Barbell Shrugged - 149- How to Run Faster, Farther and Injury Free for Life w/ Dr. Nicholas Romanov

Episode Date: November 5, 2014

The most powerful experiences in sport are when you find common ground with someone from another world. These insights enable a much deeper, richer understanding of your own craft.One of the best examples I can think of features our guest this week, Dr. Nicholas Romanov, the developer of the Pose Method of running. He was participating in a little back and forth Crossfit Journal interview with Greg Glassman and Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell fame.Without a doubt, the entire series is worth a watch. Knowledge bombs abounds, friends. It’s refreshing to see such disparate figures agree on so much, especially when it comes to training. One of the more relevant points for most athletes and coaches is speed, or as Louie would call it, “Perfect speed.”Dr. Romanov’s take was that strength work was not enough on its own, not for the athlete. If you were a high jumper, for example, grinding away to increase the squat wouldn’t necessarily help you jump higher, not unless there was a concurrent effort to improve your rate of force development.Strength on its own won’t do you any good. You need it right on time, as close to instantaneous as you can get. That’s when you perform at your best. You need to develop your maximal AND explosive strength. It’s not enough to just complete the reps on your work sets. Regardless of whether the load is heavy or fairly light, move that barbell as quickly as you can possibly manage. This will keep your nervous system fine tuned and ready for maximal effort all year round. You’ll make the most out of your training.What was Louie’s idea of perfect speed? Well, when you lift you must try to get from the start to lockout as quickly as possible. Until the rep becomes instantaneous you have to keep fighting for more speed. Always faster, faster, if you work at this you too can become incredibly strong. You can jump higher, and run better.Read more of Chris Moore's show notes here: http://daily.barbellshrugged.com/776/

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview Dr. Romanoff and learn how to run faster, farther, and injury-free for life. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson, Chris Moore, CTP behind the camera. We're at Princeton University. We have taken over. We stole this classroom.

We broke into a classroom where Einstein once taught, and we set up our gear. Hopefully, no one finds us. We have a—this is perfect. Perfect place to have Dr. Romanoff. Running genius. Movement genius, really. I've heard it's not just about running with you. You like to talk about swimming and biking and pose applies to all that. So if you've ever had any questions about pose method or just how to run properly or barefoot or whatever, we're going to do our best to address this tonight

without getting too off topic, which will definitely happen. No, that's going to happen. It's going to be plenty of distraction. But it's going to take us an hour to get through all the points. Make sure to go to barbellshrug.com, sign up for the newsletter, and we can notify you when we do things like breaking the Princeton University and abduct Dr. Romanoff. He has graciously, voluntarily agreed to do this.

I think mostly because he's amused with us and our shenanigans thus far. He watched us talk and laughed quite a bit. He's back there. Not with us. At us, mostly. Look at these guys. Thanks for joining us.

Oh, my pleasure to be here. It's a really incredible honor to be in this building, in this university. Speaking of us, thank you. With you guys as well. Thank you to invite me. It's our pleasure, honestly. Yeah, so if you're just listening, you should go check out the video and kind of see the view that we have going on here.

We are actually in a legit like a lecture hall. It looks like we're on the set of a beautiful mind. This is where it was filmed. This room is where that was filmed. It's exactly what I was told today. Really? Yes. The Russell Crowe has been in this room.

You have to be shitting me. No, but I was telling the good doctor and Doug a minute ago that I was walking up to the little garden there, the Prospect Garden, which is lovely, just lovely. And I noticed one of the buildings inside, the windows. You know that movie, there's a scene in that movie where he's doing math on a window with a little white marker pen.

I saw those style windows. It was really cool. It reminded me that, yes, lots of smart people have done... Will you be like, I gotta get a white marker pen. I gotta pretend to be smart. Exactly. But I felt inspired, is what I'm saying, Michael. And I'm especially inspired now. That feeling transitions to this moment right now. Well, let's see if that actually crosses over into the podcast.

I will tell such a good dick joke later. Give me time to think about it. Wait, should we introduce your son as well? One more time, what was your name? Severin Romanoff. Severin. Severin. Severin Romanoff.

He is your guardian angel. He's my boss, son. He is your guardian angel. He is my boss. He is your boss. We were making a joke earlier that you're the slave. You prefer being a slave. Just tell me where to go. It's just one edition, happy slave. Happy slave.

You have the wife, she tells you what to do. Obviously, yes. Otherwise, I wouldn't survive. You came here. People don't know this, you actually, I don't know how this happened, but you made your ways into the CrossFit community a while back. Was that through Brian McKenzie? Yeah, it's Brian McKenzie's efforts.

