How to Run Properly for Beginners

what's up guys today we're talking about how to run properly for beginners we're going to give you five must follow steps for strong beautiful long lasting running so when it comes to running better to running properly we have to start at the start and that start is posture it's position it's the things our parents used to tell us at the dinner table to sit up straight and they weren't saying that just so you could be this model child for their friends they're actually secretly trying to improve you as an athlete because if I am better aligned pretty much everything mechanically works better and conversely if I lose that alignment everything is thrown off from my breathing to my arm swing to my ability to pick up my feet to my race photos don't look very good either right that's the deal so we need to bring a little awareness to our posture throughout the day and we just need to practice it so this little first part is just to think about standing tall and what it means to stand tall I'm going to be as tall as I can be and I want to think about drawing a line from my ear my shoulder my hip my needs my ankle just to sort of think about that what that means is that I'm not here on one hip right like this we wait around all the time I'm not looking at my phone hunched over this way and the other one is we're not arching our back this way right so these are these all common areas where we start to break down or we're doing them all at the same time it can happen trust me we just want to be tall and connected this way I don't want you to be a robot you're not going to live like a robot the rest of your life but you need to spend some time here and you need to actively train in this position so that you can own it when you run because guess what if you're here all day this is what's going to default with your running and two specific things we can think about is going to be our chin position in our hip position and you may have seen this before maybe not it's a great little drill you're going to take your middle finger and your thumb is a little base of the tripod you're going to put it on your collarbone this is a little bony guys right here and your index finger is going to stick straight up and this is just a nice convenient place to have your chin so notice my chin is not forward it's not tilted up it's not to the side it's not doing anything my head is pretty quiet that's the important thing there the second thing with posture is going to be my hips so just as we stand I want you to think about squeezing your butt if I squeeze my butt that locks my pelvis into a pretty darn neutral good position and then I could think about actually screwing my feet into the ground it adds something called external rotation at the hip which is just a technical term a way of stabilizing everything so that when I'm on one leg I'm good to go so posture is king bring some awareness to this think about being nice and aligned I could draw some additional awareness by this little tripod right here by screwing my feet into the ground and having strong stable hips if I can start to cultivate this in my daily life I can carry this forward into my running itself so once I figured out this whole posture and alignment thing the next thing I need to do is improve my ability to maintain that posture for longer periods of time it's not just a matter of thinking about it it's actually about training your body's ability to be strong and stable in those positions for longer periods of time and that's where we talk about core strength you know our ability to hold our spine in certain positions and hold that spine in position in a way where it's strong it's connected and it feels safe so we're going to do that with two exercises they're simple but it doesn't mean they're easy we're going to start with our hollow body and we're going to flip you over and we're going to work on our arch body and really what this is is hey what does my spine look like strong in a little bit of flexion what does my spine look like strong in a little bit of extension so I'm going to start here I'm going to think about pressing this low back hard into the ground and it's this low back that I really care about for actually both these exercises in other words I don't want this back to arch off I want to press it hard so I can actually feel that pressure now what I'm going to do next is just extend one leg what I want you to imagine is this my legs my arms weigh a certain amount the further they are away from here the harder this has to work so that's like adding weight to the bar so step one no weight on the bar is here step two can I add a little bit of weight could I bring another arm back hey can I stay strong and stable can I bring another arm back do I start to lose it if I lose it I'm going to bring my arms in fight here otherwise I do this if my neck is a little sore so sore I can put my head behind the support otherwise I'm going to live here can I go both arms in both legs out and can I hold this for 30 seconds that's what I want to do the more my arms and legs are extended the lower it is man the harder I have to work but that's where I want to live notice that when we're talking about core strength we're also talking about tension in the system so notice that my toes are pointed my quads were flexed everything was strong no noodley legs we don't want that no mush so now we're going to go the other way with arch body I'm flipped over I'm on my stomach and a lot of times we see the Superman where it's common for athletes to just pick their arms and legs up and just to arch but what happens is I'm arching in a way where I'm just hinging at the low back putting all this pressure here and I'm not doing all the support I need to support so what I want to do instead is this my arms are going to extend the first thing I'm going to do squeeze my belly I'm going to make this an ab exercise the second thing we to do is going to squeeze my butt and push my hips into the ground if I squeeze my belly my butt tight that locks my pelvis in and really protects that low back so now I can safely go into extension with a much stronger position from here I'm going to pull my legs about a quarter of an inch off the ground I could go higher but I don't want to I'm going to pull my arms and quarter inch off the ground I could go higher I don't want to and I'm going to live here for 30 seconds and notice the temptation might be to go here but that's putting too much