Lesson 4 | Pulling

Lesson 4 | Pulling in Response to Fall

This is your only muscular action in running. Your ‘job’ is to pull the foot from the ground as soon as you feel it touch the ground. As your skill develops, this becomes a reflexive, elastic response from the hamstring and you will feel very little effort as you pull.

Muscles follow body weight and act as needed. In running as you fall forward from the run position and pull the foot, the hamstring will respond by finishing the pull.

Pulling

1. Stand in neutral position (barefoot if possible)
2. Visualize a track on the inside of your support leg and slide your ankle bone up the track, stopping at the base of the knee, ankle under hip. Check that you are keeping the ankle and foot relaxed.
3. Slowly slide ankle back down, placing your foot back on the ground in neutral position. You should pull up on a count of 1, come back down on a 2 count. You only want to reinforce the pull as this is your action and gravity will bring the lifted foot back to the ground.
   1. Imagine a piece of tape on the back of your ankle and you are trying to stick it to the hamstring (ankle under hip)
   2. Place a thumb on the hip bone, index finer below and check that you are using hamstring vs hip flexor.
   3. In practice you pull the foot/ankle all the way to pose. During your run, only pull the foot from the ground, then immediately pull the other foot, no matter what speed you are running.
   4. Think of your body as a team, your part is to pull quickly, letting the rest of the team do the their parts.
   5. Pull the foot from the ground (support foot) before the lifted foot lands, this allows you to recover the run position so you can continue the fall-pull cycle.

Cadence:

180 bpm is the minimum cadence needed to use muscle elasticity rather than active muscle contraction during run. The goal is to get the foot off the ground quickly, spending more time in the air moving forward.

Download a metronome so you can add this to your practice.