So he introduced me to Greg Glassman, and Greg Glassman told me, if you will impress our coaches, we will be in a friendly relationship. He put about 100 coaches, best coaches of CrossFit in San Diego University. I did presentations and the coaches love it. And the rest is history. Yes. And our relationship was started and was continuing.

Very good relationship. How long ago was that? It's already about seven years, probably. And I actually don't know what you were doing before you kind of made this partnership with, I don't even know if partnership is the right word, but before you connected with CrossFit, what were you doing before that? I was spying in America. Spying in America?

Spying. Oh, no. Is that true? You're not supposed to tell us that. You're the worst spy ever. I was pretending that I am trying to teach people how to run. So, I was involved by accident again.

Everything in life is an accident. Like, you're meeting your wife in accident, your kids come by accident, you know.

That's true, that's true to kids. Someone's like, shit, man, you told me you intended for this to happen. Happy accidents,

you say. Yes, it's correct. But I was waiting my son a very long time with my wife and his name

came way before my first kids came. You know, it's before my first and second daughter was born. Because his name was waiting him 15 years. Wow. It's a very lovely story. I was here. Yeah. Yes.

I guess I will share with you some. Oh, right now? Yeah, do it. This is the best stuff. I'm meeting my wife in the first year in my university. She's a foreign languages student. I am a physical culture and sport faculty student. I'm meeting her in the biggest square, Lenin Square in our city.

Lenin Square. And we are talking friendly and about us, what we would like to do and somehow came one question. If you would have a son, how would you call him?

I told Severin. She said, no way. She didn't like the name. No, she told, I wanted the same name for my son. Oh, wow. Agreement was made. Wow. And that's it.

It came from different sources. I admired one gentleman from the novel of a Russian about scientists Severin Budrys, you know. And its name came to me as a very extensive and very lovely name. And my wife loved this name because she admired one guitar player from Czerwona Ruty, a Polish rock group. His name was, he shared that name, I guess. He was the coolest thing. You got the science and the art. Yes.

There you go. He got all this together in business connection. There you go. Did you have him learning biomechanics and running and postures when he was like five years old? Yes, it's not funny, but I started teaching him, and he started traveling with me at age four. Stefan, get up and run for us.

Let's check you out real quick. I share a birthday with, I believe it's Einstein and Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix? But the most funny thing in this game, maybe not funny, and even hysterical, that his birthday

is November 27 it's the birthday of San Severin oh wow we were found with my wife in Cologne Germany

it was a European conference there and we were driving in a car and we suddenly see the street it's called San Severin

we're like let's go we're coming and there are church San Severin and we're like let's go we're coming and there are church San Severin and we're like wow it's kind of cool man when all these something you love something this person you met loves as well

you stumble across these little indicators that sort of point you in all directions you're going in the right direction in your life it seems like indicators are good signs for you it's correct right and suddenly we saw this, and then I brought this brochure about St. Severin. He was a Roman monk or priest who came in Cologne

and built an incredible society over there, and people loved him. That's why he became a saint, you know? You've got a lot to live up to. Yeah. Jesus, man. You working on this? You lot to live up to. Jesus, man. You working on this? You need to learn how to play guitar, run like a champion,

and build amazing societies. You're building his business, right? You're CEO, aren't you? That's right. That's why he's my boss. Yeah, he's your boss. How long have you guys been building this business, formalizing this into... I wouldn't dare take the CEO title just because

and so I felt like I graduated to that about two years ago. Two years ago. If we're going to interview him as well, do we want to put him on a mic for like long... Sorry, we're getting a little distracted. We'll get back to it. Punchy comment here.

Doug, answering on your question. Sorry, I kind of detour. We're used to it. We have lots of people to detour. And what I did, you know, when we came to America, I was an unemployed guy, you know, and I didn't know what to do, actually. When was that? When did you come to America?

93. It was not that if you do things or anything.. We came for wedding party for two weeks on Miami Beach and that's it. Then we like it so much that we stay. Actually it's my two girls decided that we have to stay here, you know, and we apply for papers and we answered positively. Permission was given and it was given under the name of exceptional abilities in higher education. Oh, there you go. Put that on the resume. Yeah, I was going through this thing in Consulant in Mexico

on the border in El Paso, you know. And I'm giving these papers for Consulant in American Consul in Mexico. He looked at my paper and told, wow, we need people like you. Boom. Easy. Oh, wow. Easy. What were you doing back home?

