WFR #12: Passive Stride Recovery | Wed 4th Mar, 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: Left 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 ("Passive Stride Recovery") to the top of the topics hierarchy and gave it a good shake. The result was this diagram. Sub-topics, "Short Strides", "Forward Tilt", "Hips", and "Run Tall" all aid "Passive Stride Recovery" to some extent. "Passive Stride Recovery" aids "Ground Contact", while "Bended Knee" and "Passive Stride Recovery" mutually support each other.

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: Passive Stride Recovery (efficiency - week 12) 

TL;DR: Reflex and Springs. Who knew?

Something I haven't gone into for this focus is how to improve the distance and speed - "free speed" - you get during this passive part of your stride. What it requires is essentially some dynamic work-outs as part of your regimen - anything like plyometrics or hops and jumps and stuff (one example is even running up and down sand dunes (we will be watching out for you on golf courses and kiddy sand pits)). 

This article really goes into it well (By Greg McMillan, MS, Published Mar. 6, 2015).

"They—and many coaches and athletes—are learning that you shouldn’t just train to improve VO2 max, lactate threshold and running economy, but you should also train to improve your springiness, or the feeling of lightness and power in your stride."

This article recommends: "single leg stance, hopping up and down, and dropping down and immediately springing forward, are things everyday runners need to master to see big improvements in springiness."

Give it a shot!

This concept really helps you go faster without using terribly much more effort. 

The idea is that you only accelerate when you hit the ground. Part of your stride will be passive, in fact most of it. Here is the image. The only time you should be active are the grey figures (hmmm... see "Aside", below):

(Aside: I'm still trying to figure out how realistic the above diagram is. There seem to be too few grey figures, the airtime seems to be far too long, and the stride is huge. If the back leg is being stretched behind to let Passive Stride Reflex "kick-in", surely it must be in contact with the ground behind the runner. While the front of the foot strikes the ground, the heel drops a bit while the calf muscle is compressed and, as the foot tips forward, it would need to be in contact with the ground on release for the calf muscle to give back that stored (spring) energy. I'll try to come up with a better diagram).

During the recovery cycle the folding motion the leg goes through after the leg finishes one stride and before it begins the next should be passive. The key is don't put too much effort in moving your leg through the recovery phase of a stride. The passive part is important, but then so is maximizing power in the running stride and then just let it go through the recovery swing. Otherwise your hamstrings do unnecessary work and slow you down.

After the forward stride, your leg will naturally lift off the ground and fold so that it comes up to the buttocks then pass under the hips with the knee leading. Your only job is to actively put your leg down underneath the knee, landing just forward of the body's center of mass - countering your Forward Tilt to keep you from falling. 

Two other common mistakes are to try and lift the knees at the end of the recovery cycle and to kick the lower leg to the butt at the beginning of the recovery cycle, like trying to push the sling shot forward instead of just letting it go.

The knee should be allowed to cycle through and lift on its own. 

Also, the science of biomechanics here.

Related WFR Topics
Bended Knee #2 (bubbles), Short Strides #3 (bubbles), Ground Contact #7 (bubbles), Forward Tilt #8 (bubbles), Hips #9 (bubbles), Run Tall #14 (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.

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