WFR #2: Bended Knee | Wed 3rd Dec, 7:30pm | Prospect Park Weekly Form Run

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When: Every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. (run leaves at 7:37 abouts).

Where: Find The Big Red Pointer(TM) (center of the map, click here).

Distance: A single figure 8 lap of Prospect Park, ~4.6139 miles.

Optional Distance Sub-group: 3 miles or less if that's helpful (please let Run Leaders know).

Today's Direction: Right as you face the park at startup.

Pace: Welcome to all. Fun.

AQI: We're monitoring Air Quality Index here and have been asked to not run if the local index exceeds 125.

New Stuff:

I dragged this week's bubble ("Bended Knee") to the top of the topics hierarchy and gave it a good shake. The result was this diagram. "Bended Knee" is mutually supported by, and aids "Short Strides", "Quiet Feet", "Forward Tilt", and "Passive Stride Recovery". "Bended Knee" enhances "Hips", "Head Bob", and "Kneesles" and is supported by "Arm Swing".

Just in case you'd like to explore, here's a pretty QR Code for Week #19:

Towards the end of Week #19 Notes (below "The Mantra"TM) there are links to all the WFR weekly topics.

This week's focus: Bended Knee (injury prevention, endurance - week 2) 

TL;DR: To go forward... push back without reaching in front.

This focus definitely helps prevent injury and goes well with mid to forefoot strike methods of running. This article sums it up well: "[B]ending the knee upon foot strike reduces heel strike potential during running whereby heel striking increases deceleration and intracompartmental pressures of the lower leg." 

An historic "very aside": Check out the second picture in the above referenced article. Remember last week's "Countering the Bounce"? Observe the "leading with shoulders" in the picture? Demoing spine torsion (right leg against left shoulder)... Ouch! https://runforefoot.com may have read our reference to their article and have rewritten it. Awww, shame. I liked the "how not to run"-ness of their second picture so I changed our article to include their original in this paragraph.

Key is to land on a bent knee with your leg almost right under your hips 

 WRONG                                                                 Better (though still heel-landing :-( )

                                                                                Forward Tilt would help a lot here!

Bending the knee when you land really lessens the impact on everything and decreases your chance of injury. Especially a good piece of advice for barefoot running. 

These stick figures remain the best way to illustrate if you don't bend your knee: 

If you bend your knee while running, especially while landing, you can stay much smoother (with less Head Bob too):

Hit with your heels and you stress your knee, possibly leading to conditions such as Patellofemoral Stress Syndrome. 

Patellofemoral Stress Syndrome, or anterior knee pain and runner’s knee, is the most common running injury. This can be caused by overstriding, which is when a runner is running too far in front of his or her center of gravity and reaching out with the lead leg -- straightening the forward leg to reach forward with the foot or lower leg. 

If you need to lengthen your stride (especially if you're tall), lengthen your stride behind you, which has a side-effect benefit of triggering "Passive Stride Recovery" (no peeking, that WFR is in a few weeks).

Related WFR Topics

"Head Bob" #1 (bubbles), "Short Strides" #3 (bubbles), "Arm Swing" #4 (bubbles), "Quiet Feet" #6 (bubbles), "Forward Tilt" #8 (bubbles), "Hips" #9 (bubbles), "Passive Stride Recovery" #12 (bubbles), "Avoid Kneesles" #15 (bubbles).

Reading Bubble Diagrams:

Bubbles in the pictures are individually linked to the most recent notes. They are now no longer pictures (hooray), they're auto-generated scalable vector drawings.

Topics are related to each other. Some more or less directly than others. Bubble Diagrams (e.g. this week's topic bubble diagram) illustrate how they are related. Bubbles nearest the top are more directly related to this week's topic. The path to the top illustrates a chain of related topics. Topic bubbles are expanded once in their highest position (most closely related to this week's topic) and are colored blue (or colored black if this is a topic's only appearance). Duplicated bubbles are colored green, which is no less important than a blue colored bubble at the same vertical distance from the root.

Lines that join topic bubbles have been colored. Blue connecting lines illustrate a child topic (lower) supported by its parent topic (upper... think waterfall). Purple connecting lines illustrate the child topic supporting its parent topic. Black connecting lines indicate bi-directional (mutual) topic support. Lightly colored connecting lines indicate topics that are pulled out of the way, as the level they occupy is too crowded. One day 3D (AV) will allow us to walk through bubble diagrams (like tinkling mobiles hanging from your ceilings) and currently lightly-connected bubbles will just be viewable at a different angle (by spinning the view) and not colored differently. One Day... ahhh... One Day.

📢 ANNOUNCEMENTS 📢

 

After a decade of gripes about the google group and some beta testing on what works (threaded conversations, a few dedicated channels) and doesn't work (not using real names!) with Discord last year, the club is starting the process of transferring updates and discussion to an app purpose built for running clubs called Heylo. We have been testing it amongst the coordinators and run leaders for a few months and are now ready to invite the rest of the club in. Please join -  https://www.heylo.com/invite/16fd83bd-91aa-468d-9cb6-c817a98e219f

📢 Weekly Daddy 

Q: If you have a snowball in your left hand and one in your right hand… what do you have?
A: Frosty’s full attention.