Health Management: Running with ChiRunning Technique

To many of us, running is a no brainer thing to do. But how wrong can we be. There are about 24 million runners in the US, but 65% of all runners incur at least 1 injury a year. That means 15.6 million people will get injured this year from running! There is really something very wrong with the way we run. So what can we do about it? Just ask Danny Dreyer, the founder of ChiRunning, a company based in North Carolina, US. Chi Running is currently taking the world by storm, helping millions of runners to improve performance and reduce injury. Just how did he do it?

According to Danny as written in his book, "ChiRunning- A revolutionary approach to effortless, injury free running",



All of us have a very nice running style when we were toddlers. We land softly on midfoot and pick our feet to the back. But as adults, we start to land heavy on our heels and reaching forward with feet. That was when we start to get injured! If only we can all run like we are toddlers, then we will all be injury free!

So Danny did his research with a renowned Taichi master, together they invented a running technique that combined Taichi with running.



A correct running technique should look something like the picture below:



The whole body is aligned from head to ankle. Body is tilted forward from the ankle. Landing of feet is on the midfoot and the other feet picks up to the back. The core is engaged at all times, whie the rest of body is relaxed and joints loosened. This is the main technique of Chi Running. If we look at videos of how elite runners run, this is just exactly how they do it too!

It would take one whole book and several videos to talk about this technique. So for more details, I would encourage everyone to buy a copy of this book to read over and over again to really master the technique. As for me, this technique really works wonder for me. I just started this technique last week, by applying ChiRunning technique to a 6km run. Usually i would feel tired and panting after the run, but I came back feeling energized from it! I feel even more fresh than before the run! This is a feeling I have not had for several years, all thanks to Chi Running! If the above description is still not enough for you to get an idea what Chi Running is about, I stil have one video for you to watch. Cheers!