What makes efficient running?
Posted on 7th December by John Hampshire
Brrr… It seems to be winter, we had snow on Monday and it bucketed down all day yesterday, it won’t be long before Clare and I are up to our ankles in mud as we run up to Skipton golf course each morning.
Well, it wouldn’t be if I wasn’t off to Majorca on Friday for some warm weather training with Karen Darke, and leaving poor old Clare to paddle on her own. Yesterday involved a trip to British Cycling for the coaches meeting and some other things including a long chat with Rachel Morris, the Olympic Champion. I have been appointed by British Cycling as hand cycle coach for the Olympics, something I am very proud of. Hopefully Rachel will be joining in future warm weather trips and as she and Karen get fitter it will be interesting to see whether John can keep up on his tricycle!
I’ve been pondering a few other things - as usual, like the biomechanics of running up hill and on the flat and whether doing one has a negative or positive effect on the other. A few observations have shown that heart rate traces of a reasonable standard hill runner are quite constant throughout an up and down hill race; implying that the overall cardiovascular load is similar in both up and down hill sections. I guess this is the same on the flat/roads so the general cardiovascular effort for a race of a given duration seems like it would be much the same.
John Graham winning the Rotterdam Marathon
The biomechanics must be different and obviously different muscles are used for up hill, flat and down hill running. However, what’s the important bit? The important bit of running on the flat seems to be running economy and that seems to be a case of making the most of stored energy by keeping a high cadence and a few other factors.
As much as 50% of the energy required to move the limbs during running (the most energetic component of running) can be provided by the return of stored energy from connective tissue (Bosch and Klump), pretty amazing. This book also states the majority of propulsion comes in the stance phase and there is no real drive at push off.
To me, this implies that the efficiency of running up hill could, if sufficiently dynamic, also be dependent on this stored energy and with a little leap of faith so could down hill running. The only difference being the joint angles and hence muscle lengths… This is definitely something worth pondering and I wonder whether the key to running fast is developing the skill to store and release energy in the tendons and other connective tissue and once developed does this transfer to all running or is it specific to flat or up or down?
It springs to mind that triathletes are pretty skilled at very different activities that use the same muscles in differing ways i.e. cycling and running.
Worth more pondering more… watch this space!
Snow on the mountains this morning: my fingers numb as the cold penetrates the gloves, heavy breathing fogging my glasses as I work hard to climb the hills, big puffy pants to stop my legs freezing,
Reader Discussion
Spoke too soon… it was definitely ankle deep mud this morning!
Rather a lot to ponder and look forward to your conclusions regarding these observations.
Alright for those who care but sadly most runners don’t even plan there training of look to far into the future. Strange really as most of them are intelligent people and would have planned there academic and life future carefully.
I’ve spent a lot of time working with top distance runners and their
attitude to long term planning leaves much to be desired.
will follow you blog with interest.
Regards
Peter Moon
We’ve arreivd at the end of the line and I have what I need!
Created the grteesat articles, you have.
A perefct reply! Thanks for taking the trouble.