The Science of Developing Strength, Speed, & Power

Featuring special video footage of Bruce Lee, in Enter the Dragon: The Art of Fighting Without Fighting.  

Inefficiency, wasting energy, and producing power comprise many mental and physical forms.

Understanding the physics and philosophy of all this is simplified by looking at how the quadriceps and hamstrings produce power in common exercises like running, vertical jumps, squats, martial arts, and at rest doing nothing, i.e. relaxing muscles. Doing nothing is hard to do. 

Relaxing muscles, performing thoughtlessly by heart, and the ability to stop adhering to destructive beliefs are vital elements for all manifestations of elite human performance, satisfaction, and achievement. In order to produce lightening speed, waste less energy, and use muscles safely you must cease believing in ‘styles’ and simply know how you – and therefore all humans – use energy. All forms and style derive from identical elements and abstractions available to all humans – like notes and scales on a musical instrument we may express in our ‘original way’. Teaching people to use the body in such a way is teaching to feel.

Running is but a single way to express one’s self on two legs.

And because running with bad form is inefficient and wastes energy it opens the door to coherently understand training techniques to develop explosive power, nutritional physiology, biomechanics, the illusion of therapeutic massage and training styles, how adherence to certain beliefs lead to destructive use of the body, and moreover, to see and feel the invisible world in a more complete and concrete way. 

The question from here for the rest of your life is, "How can I express my emotional content honestly and openly?"

For practicality, for now on I call inefficient runners weak hamstring pullers or just weak pullers.

Outline & Navigation Links

Section 1:  How to Sense Inefficiency and Feel Wasting Your Energy

Section 2: Mastering the Body-Mind Connection: Deep Awareness of 'Muscle Tension'

• Part A: Feeling 'harmful muscle tension' is difficult when performing whole-body, functional movements. 

• Part B: Some physics and physiology for building supreme strength, speed, power, health & longevity.

Section 4: Motor Learning & Development of Skill

 Section 5: Solutions & Tips for Training & Teaching

Section 6: Summary and parting thoughts

Section 1:  How to Sense Inefficiency and Feel Wasting Your Energy

You exert more muscular effort to walk slower than your normal walking pace. Try it; walk... and then walk slower purposely. If you tried this for many miles you would quit not just because it would drive you crazy, but you'd tire out physically due to the extra muscular effort. Likely, the mental fatigue would hit you much sooner than the physical aspect.

The energy used for walking - graphed below - shows how a person and an elephant walking ‘too slowly’ both expend more energy compared to walking a 'normal' faster pace. Normally, more energy is used to speed up from rest to maximum intensity on foot for a human, but never to slow down.

Tell: To walk inefficiently you must delay lowering your lead foot to the ground.

Show: You delay dropping your foot by contracting your upper quad muscles, which keeps your lead leg in the air. Normally, the hip flexors relax just after initiating the forward movement - so your muscles draw 'little or no energy' comparatively speaking. Holding your leg up in the air with your upper quads is obviously unnecessary and wastes energy.

Tell: A similar type of 'wasted muscular effort' occurs in quadriceps of inefficient runners (running with bad form).

Show:

Each stride forward, the upper quads tense up, and the lower quads contract to absorb the shock each foot strike - much the same way a downhill’s skier absorbs shock. Efficient runners do not use quad muscles the same way; we'll compare the difference later.

  
Physical Principles & Higher Thinking:

1. Contracting any muscle repetitively and unnecessarily makes them work harder over time. Inefficient runners waste energy each stride forward as muscle cells contract and maintain tension.  Tensing muscles at moments they should be relaxed is identical to adding resistance. Adding resistance to movement is akin to trying to do isometrics - but failing to stop. Thus, inefficient runners resist moving, which slows down their intended direction; they fight their selves while they waste their energy. 

2. Muscles ideally minimize their work to move anything, and when we use them just so, we say we use them efficiently. The human heart works the same way - it minimizes work to move blood; it ideally avoids wasting itself to pump blood. In fact, it does not pump blood by forcing it out of the ventricle into the aorta. Instead it spins the blood within the chamber/ventricle much the way wine spins in wine glass and creates a whirlpool. Whirlpools - like stormy weather - create low pressure or a vacuum because of the spin. And at the moment the blood is spun, the aortic valve opens up and blood is sucked into the aorta, not 'pushed' or pumped. Pumps do not create pressure, they create flow. Blood pressure should be called 'wall pressure' because pressure is a measure of resistance to flow, imparted by the arterial walls. Pressure from the walls 'slow down' the blood by adding resistance against flow the same way an inefficient runner adds resistance against their own flow. 