Oh, I was… Sports scientist? Yes, I was... Sport scientist? Yes, I was university professor, head of the department, of sport department, and head coach of my university team. And my background was track and field. I was the elite high jumper myself. So you're not just talking science. You can back it up with plenty of personal experience.

Well enough. Well enough. Well enough. Yes. So it was a long period of struggling for knowledge, you know, and I was lucky that right in the beginning of my university career, I found that I know nothing. This is, oh, I'm repeating just the same way. That happens to a lot of people. Yeah, it's important.

One of the first who find out this, it was Socrates. Yeah, Socrates. He's famous. I know that I know nothing. After that, you have to be humble. So I start teaching in university after finishing the same faculty. I was finishing this with owner, and that's why I was invited there.

But one year in army, Soviet Union army, I was in sport division, so I didn't have any rifle or anything. Not the real army. Yes, I had uniform of soldier, you know. They give you a gun, though. Three times, bam, bam, bam. They were like, after those three times, they were like, don't give him a gun.

Yeah, that's it. Give them a sport uniform and go and jump. Did you have any role? Oh, sorry, Doug, go ahead. I was going to say, so were you, you were the one that originally developed the pose method or just you put the name on it? Or how did all that play out in the beginning

before anyone else had heard of that term? No, my term didn't exist before me. And I gave a pose completely illogical way, you know, because pose is not related with movement in the human mind. Usually it's a pose, pose, it's a fixed position you know so when I start looking for answer for what movement is and how movement build up I start using uh footages for analysis of ballet dancers and the real dancers and karate martial arts And I had friends over there, so I have a big accessible way to see all of the things. And my point was to find out how they teach so skillfully.

So I was going, going, going, going around with this question. It's about two years. But two years for this kind of struggle, it's a very short time. I was lucky. So in one day, it was October 1977, I was crossing square, main square of our city, coming back from a lesson.

And suddenly it crossed my mind. It's like, boom, like this. Bulb up. Light bulb goes off and the idea strikes. Yes, and it's like... In reality, everything happens through the poses, actually. They teach through the poses and movement happening through the poses.

It's only a matter of which poses are main and which one is not. When this was clear, I came home. I told my wife, I found the concept. I found the method. She said, and how you call it? I called it posny in Russian. She said, such a word doesn't exist.

She's a linguist. She has a PhD in English philology. I said, I don't honey. Linguist, you know. She has a PhD in English philology. I told her, I don't care. I name it. But basically what this was is you kind of came across maybe a language, like a central mechanism for how motion must occur, regardless if it was a ballerina or a karate practitioner or an endurance athlete. Any, any.

There was a language of motion you were getting at. It's correct. Animals are talking by pose language. When animals standing in the aggressive pose, you recognize that this animal is not friendly. You immediately, and animals talk between each other, not in language what we're speaking or talking. They're talking in language of poses.

Absolutely. And each pose is immediately recognizable, you know, immediately. Otherwise, it will cost for your life. Yeah. So, pose has every single component of what movement has, you know, psychological, intention, mental, goal-oriented, everything. It's integrated in one single movement, which is called pose. So when a boxer is standing in pose, you know, it's a boxer. With a hockey, you recognize him.

Good call, Mike. Yes, right. Yeah, well done. So everything becomes very clear. In the week, I was teaching all track and field events, pose method. And pose concept, pose model, and pose method. Method is a teaching.

Model is a biomechanical structure, how this movement is built teaching. Model is a biomechanical structure. How this movement is built up. And concept is a set of ideas how this movement is created, how it could be operated, by which laws, principles, and so on.

It sounds like a very elegant way of assessing motion where everything comes together. Easy explanation. That's how you know it's probably a good explanation. Yes, and it's very easy to identify and analyze. I will give you just a confirming kind of story. I'm in Hawaii,

Honolulu, teaching running, but the wife of my friend, and both of them pose coaches, high level. She is a teacher in Hawaiian

The dancing? No, canoeing. Oh, canoeing. It's a boat It's a tribal local boat. Yes, right. It's several people in boat. Yes, right. Two floating things with sticks.

It's several people in the boat and they're doing with rowing, you know. Yeah. And she came to me and she told, we couldn't find out what best way to do this rowing in the group. Could you help us to do this thing? I told, I don't mind. Let's go and

see it. They took me on the main canal I don't mind. Let's go and see it. They took me on the main canal in Honolulu. It's right in the middle of the city. And the people asked me, did you do this ever yourself? I said, I never seen it. I said, how you will teach us? I said, let me see what you do. And after that, I will tell you how I will teach us. I said, let me see what you do. And after that I will tell you how I will teach you.

