I made a video blog of this Pose Running drill my coach showed me to help get the feel of gravity. It’s sort of an exaggerated version of pose running.
It’s really hard, and I’m not getting it, but I’ve only tried this one time. After filming the video, I did a tempo set on the treadmill: 5 repeats of 5 minutes at tempo pace below LT (@7mph), followed by 30 seconds of this drill (@9mph), and 2.5 minutes of rest (@4mph). During the longer tempo segments, I did my usual treadmill focus of “what can I do to make this feel easier”; also, I experimented with a slight lean and lifting my foot before it was fully weighted (as my coach explains below).
One thing my coach told me to do is to put a board under the back end of my treadmill so that I can do this drill at zero incline. (My treadmill only goes down to 1.5% incline.) I’m going to do that before I try this again.
Here’s the video:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2_UDOfVOHE]
Here are some more tips about getting the feel of gravity from my coach (not in relation to this video, which I haven’t shown him):
…that feeling of being out of control when falling…
as you do your short intervals, try and keep the flow and speed, withOUT feeling out of control. It’s hard; Romanov says it takes a lot of balance, leg speed, hip (body core) strength, etc.But try to imagine that FALLING FORWARD feeling (I personally think a lot of how to get that feeling boils down to NOT firing your quads as the foot comes down and the leg is weighted) but SMOOTH, without the feeling of bobbing forward/back and left/right. All your weight just right down the middle in a straight line sloping backward: shoulder to hip to foot. Falling smoothly towards the finish line.
Also, try to think about lifting one foot up before the other has landed, which you don’t really do, but you want to be picking it up before it is fully weighted, and so you will have to give the lift command before you feel ready to do it.