Thus, one of the keys to heart health, longevity, and nutrition comes down to studying how the heart works as a muscle and knowing the nutritional factors that create healthy blood itself.  This is the basis for which I formulate the water I drink – and has NOTHING to do with alkaline water. 

Ask/Think: In what form of energy is the energy wasted in inefficient walkers and runners? 

This answer is twofold.

Answer 1: At rest or during exercise - a portion of energy from food is always converting into motion/kinetic energy AND heat. If the total energy used to walk slower than normal increases, then less of the total energy converts to motion and more is wasted in its invisible form - heat. 

Physical Principles & Higher Thinking:

Recall, the science for explaining why 'lower carb diets' - i.e. relatively higher protein and fat diet diets - result in greater amounts of heat lost from the body, which in turn results in weight loss, even if calorie intake is not reduced! The 2nd law of thermodynamics applied. Isocaloric diets.

Answer 2: Fuel substrate-wise, inefficient runners deplete glycogen stores faster as they 'fight their own movement'. The 'wasted heat' is from increased glycolysis. 

Physical Principles & Higher Thinking:

Recall, metabolism produces heat always - produced aerobically or through fermentation of glucose. Also recall: humans, mice, and elephants waste heat at rates determined by how much fuel and oxygen combust in mitochondria. Taken literally, viewing an increase of nutritional demand and metabolic rate in terms of creating a larger fire is: fuel + O2 --> CO2 + CO2 + Heat. 

Simply put, nutrition is the active event of producing mostly heat at rest. Then we waste greater amounts of heat AND produce some motion - as intensity increases.

Increasing speed/intensity and heat occur when and because muscle cells eat faster. Make 'em eat; they get hungry. Tire them out; they swell as they fatigue. Water moves into worn out cells. Electrolyte balance is thrown out of balance. Inflammation and swelling at this level reflects worn out cells. In the case of an enlarged heart - it is worn out and swollen - weakened by stress.

Suggested Reading:

CNS Fatigue: Central Nervous System Fatigue

It should come as no surprise that the brain, as well as the muscles, can become fatigued over the course of a marathon. In recent years, J. Mark Davis and others have begun to study the relationship between changes in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord, or CNS) and exercise-related fatigue.

Hitting the  wall is BS

“Of the hundreds of thousands of people who run a marathon each year, more than 40 percent hit the figurative wall”.

Section 2: Mastering the Body-Mind Connection: Deep Awareness of 'Muscle Tension'

Part A: Tell:  Feeling 'harmful muscle tension' is difficult when performing whole-body, functional movements. 

Show:  It is easy to notice tension as you move only one limb by flexing a single muscle say your bicep because your attention is focused and so you easily notice the tension. This is not true when it comes to performance in sports or whole-body 'functional' exercises.

Ask and think:  

 
In contrast to the above, when is the last last time you recognized in your bicep and its tendon while running?  Oh... did I mean the bicep femoris or the bicep on your arm? The point is not whether you know the difference between these two muscles, but this fact: 

People do not generally focus on how a single muscle holds tension while running, or doing 'functional' exercises like throwing a fastball or serving a tennis ball - and therefore they do not feel muscle tension - whether they hold tension either 'correctly' or in the ‘wrong way’.

Nor should they necessarily - since the immediate goal is to accomplish a short lived task or finishing a race - and besides, fixating on details often inhibits 'whole delivery'. In other words, your attention is not given to a single part within the system, but is scattered externally and systemically outward - toward a goal like a finish line or shoving a weight through space to its intended position. The weight can be your body, a bike, a ball, or a kettle bell. Achieving a yoga pose for some people fall under 'achieving a goal' by placing a weight into a position; they may not feel how their muscles hold tension in a harmful way.

The above reveals why people are generally asked to feel and describe 'perceived exertion' in terms of whole body effort. While people are busy shoving their weight through space, it's easier for them to describe what they feel in terms of the whole; as opposed to focus and describe their foot striking, their heart, a tendon, or a single body part. 