They didn't know what I'm into. So they made several back and forth demonstrations on the boat. And I saw what they were doing wrong. It was the wrong body position.

And you see in in pose concept, the main thing is how you are using body weight. Pose represents the main thing, the best or favorable use of the body weight. Body weight represents gravity. So in any event you're coming, you have to look at positions from point of view. Can you use body weight in this position or not? If you cannot use body position, it's

the wrong pose. This is what happens. Because if it's the wrong pose, muscles do not work right. This is your keystone of the whole thing. Of course, because muscles are serving body weight, not anything else, not brain. Please don't confuse. Before brain was developed, brain called neocortex is a new thing, you know. Before brain was developed, body weight and muscles relationship already existed several million years. Yeah, that's right.

It's a very long marriage and very successful well i've heard that the only reason that a brain exists because you have to coordinate of course motion and complicated work you need a sponge doesn't need it but an animal needs a lot of hardware to operate right you see this is what they call it's um it's called um um a nervous system it's a comfortable thing, you know. But the reality is that existed before brain and nervous system existed system of correlation between body parts over nervous system. It's much faster, actually, you know. And it's all way of, it's through tissues just faster actually, you know. And it's old way of, it's through tissues

just goes signal, you know. And while we get uncomfortable in developing coordination through nervous system, it's much slower actually, you know. That old system kind of went in a garage. Yes, and we're using only in extreme situations these things. When something, emergency between life and death happening, we're using that, it's called continuum pathway. This is what called in neurological linguistic, you know. So this we're using only in only very few times in life maybe, you know. So this we're using only in only very few times in life, maybe, you know. Nervous system gives you comfort zone, you know, to regulate everything.

This is what downside of nervous system. But good thing, you are comfortable and pose created the uniform relationship between them you know who is who like in hierarchy relationship when you impose you have a body weight so you can use muscles and when you when you can use muscles you can move better better. So you survive. That's it. Final point of equation. You survive when you have muscles involved. But muscles work when your body is available.

And when body weight is available, it's the best pose. Yes, if you peel away all the layers of what a human is, you get a foundation of what an animal needs to do to go get prey, to attract mates, to escape the threat of another predator. It's all basically, can I move my body mass? It all boils down to weight. Body weight. Body weight.

Body mass is... I'm a dummy, don't worry. I'm just yapping at my mouth. You forgot about gravity. Mass is a different definition in physics. Sorry. So at the most basic level, if you ask kind of the average person that's heard of pose running, but they're not really an expert in it, but they pose run because someone told them they should pose run because it's better for them than regular running. Just kind of your average crossfitter,

not particularly advanced in any kind of way. They're going to say, Oh, don't heal strike fall forward. Maybe they don't even say fall forward. Maybe they'd say lean forward. You made that distinction earlier. Falling and leaning isn't the same thing, but they're going to say basically the difference between pose running and regular running is you don't heel strike when you pose run you land on the ball of your foot and that's way oversimplified i'm sure so can you can you in the most basic way for someone that wants to just run faster with less injuries explain pose running for someone that's basically never heard of it okay I will try to be as much as it I'm concentrating right now

because what Doug is asking it's really difficult okay I'll try I'll do it we have to understand what is essence of running from mechanical point of view first not from physiological or anatomical from mechanical point of view, you know? First. Not from physiological or anatomical.

From physical point of view. Otherwise, we will get in a trap again, you know? So, first one. How the material body is moving from point A to point B. This is the first answer that should be done. And physics, mechanics gives very simple answer. Only by external force.

Muscles by definition, internal force. So it immediately excludes muscles as our propulsive mechanism. Do you understand? And the only external force acting on you is gravity? Yes, it's correct.

There are other external forces, like ground reaction force exists as well, friction, but they are not propulsive forces by definition. That's why they are... Equal and opposite forces cancel each other out, is what you're saying? No, no, they are not propulsive forces. Oh, it's vertical.

It's not linear. Ground reaction is a reaction only, you know? It's not a force Ground reaction is a reaction only. It's not force which produces the movement. You're not going to move in any direction. Shit. I don't know. I can't simplify this. This is what's happening.

So we have to understand. So one only external force exists for us which moves us. It's a gravitational force but gravity works only downward you know vertical so how we can transfer next thing is how we transfer gravity in the horizontal direction and this we're coming to the point that actually our movement is not linear movement or translating movement. It's actually a rotational movement. So we have to look at running as a rotational movement because only rotation is produced by gravitational force

because gravity becomes gravitational torque. Our body is a rod, lever. When you're touching support touching support you getting body weight in this body weight start rotate you around point of support beautiful and this is what movement happen do you put your foot down and gravity sort of coaxing you forward and it's correct you go forward support arresting you're falling and when you see this is you see, this is what happened. Look, this is what happened.

