How Chi Running Helped Me (and Can Help You!) Become a Better Runner

You may be a beginner and don’t really know where to start. Or you may be a seasoned running athlete with reasonable PBs, but find yourself prone to injuries that have a serious impact on your training calendar.

I myself started looking into Chi Running when I was training for my ultra marathon this year. I was particularly concerned that my increased mileage may eventually lead to injury and I wanted to reduce the likelihood of this happening. I also wanted to run my 50k strong, and in order to do this improving my running economy was essential. A Chi Running workshop was advertised by one of my go-to shops, Run and Become, and it promised to help me do just that.

See, at the beginning of this year, I came to the realisation that, although I had been running for over 30 years, I had never been taught HOW to run. I had first been focused on speed (the enthusiasm of the youths!) and then on distance (moving on in my 30s from regular 5ks to 10ks, then half-marathons and finally marathon), but never did I ever consider modifying my running technique until I signed up for the Cotswolds Way 50k Challenge.

What is Chi Running?

Chi Running is a simple running technique based on T’ai Chi principles and founded by Danny Dreyer which focuses on both mind and body and aims at using both in an optimal way to achieve greater enjoyment, reduce our risk of injury and improve running economy.

Chi Running is based on a number of principles simple to understand.

The first and base principle of Chi Running is this of alignment and relaxation. By alignment, we mean an optimal posture that minimises the work that our muscles, tendons and ligaments have to do to keep us standing and makes the best use of the support provided by our skeleton. Only once we get this right then can we start moving in an economical way.

Two other fundamental principles are the principle of central movement and cooperation with force. We use these two principles by using a slight forward lean, which brings our centre of gravity forward and makes use of gravity to generate movement. Nothing too fancy but using the laws of physics to our advantage.

But gravity is not the only force we encounter whilst running. There is a reaction force, and this comes from the road itself, or whichever surface we are running on. We need to make the best use of that force to help us move forward, and not let it go to waste.

Body sensing and mindfulness are two other principles of Chi Running, which are also key to both injury prevention and enjoyment. As we all learn something new with practice, body sensing will allow us to fine tune our technique by regularly checking in with our body on what feels right and what doesn’t. For example if standing requires too much effort then we can conclude with great certainty that our body is not aligned and relaxed and we can work on correcting this.

Of course it’s not easy to change (bad) habits, and you cannot expect to change your running technique in a week. Chi Running is also based on the principle of gradual progression. As the name suggest you shouldn’t rush change. Change one thing at a time and build up on it. Only once you relearn how to walk will you be able to run with less effort. It will require practice and repetition, and realistically it will probably take between 4 and 6 months to reap the rewards. I myself made that mistake of trying to change my technique overnight and found it pretty much impossible to try and apply all the components in my runs, so impatience got the better of me and I didn’t put significant efforts into the Chi Running technique. Until something forced me to reconsider, that is.

How Chi Running helps decreasing the likelihood of injury

There are different reasons why we get injured, but a large number of them can be linked up to poor running technique combined with weakness somewhere in the body (the second usually being at the origin of the first). In the case of beginners, as I have frequently encountered whilst leading Couch to 5k programmes, injury will take a matter of weeks or even days to appear and as I find it commonly is either in the form of knee pain (see my previous blog post on this topic), IT band problems or shin splints. These issues are very common with beginners as beginners have been shown to be more likely to be injured than more experienced runners. In many cases it can be traced back to a weakness in the glutes (very common there also, even in experienced athletes) and other core muscles. So I won’t lie and tell you that changing your running technique by itself will get rid of all your niggles, but that in COMBINATION with strengthening and conditioning is very likely to keep you healthier for longer.