Physical Principles & Higher Thinking:

1. When things get 'tough' 'elite' and 'expert' athletes dissociate from their body to avoid feeling pain - rather than internalize - they externalize. Thoughts get directed 'elsewhere' - and 'feeling' the body is the thing to avoid. Indeed, this takes mental toughness, which in turn explains why people are judged to be weak or strong. But over time in terms of repetitive long term tasks, muscle tension that creates bad mechanics produce microscopic physical-structural breakdowns that add up to wide-scale macroscopic pain, inflammation, and injury.  This could be and should be prevented from happening from the perspective of teaching and training humans. Toughing it out leads to hugely negative consequences and can be seen on peoples' faces.

2. Most people recognize - within a single day - soreness in their neck, shoulders, or trapezius results from holding tension in muscles after laboring at a desk for hours. This type of muscle pain results from what we call 'bad ergonomics'; many people hate a lousy work station and the stress and pain resulting from it. They may quit their job or build a standing desk to remedy the bad mechanics of sitting. 

3. Most people however do not make changes until after they experience problems. Likewise, even seasoned runners, athletes, and weight lifters develop AND put up with chronic pain resulting from exercise - and not only push through physical pain while exercising but return to performing the same exercise or event that produces the soreness. This reveals the following deep seated mythology:

Ø  People generally view their favorite exercise, sport, or profession as 'beneficial and healthy' - even while using bad mechanics. Runners and athletes are coached to push through pain and fatigue. The idea exercise is generally 'good no matter what' in terms of 'getting results',  'finishing the race', or 'getting healthy'... is a recipe for driving the body toward pain and injury down the road. 

Ø  People are afraid to quit. Books and coaches espouse the idea that 'the human spirit' thrives on pushing through pain. And it is true winners have a greater capacity to push through pain. We are conditioned to finish. It is no wonder the most common injuries in yoga happen to the low back and wrists, due simply to achieve a goal, a pose. Good form occurs inside, not outside.

4. Many people - including medical experts, seasoned runners, and weight lifters - often fail to heed soreness or pain that lingers for days or weeks after performing along run. Thousands of people consider changing or quit repeating bad running form or lifting technique only after serious pain and injury prevents them from performing or exercising. 

5. Regarding injuries, I'm talking not just the common man's shallow conception of an injury - but heart problems, arrhythmias, kidney damage, and microscopic inflammation - all which are physical injuries. The ability to feel subtle energy - which by definition is not really subtle - is just a refinement of sensing physical tension, pressure, flow, temperature, etc. - all specific to the art and science of using energy. Massage therapists, trainers, and medical folks need to develop sensitivity to feel the invisible/hidden world and be able to identify what is felt. Sensitivity is awareness.

6. The 'seer' sees all this adding up not just at the moment - but through time as wasting energy retards overall peak performance and reduces health and vigor. Shoving weight around often breeds sloppy technique and inefficient biomechanics. Some people DO get 'good results' through bad technique, such as side arm baseball pitchers. Unfortunately for these people - depending on how you personally judge it - short-lived acute pain my never occur before chronic pain manifests.

Examples: Strange stories, science, and history

Man runs almost entire half marathon having a heart attack

“I just ran something like 12.5 miles on trails WHILE HAVING A HEART ATTACK. Clearly, my capacity for denial is pathological…”

Four months later…

·         I've been back to exercising nearly every day for many weeks now.

·         my heart muscle is permanently damaged

·         I'm hesitant, holding back, worried, a little tense.

·         I bring drugs with me on every workout.

·         I hope to keep plugging away, following doctor's orders

 Doctor who adopted 'Chi-running' and his instructor (Dreyer) say:

·         "I had my feet repaired, and I had to try to learn more low-impact techniques so I didn't damage the joint more,"

·         Dreyer teaches runners how to relax their bodies so they don't have to use as much muscle power.

·         "I'm basically showing runners how not to use their muscles,"

·         If you watch world-class runners… they're lifting their legs, not pushing off." 

·         "I've never experienced that before. I was like 'Wow, I don't hurt now,' (Doctor)

Jimmy Fixx Running Guru, Low Fat Eater, Dies Running:

The Physiology of Marathon Running


PART B: Some physics and physiology for building supreme strength, speed, power, health & longevity.