So those in the audience, Dodo Romov has a toothpick into his hand. He's going to let it fall, and it falls forward. It goes this, but when it's touching support, it becomes body weight. In your hand, you let go of it, it falls forward. Yes, right. And then when you're finishing falling, you have to now reconcile and get back into falling.

Put your foot back down again. You don't need to. It will happen. So, yeah, what happens is you lean, fall forward. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mike. I do appreciate it. You fall forward.

You catch yourself. Yes. By letting your foot fall. Yes. And then you… Fall again. And then you pull that foot from the ground and uh that that's kind of like your rotation that you're talking about it's correct yes in

big angle you're rotating fast speed comes in so there's three there's three main phases right what are those pose fall pull pose fall pull so pose is when you're in stance on a single leg. It'd be like a figure four, right? Falling is when you're falling forward, your body's at an angle. rotating, yes. And then pull is when you pull your back leg off the ground.

when you're losing support, and it's happened when you're reaching one body weight, ground reaction force, it's very interesting, beautiful picture, which I'm describing right now. I'm preparing an article for one of the series magazines. So when somebody is not in the proper pose,

some things that are happening is the foot is landing in front, and that's when the heel strike, the dreaded heel strike occurs. Yes. Another problem that happens would be the foot stays on the ground too long. Yes, sir. They don't pull the foot off the ground. And then people also don't end up in that figure four position at the top. And you were saying earlier during a talk that the, talking about cadence,

saying the cadence, the speed at which somebody moves horizontally is um is has less to do with cadence and more to do with the angle that they're falling cadence it's another mechanism which allows to um help this falling happen. You see, it exists always in the mathematical relationship. This level of, for example, here, it's a cadence, right? So, you're on this cadence and you can increase angle,

going, going, going, going. But when you increase angle, your speed goes up. And you're reaching level of speed, velocity, when that cadence already doesn't fit that angle. And you have to change cadence.

You have to increase the cadence with the angle. Yes, it's correct. It's like steps like this. It goes. You see? So it exists as a zone on this cadence. You can increase speed, right? Then you have to change cadence to increase the angle again.

So what's basically being described is that the faster we travel, the cadence increases, but the lean or the fall, the angle of the fall increases as well. But where people get it screwed up is not being in optimal position during the fall. It's correct. Okay. One quick way, if I can chime in.

Jump on the mic, man. Spin it around the other way. Sorry. It's on one side. Yeah, talk until. One thing I can say that's an easy example of this. Really close. Okay.

So one thing I can say is a practical example of this is if you can run in place with world record cadence, you start to see that it's not about the cadence. If you can run in place and have just Usain Bolt cadence, but you're not actually moving forward, that's all you need to know that cadence doesn't directly contribute to moving forward. And the falling angle is what ultimately decides that. That's where you have the displacement of the general center of mass. And the other point that I wanted to touch on, Doug, from a practical standpoint, there is no such thing as describing quote unquote regular running and then pose running. Because what Dr. R did is he found that by analyzing thousands and thousands of runners, what he found was that he found the three elements that all runners do. So guess what, Doug?

You have a pose position. You fall forward and you pull your foot from the ground. That's not. Hey, Doug. We all do. We all do. So, so what I'm getting at is it's not Dr. Romanoff's opinion of what should happen. It's a description of what does happen. And it's not your option, Doug, to, to, to choose to do those things or not. The reality is

it's, it's, it's less of an option. It's more of an optimization. So all runners do it. And, and so whether you heel strike, you will still be in the pose position. Your timing will just be off and you will expose your joints to unnecessary load. So that's why it, it, for me personally, it gets frustrating when people are like, well, I don't do pose. Well, pose describes running period. The three elements that you can't avoid. I figured it was just a special way. You change your running mechanics to do this thing because it's more... Me being a dumb meathead, I didn't know that. Thank you very much.

Well, pose is the different positions you are in, running or not. I mean, dancing, you're in different poses. So the audience can pull this up. You can do a Google image search and see the sequences of falling. You can see this cadence. You just pull it up on your computer right now and you can see the positions right and as it was said earlier i mean pose we're all in poses as we move and as we sit and everything but as as you were discussing earlier that uh you're just looking you have the pose concept or the pose method and these are the

ways that you teach people how proper poses and so i think people do get confused when they say hey i run pose or something like this uh when maybe they should be just saying hey i learned how to i know how to run well but they're using the pose method to teach proper technique so i think there's confusion because people start comparing pose to say chi running or i don't even know what all the different running styles there are. I know there's like classic heel strike. I don't know if there's a marketing name for that. Bad running.

