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I’ve had some interesting e-mail exchanges over the last few days after I expressed my skepticism about the merits of the sudden enthusiasm for the 100-up exercise. Basically, my position was (a) sure, it’s a perfectly good form and/or conditioning drill, which is why it has been in pretty much continuous use for decades, but (b) I didn’t see any reason to think it was “the secret,” or any more useful than other form drills, simply because Walter George said he used it. The mere fact that someone is fast and does a particular drill is a pretty slender reed to build a training program on — and if that’s the yardstick, I pointed out to one person with tongue firmly in cheek, then I should be considered more qualified than Walter George to dispense advice, since I’ve run considerably faster than him.
Well, Justin called my bluff:
Great points all around [he wrote,] so here’s a question for you: if you had to start somewhere to learn running form — and you couldn’t afford a coach — where would you start? What exercise would advance you the most in the shortest period of time?
That’s an excellent question. And a difficult one. So here’s my attempt to answer — or rather, to explain why I don’t have a simple, easy-to-package-and-sell answer.
The thing is, I’m still not convinced that most people do need to learn running form. I worry that all these articles about the necessity of learning the “one true way” to run are convincing people that they shouldn’t risk heading out the door in an untrained state to try this enormously complex activity.
Of course, some people definitely do need help with form. I watched the New York Marathon last weekend, and yes, there were some funky strides going past after the leaders were gone. So how do we fix those strides? Well, that depends on what’s wrong with them. Some people are leaning too far forward, others are leaning too far back. Many are overstriding, but a few are understriding. Some people are flapping their arms around like birds, others are barely moving them at all. It’s not the same fix for all of them.
Now, what Justin’s looking for isn’t a fix for a particular problem; he’s looking for a way to build the ideal stride from the ground up. And for that, maybe the 100-up is as good a place to start as any. I don’t have another exercise that I think is a “better” way to start developing a perfect stride, because I’m skeptical of the value of this perfect stride. In a sense, I’m just like Walter George in that I’m captive to my own experience and development. The way I learned to run was by heading out the door and trying it, then gradually adjusting along the way based on what felt good. That’s also how most of the people I know learned to run. Would we have been better if we’d been taught the “right” way to run right from the start? It’s possible.
By no means am I dismissing the benefits of optimizing running form. As I’ve written elsewhere, I think the single most common mistake people make is overstriding, which can often be addressed by quickening your cadence. I just have a nagging sense that form work has acquired enormous importance that is out of proportion to its value, when the real barrier for most beginning runners is still aerobic fitness. It reminds me of one of the most famous passages from Once a Runner:
And too there were the questions: What did he eat? Did he believe in isometrics? Isotonics? Ice and heat? How about aerobics, est, ESP, STP? What did he have to say about yoga, yogurt, Yogi Berra? What was his pulse rate, his blood pressure, his time for the 100-yard dash? What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret.