Running Cues

Natural Running Video

Reading time: 7 min

Back in the Summer of 2015, I was fortunate enough to be a presenter at a workshop on Natural Movement. The workshop started with all attendees flat on their back learning about rolling. Then it moved onto various types of crawling, ways to get up, walking and finally running. I did the piece on running.

Here is a video Introduction to Natural Running that I made as part of the workshop. Those that signed in advance received the video before the day of the seminar. I wanted participants to have a feel for the content of the running section. So I used clips that a friend kindly videoed for me.

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The Forward Lean

Reading time: 7 min

Many articles on running cues or techniques discuss the Forward Lean. The fundamental idea is that by leaning the body forward, you improve your running technique.

The caveat in most articles is that the forward lean must come from the ankles and not from the waist. What does it mean to “forward lean from the ankles?” It is perhaps easiest to understand by experience.

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How to Run a Turn

Reading time: 2 min

It is a powerful feeling to sense an acceleration out of every corner just by positioning your body correctly.

Imagine you are riding a bicycle at a decent speed. You come to a left turn. What do you do to take the corner? Do you turn handlebars bars to the left?

The answer is No. You lean the bike to the left and countersteer the handlebars to the right.

You don’t turn the handlebars to the left going into the corner. As you come out of the corner though, you may make a small correction to your trajectory by turning the handlebars slightly. But to get through the corner, you lean and countersteer.

When you run a turn, your hips are the bike, and your shoulders and sternum are the handlebars.

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“Fast” Running Cues

Reading time: 8 min

Before going into the Running Cues, let’s recap what we have covered thus far:

  • Base Running: Base is a pace that can run comfortably breathing only out of your Nose. You’ll spend most of your running time at Base
  • Fast but Not Hard running: Drills in which you run reps at a “Fast” pace, but the combo of chosen rep speed & length and recovery duration ensure that no rep feels “Hard.” Your focus is not on the difficulty of the exercise but instead on your body and your technique. These include Strides, Diagonals and Surges.
  • Rule #1: If you can’t Stay Loose, you’re training too Hard. Rule #1 is your mechanism to ensure your Fast but Not Hard drills (and other training I’ll introduce later) are not “Hard.”

So what should you focus on during Fast but Not Hard exercises? Here are a few Running cues and techniques to develop:

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Rule #1: If You can’t Stay Loose, You’re Training too Hard

Reading time: 7 min

Demand perfection of yourself and you’ll seldom attain it. Fear of making a mistake is the biggest single cause of making one. Relax — pursue excellence, not perfection.

Lloyd “Bud” Winter

Lloyd “Bud” Winter is one of the most successful track coaches in history. Over a 29-year coaching career from 1949 to 1970 at San Jose State College, his programs produced 37 world-record holders, 49 NCAA records and 27 Olympians. Incredible!

A big part of his program revolves around learning to stay relaxed under stressful circumstances. He developed his techniques during World War II. Bud taught pilots to remain relaxed in the face of heavy gunfire and other brutal wartime scenarios. Talk about stressful! He then transferred these principles from the battlefield to the world of track and field. He outlined all the techniques in his 1981 book Relax and Win, which luckily for me, was re-released in 2012 when I picked it up!

Believe it or not, Bud Winter has only one degree of separation from Usain Bolt and many other of Jamaica’s greatest sprinters. In 1966, one of Bud’s former athletes of Jamaican descent invited him to Jamaica to give a series of seminars on Sprinting. In the audience for the lecture was Glen Mills who went on to become Jamaica’s premier sprint coach. Starting in 2004, Mills coached Usain Bolt, and the rest of the story is history.

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