For the makers of bad running, comes. Regular running. Regular running. That's what I call it. Yeah, that was one of the things. We've had a discussion before. It's like, that's just the way you're supposed to run. You know, pose running is just the way.

That's just the way. Like you said, it's not an invention. It's not an innovative thing. It's innovative in the way it's being described. It's the concept, the method, the way it's taught is what's innovative, not the actual movement. So it's called discovery in science. Newton didn't invent gravity.

He discovered gravity. This is what the difference is. Regarding heel striking, how did people start heel striking, or is that something that people have always done, or is it actually because of modern footwear and padded heels and all that? Talk about heel striking.

All right. Let's take a break real quick. Oh, let's tease. This is Andrea Ager and you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Barbell Shrug is brought to you by you.

To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrug.com and sign up for the newsletter. And we're back. It was a long week. What was the question again, Danny? I just want Dr. Romoff to talk about heel striking and just kind of the history of that

and really is it as bad as everyone says it is? Why do you heel strike? Is it going to injure you? Why does it happen? Just talk about it. Okay. This is a good question. First of all, science as a matter of fact started really in the 19th century.

And probably the most profound scientist in this case was Etienne-Julius Marais, a French engineer and cinematographer. It's his book, La Mouvement, in 1895. 1895. Yes, it's La Mouvement. It was a classical thing. As classic as you get it. I want that.

Can I get that book somewhere? Yes, it was repeated in 1972 by New York publishing house but it's out of print long time ago oh yeah but you get copy it's probably very difficult but maybe you get copies your copy so I was missing you know he described you know this is the whole science it's first amper call it descriptive science you know french scientists from 17th century he called it descriptive science so he described how running happened, but didn't explain why it's happened, you know. And he didn't care about heel striking.

In the early stages in the last century, running described, if you run slow, you're running through the heel. If you're running faster, you're getting on the forefoot. Is heel striking like a new occurrence due to new footwear uh but in footwear it kind of again cycle will return back you know and people start think about running as a panacea for life um solving problems you know yeah yeah yeah health happiness and so on you know this is is what jogging came up, you know.

And nobody knew how to run properly. It was a huge explosion in the popularity of, it turned into a fad. Yes, of course. Jogging, what was that, 70s? No, no, no, no, no. It's 60s, you know. It started in New Zealand.

Those damn Kiwis. No, no, no. It's Arthur Leder. Arthur Leder started in Auckland, New Zealand. Michael Waits, the Kiwi hate mail. Everybody's like, hey! Bill Bowman saw that something unusual was happening there. He, in 1962, went over there, got acquainted with Arthur Ledger,

ran with them, almost was killed because what they ran over there, it was a club of big monkeys, people who run a lot. And they run about 100 miles. It was philosophy of Arthur Ledger. He's told to be fit, you have to run 100 miles. That's pretty fit. Wow. Wow. Yes.

And Bill Bowman come back with this virus from New Zealand in America, and it's boom. Was he the guy from Nike? Yes, he's the founder of Nike with Phil Knight together. They worked together in Oregon, huge in Oregon. And what happened next is he wrote the book, Jogging. And because he didn't know how to approach with technique, he just wrote, it's not important how you run,

it's important that you run at all. It's a declaration. And because he had the incredible authority, it's important that you run at all. It's a declaration, you know. And because he had the incredible authority, he basically dropped America into trouble. And then he came with these wedge shoes. We created this. We created the problem.

Now we're going to create the solution. Yes. Sounds like government. Absolutely. No, Michael, don't take this into a political direction. And he pulled out this Nike and he was an incredible entrepreneur

and running boom happened and shoe industries overnight become... A hundred billion dollars later, you got Nike shoes floating everywhere. It's correct. What's funny about all that,

we were talking about before the show how the heel is such an interesting thing because in mammals or animals, anybody who's running really fast,

there's no heel. Animals do not have... Where's the heel on a cheetah or a horse? I wrote this in the book in my book. You know, their knees are backwards too.

What the hell? Yeah, I gotta get some of those. Their backwards knee is their heel. Heels are... What? That's their ankle.