As for experienced runners? Well, they can also benefit in a big way. In my case I had always been a very heavy heel striker. I did have a significant overstride, and that leading straight leg landing heavily on the heel was most certainly going to lead to injury when increasing mileage. But what REALLY got me looking into my technique was having to stay clear from running for a full 5 weeks just a few months before my ultra due to inflammation of the sesamoids (some small bones close to the big toe, which to that day I didn’t even know existed), diagnosed via MRI and affecting both feet. Something had to change. I progressively returned to running but then my other nemesis, which I had struggled with on and off over the years, came back: the dreaded Morton’s Neuroma. For anyone who has ever experienced it you will know that the pain can become agonising. I started to feel it in my runs around the 8k mark. It was April at the time and my ultra was in June. Given I had just had to take 5 weeks off running because of the sesamoids, I refused to let the Morton’s Neuroma set me back further. I changed shoes, got some custom insoles, but still the pain was insufferable. I was considering getting steroid injections to get me through. But then I remembered the Chi Running workshop tips and noticed straight away that the pain was much less if I altered my technique slightly. This was the prompt that really got me working on my Chi Running technique, and over the next few months running did start to feel more enjoyable although I didn’t realise what the cause was at the time.

But this is just one very specific example of how Chi Running can help. Obviously every runner is different with different techniques, strengths and weaknesses, but Chi Running is a generic technique which can benefit all as it doesn’t force anything as such - quite the opposite.

How Chi Running can help improving running economy

It was a trip to a specialist shop, Profeet, that helped me link the dots together and gave me a clearer picture of what had happened over the past 6 months. After the Run and Become Chi Running workshop in January, I had followed up with a 1-2-1 session with the Chi Running instructor, who video’d me and gave me some feedback on my technique. In his own words “In the video you push off with the calves go upward and then over stride and land on quite a straight leg. This is pretty high impact. From the back view you can see the hips dip as you land. This is probably causing the IT band tightness. “ Right, so there I was thinking I had the perfect technique, only to be told that I was running with a hip dip (also known as pelvic drop), hence bringing my knee in (not so good for the knee in the long run), and landing on a straight leg. Given that the force experienced by a runner can amount up to 3.5 x our body weight I could only think of “ouch” when I read my report.

Fast forward 6 months and there I am at the Profeet shop, trying not only to find a running shoe that will not make my toe nails fall off but also pretty curious about their new biomechanics analysis tool, and what it would tell me about my technique. I knew I was running stronger than 6 months before but wasn’t sure whether it was solely due to my coach’s plan (it was certainly a big part of it) or whether my technique had significantly improved. So I jumped on the treadmill with much excitement and got quite a lot of interesting feedback. Not only the pelvic drop seemed to have disappeared completely, but I had turned into a mid foot striker with no overstride. I was also able to pick up my feet much quicker. All in all, this made me a pretty economical runner. Not to say that my technique is now perfect (I went overboard with the lean and need to straighten up a bit to improve my running economy further) but it’s pretty decent compared to the elite athletes they tested with that tool, so good for me! Bear in mind it is pretty difficult (dare I say, impossible) to achieve the ‘perfect’ technique. The risk is by trying to achieve this Holy Grail you start modifying something that works otherwise pretty well and introduce some additional issues. For example my slightly suboptimal lateral force in particular, is something I am happy to leave with given that pretty much everything else seems to be working ok.

Profeet’s evidence of my improved running economy

So to say that my running economy is entirely attributable to my change of technique would be erroneous. The strengthening and conditioning prescribed by my coach was instrumental in that respect because without stronger glutes I would have been unable to refine my technique.

How Chi Running can help enjoy running more

We’ve seen how Chi Running can help you reduce the likelihood of injury and improve running economy. As you get injured less frequently and require less effort to run that specific pace you will be able to enjoy it more and focus on the scenery instead of that tightness in your hamstring/calf/quad/ankle (delete as appropriate)!

One thing I advocate in conjunction with Chi Running is dropping the GPS for a truly mindful experience (see my previous blog post on this). It’s not always possible, especially when you are training like me for a specific marathon target time, but if you are able to run ‘naked’ even once a week I can almost assure you that you will fall in love with running all over again.

So I hope the above had triggered your interest in finding out what Chi Running can do for you. There is no gimmick in that technique, just a common sense approach combined with some specific tips to improve your technique and make you the best runner you can be. I am now in the process of certifying as a Chi Running instructor and am planning to start offering workshops and 1-2-1 in the New Year in the Wimbledon/Putney area. In the meantime if you have any general or specific questions about Chi Running, please feel free to drop me a line and I will be happy to help.

Happy (Chi) Running!