pressure in the low back I just need to squeeze get tight and go up a little bit and once again I'm going to hold for 30 seconds the shoulders may get tired the elbows may want to flare up but I'm going to try to keep those guys straight thumbs straight up at the ceiling if I can work on both this hollow and arch body position it's going to improve my core strength my ability to control my spine through flexion and extension which are key aspects for my ability to run properly now before I get into our third piece which is going to be on breathing I want to tell you about this two weeks of free programming this little gift that we want to send you on more run technique drills on strength training that you can do as well as some injury prevention and mobility challenges we've all bundled it together two weeks we want to give it to you all you need to do is click this link in this video and if you're on a mobile device there's going to be a link down in the description click that there it's going to take you to the landing page where all you need to do is enter your name and your email address we'll be able to send you that little program now on to our breathing now with our breathing it's important in a lot of ways one we we need the oxygen to deliver to our red blood cells so that all of a sudden we can keep our muscles firing and going if we don't get that oxygen we're going to pass out we're not going to go very far the other thing is that proper breathing is crucial for our posture for our hip position for our good mechanics and because our posture is not very good a lot of times we live in this hunched over position and I want you to notice what happens to my ribcage when I'm a little hunched over when I'm a little hunched over my ribcage collapses this actually makes it very difficult for me to inhale through my lungs all the way and when my can inhale through my lungs all the way I'm not able to activate my diaphragm to its fullest extent my diaphragm is in charge for inflating those lungs but my diaphragm is actually connected to my pelvis and it's a way to stabilize my hips when I run so basically if I'm that person who's a little hunched over I also may be that person who gets side stitches every once well on the run your diaphragm is freaking out because it doesn't know how to fire so learning how to belly breathe relearning how to belly breathe is the thing to do that's the most important thing we're going to start with the most mellow form just by laying on her back it feels good it's a nice day out here in the bay we've got this beautiful Sun I'm going to put one hand on my chest I'm going to put one hand on my belly I'm just going to take a few breaths so I'm just going to bring some awareness here oh man this feels good could stay out here for a while a lot of us I said we don't breathe very well into our belly we just breathe into our chest and our shoulders and we get very stressed up here so the the goal is going to be to inhale and and push out this belly hand as much as possible so as I inhale through my nose it's going to be chest mid chest belly I'm gonna go and then as I exhale it's going to be belly mid chest chest I want a fully exhale so inhale exhale and right now I could breathe through my nose out through my mouth just as a way to get this little rhythm going now a challenge I like to do it's it feels great to do this while all relaxed and chill on the ground but I need to be good at doing this with I'm running so one of my favorite little challenges is some nose breathing in the beginning in the end of my run and you may want to first start with literally just two to three minutes the first three minutes of my run in the last three minutes can I only breathe through my nose adjust your pace if you need to walk that's just fine I'm going to tell you a few things one it's going to feel a little panicky at first you feel like you're not going to get enough oxygen and that's okay and it's perfectly normal the other thing and the most important thing about it is that these small Airways actually are forcing your diaphragm to engage more to pull that much-needed oxygen in so basically the nose breathing forces a conversation with your diaphragm that you haven't been having it's a little scary at first but once you start talking you develop that pathway that in your muscular pathway where all of a sudden you're able to engage and a little bit more fluent there so belly breathing on your back feels really good it's nice and a recovery day practice that for a while bring some awareness there think about your breathing throughout the day and your work are you holding your breath in the car you stress can you breathe through that belly and finally can I bring a little nose breathing into my running that's going to make a huge difference so our fourth tip is going to be around our arms swing it's really important to swing those arms but we want to swing them in the right direction in the right way and before we get into that it's important to understand why well we actually run with our upper body a lot a lot more than we realize even though most runners we picture have these skinny little tricking arms those arms still serve a purpose and a function and one of those things they really do is to help keep everything fluid and in motion and connected and really are our per body acts a lot of way as a counterbalance to what's happening with a lower body in our legs they're really actually in charge of helping regulate how much our body rotates and swings back and forth so much so that when I started running slow my arms smaller when I start running faster the arm swing gets bigger and then when you see sprinters out there their arms are pumping a lot their arms are pumping as much as a counterbalance to the run as it is to anything else that's what's going on now the two common problems I see with most run our most arm swing is either an arm swing that's too stiff and doesn't move at all or something where the shoulders are rotated in and it's too much swinging this way we see this upper body rotate what I want to try to do with the arms is to separate the upper body from the shoulders so I need this range and sometimes even just being able to throw the arms back and forth this way to have this range is so important once again if I'm limited in my mobility and range of motion it becomes very hard to independently swing this thing so one way we're just going to practice this other than just a few these arm swings