It's their ankle. And their backwards knee never touches the ground that's all right we have a biology major here no but yeah i mean you said the heel is a is a is a human specific structure for standing upright as are big glutes to help hold a body upright these are all things yes all right it's upright there for a reason but like the heel obviously if you needed a heel to run cheetahs would have heels they look really weird if they had heels but they would if you needed it to run of course evolution would not miss this point you know in this case here

and fastest animals do not have hills and you have to admit this or you are denying something very obvious you know and telling there is no spots on the sun, like past. You remember history with Galileo Galilei about these things. Oh yeah, Galileo points out that maybe everything is not what we assume it is. And these guys

from Vatican told, no, I don't see it. They basically denied these things. So hills striking, it was a kind from Vatican told no I don't see it they basically denied so heels striking it was a kind of easy solution to

not talk about technique you know it was because everyone could run through the heels you know

and shoes were developed exactly to fit these unskillful runners you know it was a mass marketing thing. It's correct, right.

And people believe in it. They want to run and they run and they don't need to think how to run. They pay price for this, obviously. By end of 70s, Runners World magazine in 1977 produced first survey about injuries. Results were outstanding.

Two from three runners were injured every year. You mentioned that people didn't think it was a big deal because, well, the heel has plenty of cushioning, right? It's got this little fat pad on the heel. It shouldn't be a problem. So why are the injuries happening with the heel strike? I mean... Because, Mike, it's very simple.

It's a physical reality. Again, you're creating break, you know. You're on the heel, you're breaking. You're movement. And faster you run, Again, you're creating brake, you know. You're on a hill, you're braking your movement. And faster you run, more brake you're creating. So you're putting your heel down in front of your body and that's causing a braking force? Of course. It's like a kickstand right out in front of you?

It's correct. It's not increasing absolute magnitude of interaction with the ground because it's related only with the speed. But when you're heel striking, this impact is just distributing over your body and hits some places which are

weaker. It's not being absorbed by the foot and the knee. Hitting the heel, the knee is more than likely not bent in that position and it's driving the force right in your head and back. Yes, it's correct. And you're restarting the effort each time you put your foot. Of course, you have to compensate.

Reclaim your momentum each time. Of course, you're losing. You understand, brake is brake. It's like an unskillful driver he's pushing simultaneously on the gas pedal and the brake pedal together. Inefficient, the hardest way to run,

the braking and the joint impact is going to cause, you know, osteo issues. The rate of injuries in running is outstanding, bigger than any other dangerous sports. Do you understand guys? So I mean, it's, you're going to move faster, more efficient, less energy, and you're less likely to be injured if you're if you're running an optimal pose it's correct you know if you're using the pose method to learn to run how do you get started doing learning how the the proper pose method you you have to it's like everything else you're learning you know first of all you have to learn main principle of nature you know nature to be commanded

must be obeyed it's not not my words, it's Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon was a pretty smart guy. Yes. Put it kindly. And a very vicious guy. He was famous for this. He was in a very big position in

a king's court and he used this power. He liked the power power yes like newton as well yeah so because we have here if you want it's like if you want to lift a heavy barbell over your head there's a right way to snatch a barbell you can try alternatives but you will not optimal way people think this way you see this is what mistake they think if i'm pulling up in snitch some white pipe, it's absolutely different when I'm pulling 200 pounds. It's not. It's the same thing. It's confusion only.

That's why the same thing happening in running. People think, oh, I run anyway in two meters per second you know like slow run jogging yes so the degree of your performance doesn't matter this is a beginner runner and then Hussein bolt and all the marathons they're all obey the principles it's a matter of yes just the matter of how much you are being you know this is a point thinking that you can because while you're running slow and you can deviate a lot and you're accumulating injury potential slowly so over time you have illusions that you are not injured you know that happens with our bills too but for

sure that i know doctor but i can tell you that. I got the data for that. It's a quote on the podcast. And then one day you suddenly wake up and like, oh, it's pain there. That happened on my 30th birthday. I turned 30 and I was like, I've been doing everything wrong. Oh, everywhere. I will give you a Russian joke about this, you know. Oh, perfect. We love Russian jokes.

Oh, great. It's innocent, you know we love Russian joke great it's one it's innocent you know if you are over 40 and you wake up in the morning and nothing hurt you're dead it's about perception speaking of perception I first I guess maybe heard you speak a little bit I spent maybe two or three years now since that video you did with Louie Simmons popped up on the internet. It was four years ago.

You guys can go on YouTube right now. It's a seven-part little series of videos called A Violent Agreement. What's fascinating about that is here you are. Here you are describing Pose and all these things. On the other side of the room next to Greg is Louie Simmons.

