DACBSP
"but in my opinion no one has really done a good job of looking how at how we set up the leg and foot for ground contact. This is what Bosch and Klomp are forcing us to take a look at."
I agree on this statement. However, what proof is there really that running mechanics can be changed by technigue training only? In the scientific literature there is nothing? Should we do it or not?
Some Mass-spring model adherents say that technigue training should be dropped. (for example look at www.bearpowered.com).
Is this controversial?
regards
stefan ijmker
What about the experiences of many many coaches and athletes who have done it. What about what sience literature there is on motor skill learing? You can learn to perfect somersault, but you can not learn to run better? It is not just controversial, it is ridiculous.
Perhaps not so ridiculous if we look at the work of Dr. Rob Playter. Dr. Playter and others have demonstrated that a person doing what seems to be a highly skilled maneuver is only taking advantage, at a very basic level, of forces acting on him or her. Such acrobatic moves "are full of swinging or pendulous behaviors dominated by passive dynamic effects. The body swings the way it wants to-you can either work with it or against it." The idea of "working with" the inherent behavior of the body has influenced the development of Leg Lab robots, including a monopod that moves by bouncing forward like a pogo stick, as well as bipeds and quadrupeds. The researchers have found that the computer controlling each robot doesn't need to tell each joint how to move at every instant (technique); it only needs to adjust the length of the stride and the springiness of the leg. The same principle may apply to the brain and muscles in an animal; much of the work of running could take place almost automatically.
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