The advantages of learning and feeling the physics are:

1. To be faster and stronger compared to folks who 'waste energy' - and spend less time to get superior results.
2. You recover faster - mainly by virtue of avoiding overtraining. Your cells stay in a more 'ready state' - closer to peak voltage capacity like a charged battery.
3. Reduce and/or eliminate injuries
4. Your immune system maintains peak levels and resilience (exercise, not nutritionally related factors)
5. Less wear and tear to joints as you age.

Before doing exercises or performing in events that require create 'snap-like' explosive power in the fitness lab, we take two more looks at how inefficient runners use hamstring and quad muscles. Reminder, I call inefficient runners weak hamstring pullers or just weak pullers.

Look # 1: Because it is known the primary problems with weak pullers are...

1. Lack of strength in the hamstrings.
2. Failure to whip the leg up and forward (leg lift) Lack of strong hip flexors or upper quads.
3. Insufficient anaerobic fitness training. (which is responsible for creating and sustaining high speed capability)

... this forces the need to develop strength and speed. Some folks may think aerobic fitness capacity could be the weak link above; it is not. Here's why:

'Average runners' do not fail to run faster times because they lack a large aerobic fitness capacity.

Below, compares the average 2010 Boston Marathon running time and pace (for all runners) to a typical and actual winning time. Shown on my Sustainable Continuum Chart

·       Avg time for all runners = 3:50 -----> 6.83 mph pace  

·       Winning time = 2:08 -----> 12.28 mph pace.

Looking into this, it is striking to discover average runners ran at a pace around 40% of their aerobic capacity! Competitive runners regularly run at 75% and upward of their aerobic capacity, i.e. VO2 max. This proves slow runners do not possess inferior cardiovascular capacity.  We examine what it means to work at a certain level of aerobic capacity later. For now, here's just a couple of juicy thoughts before we look at the speed/strength/power factors: 

1. You can elevate a treadmill to 'x' and expend the same energy walking at 3.5mph compared to a person running an average finish time - without pounding on joints. This is why a VO2 max test may be performed on a highly inclined treadmill. 

2.  Finishing a marathon with an average time requires a level of cardiovascular fitness identical to walking on an inclined treadmill.

Thus, the primary fix involves:

1. Weak hamstrings: weak pulling.
2. Weak hip flexors or upper quads: weak leg lift.

Look # 2: Together, weak leg lift and weak pulling create a cycle of inefficiency and wasted energy.

A strong, efficient runner's quads whips the leg upward and forward, as seen in the stride of sprinters. An inefficient runner fails to whip their leg forward and lift it.  At worst - weak leg lift and accumaltive fatigue over time reduce stride length to the point that a runner appears to shuffle and pushes off the back leg instead of pulling with the front leg.

Weak leg lift is followed by a weak, unexplosive pull backwards by the hamstrings. Weak pulling creates low speeds. In contrast, explosively pulling backwards applies a more horizontally oriented foot strike compared to the 'weak puller'. Thus, the strong puller's foot stays in contact with the ground for far less time compared to a weak puller.


Physical Principles & Higher Thinking:

1. The cycle of inefficiency presents two negatives that lead to joint damage and sore or damaged soft tissue:

A. The motion of the front leg moving backward, the foot strike, and the whole body is more vertical than horizontal. Traveling more downward into the ground sends more reactive force up through the bones and into the knee and hip joints and through the spine. (Bone jarring increases)

B. The quads stay tensed up in order to absorb much of the shock imparted from the vertical oriented ground force - much the same way a skier does to absorb shock.

This means weak pullers hold tension in their quads for a greater amount of time compared to fast pullers. Fast pulling with the hamstrings allows the quads to relax - whereas slow pullers waste their quad energy to absorb shocks. Now this should be clear:

A. Strength creates good mechanics; trying to correct form in weak pullers before strengthening is not a great idea.

B. Weak muscles can't produce great running form.

C. The combined cycle of weak pulling and weak leg lifting forward reduce stride length of which produces a shuffle and more of a downward strike to the ground.

2. When we contact the ground, the ground always presses back or quickly strikes back into our body with equal reactive force - Newton's law applied for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.  The greater vertical striking down force is akin to jumping off a roof; this analogy is exaggerated to point out how all this adds up and hammers force into your joints over time.