which is a great way to warm up those shoulders and get them moving back and forth is to actually exaggerate those arms so I'm going to start with one arm forward and one leg forward one leg back and for 15 seconds I'm just going to swing these arms and at first I don't need a lot of attention just other than just to drive my elbows back here it looks a little silly when you stand tall but it's a great way to do this if you have that can you start to exaggerate it a little bit more a little bit more and can you really pump those arms so those 15 seconds once you've got there switch your feet 15 seconds just with your other leg forward just as a way of mixing it up same thing start small and fluid and get bigger now notice that my arms are swinging up here right it's going to be more of this elbow drive out the back that is the biggest thing so if I can start to add this little arm swing drill and when I start to run I'm going to be able to keep those arms basically with this roughly 90 degree elbow in the swing I should probably go over with arm swing actually should look like and as north-south as possible it's normal for an arm to come across a little bit but if I have this centerline I want to prevent my arms from swinging too far across this way so it's going to be something like this and some I've heard you know like you have holsters in your pockets so you're going to go kind of somewhere here to basically here back and forth this way so we're avoiding this and then we're avoiding this as well with arm swing our last and final you know must know for a proper running form is going to be about picking those feet up off the ground our last things we've started with posture we've talked about strength and core strength we've talked about breathing we've talked about swinging those arms now finally we're talking about picking up those feet but I did it in this order because I actually want to focus on all those other things first before I focus on what my feet are doing and specifically if I do all those things my feet are going to actually naturally start to pick themselves up a little bit faster and a little bit better so that's just one little thing to remember the order of operations now with the picking up of our feet off the ground the picking up of the feet up off our feet up off the ground I'm just I'm winning today this is so great what's really important to remember is this when we've talked about this pulling what we're really talking about is our ability to run with a slightly higher turnover slightly higher cadence the number of times my foot hits the ground in in a minute and what happens when our cadence is a little slow this is where we tend to overstride way out in front of us this is where we tend to land heavier this is where when we land heavy our whole foot collapses in when our foot collapses in the knee collapses and this is where I start to become open to all types of running injuries so cadence is a great way to get a little bit more engagement out of hamstrings and the glutes to land lighter on the feet to land everything more stable and to run faster and more efficiently so it's like the holy grail of all this running stuff we want to do is really in this pulling and we're just going to work on it with two simple drills you may have seen these before but what's important to understand is how they all fit in we're going to work on some sort of high knee and we're going to work on some sort of butt kick which is basically two aspects of this little drill where we sort of have that knee lift that leg swings out the back we have to recover that foot up high so the high knee I'm going to stand up tall and I'm just going to work at two levels one I'm just going to do a little warm-up high knee it's not super high but we don't want to go too crazy up the gap of the bat I'm just here I'm nice and tall notice your upper body's going to run hunter you got to be tall here and then can you really hit that 90 degree angle so a little tip elbow here at this 90 degree can I pick one knee up to one elbow the other knee up to one elbow can I go all the way up high that's a little truth checker make sure you're not that's not quite the same thing right all the way up here that's really key second one is going to be this butt kick I'm going to go heels out the back behind once again do around where the heels aren't super high and then can I go hands behind can I kick up all the way and if I work a couple rounds of high knees a couple rounds of butt kicks in let's say three rounds each of about 10 to 20 meters that's going to be really good for drilling in my ability to pick those feet up it's going to wake me up it's going to make that a lot more fluid when I go out the door and if I can connect all those things together I'm going to be running on another level guys one more thing we have a free gift for you we've bundled some of our favorite run technique drills that really make a big difference as well as some strength training exercises that you can do at home to build that core just to build that whole body as well as some of our favorite go-to injury prevention exercises and mobility challenges we've bundled it into a two week program we want to give it to you all you need to do to get is click this link in this video if you happen to be a mobile device all you need to do is go to that description the link down in the description below hit that it's going to take you to a page once you're there boom name an email in there and I'll be able to personally send you that little program you're going to love it also if you love this video let us know hit that like button if you have any comments or questions on things we talked about hit us up in the comments as well and please please please if you want more of this content in your life around run strength around beginner running form around preparing for next 5k or marathon or anything we have it all at the run experience so definitely subscribe to the run experience on our youtube channel guys thanks again for watching we'll catch you in the next video you

Channel: The Run Experience

Views: 788,221

Keywords: The Run Experience, Proper Running Form, Nate Helming, Beginner Running, How to Run Properly, Running for Beginners, Running, Distance Running, Tips for Running, How to Start Running, Runners, how to run faster, running training, distance running tips, how run properly, how run faster

Id: m-P8ge77FY4

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 18 2016