MyER Entry 7
89
Member
1430 days
hipfan posted 41 weeks ago.
I've never heard of a "heel flick". How do you do it, and how does it help your run? This sound really interesting as my run is more of a shuffle right now.
Sorry, by the way great work out.
301
Member
367 days
cjhoffmn posted 41 weeks ago.
The heel flick that I'm working on is a concept from the book Evolution Running whereby you bring your back leg back to the front in a way to conserve energy.
There are two pieces to the idea:
First: Its easier to bring your leg through if it's bent - essentially, its easier to move the leg through if its "folded" in half, as you're swinging half the length through.
Second: You could do that my contracting your hamstrings to fold your back leg, which uses energy and muscle strength from the hamstrings. In the heel flick, you essentially let your leg fold by utilizing the momentum from your push off and driving your knee forward with your leg loose. If you leg is loose, and you change the direction of your knee by pulling with your hip flexor powerfully, you can make your leg fold just by the change in momentum, avoiding use of your hamstring. Under the ER idea, the hip flexors are bigger, better muscles to use than your hamstrings.
When I've gotten it right, its a really cool feeling because my legs feel very relaxed, light and quick. It just requires really focused efforts on my hip flexors to get it to work.
Its the last concept I'm trying to add in the technique, although I don't really have it done yet, it feels like it will be very useful in terms of energy savings.
To tri or not to tri - that's not a question at all!
I had taken a little time off of running - I needed to give my lower back a break from a golf related stress that got more serious with my bike riding and running.
This was my first real run in about a week and a half. It incorporated many of the little things I've made entries about over the last few weeks and I'm happy to report that I'm making progress.
I did this run after doing about a 40 minute spin squarely in zone 1 and I was sporting a brand new pair of Asics Kayanos, as my old shoes were in bad need of replacement. Maybe relevant is that I had really eaten like crap during the day and I didn't feel all that great as a result.
Goals:
1.) A Zone 2 run with some Zone 4 mixed in - I'm trying to get a sense of how much work I'll have to do before I can start doing real "hard" runs.
2.) Stay in as perfect form as I could for as long as possible, especially in the intervals
3.) Try to add the heel flick
Results:
Distance: 3.19 miles
Time: 29:38
Avg Pace: 9:17 / mile
Avg HR: 151 bpm
Max Pace: 5:40 mile
Max HR: 170 bpm
Overall, a really great run. The single largest contributing idea that seemed to help me stay in the form was the idea of letting my legs bend just a little bit more than usual. It helped me get my weight a little bit more forward without bending at the hips. It seemed I could keep my feet behind my hips a little bit easier this way, and the idea of "bending at the ankles" became much more natural.
I really noticed that my head hardly seemed to move when I was running, - I was keeping a very still and level plane with my hips. Getting that weight out in front, sort of caught in my hips really accentuated using the glutes to pull through the stroke.
I'm still not entirely there, and I caught myself on a few occasions starting to let my feet land in front of my body, but after these 7 runs and few weeks of trying to adopt to this style, I can now definitely feel when I'm starting to drift.
I'm still getting higher HRs for the perceived efforts than before. I ran much of this run in Zone 4 HR without having to breath hard. The tempo-ish segments I ran (I only broke 2 mins once, so probably not real VO2 segments) were the same - HR in the mid to high 160s, but I wasn't heaving for breath. I still felt pretty good.
One segment in particular I really focused on trying to use the glutes and hip flexors. I seemed to get a feeling of running faster with less effort. The splits look that way too, but I don't remember where I was on the hills to compare. My area is pretty much full of rollers. Not too many flats.
The heel flick occasionally works, but still eludes me a little. I seem to get it every now and then - and if I really concentrate on letting my legs go loose on the return, I seem to get it right. But then I will revert to letting my hamstring pull it through. Still need work on that.
Overall, making progress. I feel that using this technique has promise for me.
To tri or not to tri - that's not a question at all!