Section 3: Demonstration in Fitness Lab, Creating Maximal Strength (plodding and slow) vs. Explosive Speed.


DEMO #1: Compare pushing off a baseball pitching mound to a Bosu ball

Harder surfaces transmit energy up through bones and out into objects we want to project, strike or throw. We transfer force this way when hitting baseballs, golf balls, or stopping a running back cold stone still with a vicious tackle.

Conversely, softer surfaces dissipate energy within the object. An unstable or squishy surface weakens the powerful jolt of a strong 'push off'. Hence transfer of force is scattered throughout the ball and 'spreads out' into and within the system - and not out of it.

Extremely special commentary by Bruce Lee. How to cause energy to explode within an object.

Good surface vs. bad surface for plylometrics.

Physical Principles & Higher Thinking:

1. You can transfer energy out of your body, from the ground, through bones, out and into the object - by striking or driving.  
This demands follow through with your motion and a firmly grounded foot, and hip rotation.  Once Bo Jackson dislocated his femur/hip - he could no longer drive the ball. Same with Joe Mauer, in 2014 his left knee soreness prevented him from grounded his back leg firmly. He lost power.

2. Or you may transfer energy into the object so it explodes within the object.
Example 'spider web' a windshield or stop someone's heart by pulling the punch.


Ask/Think

1. Pushing off which one (squishy ball or ground) dissipates energy?
2. Which one allows you to maximize the force through your legs and skeletal system in order to generate more force and power into throwing a fastball?
3. What are the physical keys for the powerful 1-inch punch popularized by Bruce Lee?


Now it's time to see which specific exercise and techniques strengthen hamstrings, glutes, and hip flexors in order to create a faster, more explosive pull as well as increased leg lift.






DEMO #2:  Experiment for Mastering Explosive Hamstrings

1. Try jumping as high up as possible from a still position, feet together and legs slightly bent at the knee - compared to:

2. Same position just described, but drop down suddenly into a deeper squat position and jump.

The latter is what you would have done without thinking if I had asked you, "Jump as high as possible".
By dropping into a squat position quickly, you 'stretched' the hamstring by surprise.
This puts it into a 'reactive position' and makes it produce force, i.e. contract more explosively.

3. Now drop into the squat position from a box at an increased height.
The drop itself produces 'increased weight' - and the hamstring will in turn contract even more forcefully than if you drop from standing position.

4. Putting it all together: Excellent video demonstration of all three phases of jumping high:

1) Strength   2) Contraction speed    3) Force absorption

SPUD WEB video.

Physical Principles & Higher Thinking: 

A sudden drop - with no weight added anywhere - is the key for explosive high jumping. Landing the 'drop' through space increases the G force - the reactive force driven into your legs by the ground. Under the sudden strain of increased tension and down in their 'stretch position' - the hamstrings could rip - but they don't - they protect themselves by reflexively contracting.

Dropping into position with good form the key for not wrecking your knees through plyometric type moves. The quicker the 'drop/force spike' - the more forcefully and quicker the hamstrings react/contract to prevent themselves from ripping.
If you time your 'conscious activation' of your hamstrings with the moment the hamstrings 'twitch/contract' after you drop from a height - you will rebound/jump higher.

Doing jump squats is a stupid, unnecessary, and unsafe way to create a speedy drop. They're a great way to wreck your spine and knees. 













DEMO #3: The techniques for developing maximal 'slow' strength vs. developing explosiveness



Match each exercise with its intended purpose on the graph.

With huge weight to lift (squats) you can't drop quickly and you can't explode out of the crouch/hole (deadlifts, squats, kettle bell swings).
In each case you must exert maximal tension. Thus,...

1. At the extreme left end - to develop maximal strength/low velocity you do:

Extended isometrics, squats, kettle bell swings, walking lunges

2. At the extreme right end - to develop of max speed/high velocity you must do:

Sprints

3. In the middle where 'max power' is produced - use heavy resistance, but not too heavy in order to allow a more rapid speed of movement.

Sprinting with a drag-chute fits the bill.
Kettle bell swings involve a 'faster drop' compared to squats and therefore activate more of a quick twitch response comparatively.
Pedaling a bike in a hard to pedal gear - but with a relatively quick spin produces great power.

Higher Thinking:

Squats do not build explosive quick twitch strength; they build maximal tension strength - which keeps a person 'slow and plodding' - especially if they already lack quick twitch fibers. Squats help you strengthen hamstrings, but do not help you create explosiveness from the hamstrings. Slower contractions produce less power, even if the force is high. Speed is the missing factor.

In order to train what precious little quick twitch fibers you possess, you must create a 'speedy drop' which quickly stretches the hamstring, which then automatically activates the stretch reflex.  Video: Plyometrics in Olympic action  

Bounding exercises - high jump practice and plyometrics - are essentially unnecessary unless you train for an event that specifically requires winning type heights and lengths, high jump, long jump, broad jump.


DEMOS #2 and #3 Graphed

Jumping as high or as far as possible requires the exact same type of quick twitch required for sprinting; namely the quickest velocity possible of contracting the hamstrings.






DEMO #4: Feel a Bicep Tendon

Ask/Rhetorical: When's the first or last time someone showed you how to feel tension in a tendon - not just a muscle?  

It IS possible to gauge the level of tension muscles and tendons. Before doing exercises or performing in events that require create 'snap-like' explosive power - it's wise to learn how to feel tension in a tendon. This provides deep practical insight into how muscles and tendons generate explosiveness - in order to not snap or rip muscles and tendons.

Begin with extreme extension in a preacher curl. (WARNING: Do NOT do this without my instruction)

Now imagine dropping into this position quickly and trying to instantly reverse direction... all this with a weight you already struggle to lift from the extended position at rest. This is what your hamstrings 'feel' when they are extended and force to contract hard or feel when you drop from the box into a squat position. 



DEMO # 5: Hand Clasp Overlap

Mimics the Section in a Muscle's ROM (range of motion) it Creates the Highest Tension

Generating force in a mostly contracted position, creates less force, less explosion, and less speed. (Hands totally clasped)

Special video on the above: excerpt from an ESPN 30x30:  In the Heads of Champion Olympic 100m sprinters.

Also, muscles can't generate great force in a completely overextended positions.
In such positions, muscle 'overlap' is minimal.

SECTION 4: Motor Learning & Development of Skill

TELL: Developing a motor program, i.e. developing skilled effortless movement and efficient technique - is best learned early in life. 

Developing the motor pattern and strength needed to sprint is akin trying to trying to skillfully throw a fastball with a baseball or serve a wicked tennis ball. People who never threw balls when they were young may never develop the ability to throw a decent fastball. It is the same for achieving the ability to run gracefully or wield a violin bow and make it cry and sing; motor mechanics exist hand in hand with strength and explosive speed.

Many people don’t get coached to think sprinting mechanics are a key to effective long distance running. Effectively running long distance still requires brute strength and speed. Don’t equate the word ‘brute’ with a macho connotation. Without the brute element, you can’t develop grace.

Most adults do not learn to run fast or ‘forgot’ after years of never sprinting since they were 5 years old. I have a friend who teaches art to adults. He begins day 1 by having the students draw circles. Some folks are impressed at how effortless he draws circles. He tells them, “You once knew, you drew them often as a child – but you forgot how.” Like memory - motor programs and the mind muscle connection decays. This is why skilled musicians practice daily.

 NOTE: Circles, spirals, and mandelas are the first shapes children worldwide draw. You see children from ALL cultures draw these shapes naturally, without thinking and without instruction. Just give ‘em crayons and watch. (I learned this in a class called Motor Learning and Development in Madison, Wis.)

Section 5: Solutions & Tips for Training & Teaching

Avoid fixating or trying to fix a part in a person who needs to strengthen hip flexors and hamstrings.

Typical example of ‘focus on parts’ based on a Summary of Running Form:

1. Body Position- upright, slight lean from ground. Head and face relaxed.
2. Feet- As soon as knee comes through, put the foot down underneath you. Land mid or forefoot underneath knee, close to center of the body.
3. Arm stroke- controls rhythm, forward and backwards from the shoulder without side to side rotation
4. Hip extension- extend the hip and then leave it alone.
5. Rhythm- Control rhythm and speed through arm stroke and hip extension.

These conditions force to fixate on just one thing, which can be extremely frustrating for a person. They feel nitpicked as they struggle to correct one thing.

It's better to 'force a fix or condition' that automatically weed out the large, primary weakness - weal leg lift and weak pulling. 

Force the condition as a whole.

Walking up stairs, hills, or inclined treadmills force a person to lift with their quads - rapidly if the speed is around 4mph - and even more rapidly by running stairs two steps at a time. All these exercise force a person to use the hamstrings properly. They must lift the leg up, then pull with the hamstrings… not push off the back foot.

Walking on an inclined treadmill without using the hand rails also forces the condition and becomes hard work for most people. If you ever walked out of the Grand Canyon - then you know what I mean. Start on steps before hills; this allows for a more controlled, grounded, safer/non-slip surface. Just 'pulling' up steps with the lead leg is a brilliant way to get people to connect with their hamstrings in a meaningful way. A sprinter taught me this years ago.
 
Running hills and steps WON’T happen unless the person can lift their legs and work hard by pulling with the hamstring. Either they have the will and actually can run up stairs and hills or not. Shoes, gear, and 'expert' motion analysis have little to do with helping a person perform these techniques. Nor does advice you give them and yelling is just stupid in my opinion. No thinking or analysis is necessary. Never force a person to perform beyond their limits - physically speaking.

Advantages of ‘forcing the condition’:

1. People build strength immediately while they automatically (and very quickly) increase their fitness (lactate threshold).

2. People essentially can’t develop a bad habit ‘moving fast’ this way. If they can’t move fast this way, then they are out of shape and lack strength. They must do wind sprints and other forms of cardio increase to VO2 capacity in order to not get gassed running upwards.

Section 6: Summary and parting thoughts

If you can’t run, then don’t run. The plight of the average runner is agony. 

If you run with bad mechanics you will never run fast or safely in a race or event just by attempting to complete it. You are only hurting yourself. Your sloppy mechanics will be like hitting your joints with a hammer repeatedly as you try to do the ‘marathon shuffle’ for many agonizing miles. Energy is wasted and this causes a person to hit the ground hard in a more straight down motion rather than channel the energy into the ease of just running forward. This requires speed, which originates from strength… but some folks simply lack the motor program and the strength.

Ironically, A beginner's first race is almost always a 5K.  This race demands good running form, competitively speaking - otherwise you simply can't win. The irony is that many people/beginners then train to 'run' longer races, rather than training to actually run 'better'. Running better means at least as fast as they do in a 5k or even faster. This way builds strength and speed. Longer force people to run slower, breaking people down; ironically many people think 'running' longer distances is somehow better. Recall, the first person in history - Pheidippides - to run a marathon died at the finish!  

Try walking slower than normal for many miles. This is akin to 'running' 26.2 miles with bad mechanics - which shouldn't be called running, but rather fighting yourself while moving. 

By extension, it is reasonable to think running inefficiently or doing many exercises with ‘bad mechanics’ would be easily felt and stopped – since extra effort is required by working muscles that otherwise should be relaxed. Ironically this is not the case; people tolerate discomfort for miles, months, and years. They often ignore and/or deny the pain or injuries that follow.

Time for many runners is spent - at worst - lagging/shuffling as opposed to truly running - at best - with 'near' sprint form. If you can't sprint mechanically sound – as shown in the sprinting analyses video, then you should not run a marathon, ½ marathon, or participate in any lengthy, competitive ‘race for a cure’ type of event, unless you plan to walk at a normal pace. Ease of movement feels and looks easy because you don’t fight yourself and hold tension. This is why skilled athletes make it look easy when they perform.

Some people think running is bad for knees/joints. They are wrong in the sense that they misidentify the true offending cause. They should point to the fact that bad mechanics is equivalent to ‘fighting yourself’ where you strike the ground downward too hard in a jarring manner – i.e. you waste energy trying to slow yourself down as you hold too much tension in your leg muscles rather than redirect this energy into a more forward/horizontal motion.

To develop speed, you must ‘free up’ your muscles to produce faster turnover with your legs. 

Sprinting with good mechanics also requires whipping the legs forward explosively - which originates from the upper quadriceps and the core. Strong sprinters back much faster and more horizontally compared to endurance runners and marathoners. Examine sprinters’ form. The forward leg is extended out far ahead of the torso. Then the hamstrings and glutes pulled the leg back faster and more horizontally compared to inefficient runners, as well as marathon-Chi-runners with good form. This cycle: extending the lead leg forward, and the quick twitch reversal back to pound the ground results in 'having wheels'.