I referenced him in a talk I did, and we got to talk a little bit about him after we left the room, how this is a very curious thing. One, you're very different, but now Louie is accepting and sort of sharing. Maybe he's so open-minded, he's probably adopting some of your stuff into power. I would not surprise me. I think he is doing this.

Yes. But to see such opposed backgrounds meet so perfectly in the middle and agree on almost everything. The big thing was mentality. It was the first point, right? Yes. You talked about the four-minute mile.

Then Louis talks about what it takes to be strong. And going back to that brain discussion, to be a great runner like anything else, you have to break through the barriers that are holding you back. But Louis Simmons is a scientist, you know. He's a real scientist and an open-minded scientist. You see, when I'm telling real scientists,

it means that he has an open mind, you know. He has no barriers of this thing. So he's very quiet about somebody's different opinion. You know, he's accepting this. If he logically accepts this. And he told me, your logic is good. He told me. And I have nothing against this.

So we become friends. So speaking of scientists, have serious researchers taken the pose method versus other types of running methods and compared them over time? One group of people with 100 people versus another group of people with 100 people and they

train for 8 weeks or a year and they compare injury rates at the end of the year or they compare one style of running to another style of running or to the pose method of running and they run a certain distance and they measure caloric expenditure or average heart rate at the same speed. Has there been studies done on the pose method versus other styles of running with trained, experienced athletes? Yes, it's done. In 2004, it was published in the American College of Sports Medicine article.

It was a collaboration with Cape Town University, with Tim Noakes' team, and I was a participant of this. Obviously, it was post-medicine, that's why. We found it was three groups for foot runners, heel,

toe runners, and post-runners. And post-runners, I prepared myself. And all of them were barefoot to exclude any foot Shoes Interference so no rocket shoes. It's correct. Yes, and the results were outstanding, you know first of all impact like kneeing rate on the imposed method group was 50% less.

Which is a huge number. Yes. You don't usually find those kinds of differences in scientific studies. It's correct. Profoundly different. Yes, and Tim Knox, one of the most open scientists in the world, and he's a physiologist, and he always told me, Nicholas, you will explain me how to run, I will explain how it works in physiology, something like that.

I tried to teach him at that time running pose. He said, no, no, no, I'm old dog, and you will not teach old dog tricks, you know. And the last time I visited in May, it was World Triathlon Series. I was with the Russian team in Cape Town and I visited him there. And he told, Nicholas, I'm running now Paul's method. So he resisted and he accepted once he realized. Yeah, because he become ill, you know. He got sick, you you know and he had no choice really will continue in order to continue he told i'm running now on a far foot like you

advised me so the point in the study and he can you want to talk about where the the magnitude from the knee is redistributed. Thank you for... Thank you. I was going to bring that up. Thank you. It was in this same study, it was shown that while on the knee was reduced, there was an increase on the foot, on the ankle. But it's a logical distribution.

Actually, ankle and Achilles tendon exactly is a mechanism which is responsible for taking this load. It's there for a reason. That's the whole point of an Achilles tendon. Oh, of course. It's better to distribute the load over multiple large joints

rather than just one focal joint. And then if you're distributing across the calf and the Achilles tendon as well, the calf especially is very vascular. It's going to get sore and it's going to recover very quickly as opposed to, you know, only your, your passive soft tissue structures, like your cartilage and your ligaments and your tendons to some extent, if they take all the force and all the load, they're going to get damaged, damaged, damaged, damaged, and eventually break because they can't recover, excuse me recover as quickly as something like your calf muscles. Absolutely. This is what

reason is. But what our experience is that our runners, whom we teach in control, that they run really posed, they don't have knee problems. And the calf problems happen, but very seldom, you know. It's happening. I really love about the about comparing we're just kind of bouncing back and forth between what how animals are I won't say design but how animals are equipped through certain things like certain gorillas and chimpanzees and other promise that correct me if I'm

wrong don't have Achilles tendons they correct no Achilles structures because what they don't run around yes they charge a little bit they have some shuffling but they are made for for some posturing and some climbing. But we share the characteristics with horses and kangaroos and these fast cats in that we have the ability to run. That shows me right there, you need to

put as much force in you as you can in a healthy way as you can. That's what's going to keep you springing forward. Kangaroos is the best example. I would love to bring this topic. Kangarooos is the best example, you know. I would love to bring this topic. Kangaroo was researched by a group of McNeil Alexander,

it's a professor from Leeds University of UK. One of the best guys in this field. They found a very interesting thing that Achilles tendons were loaded over there,

but with faster speed, actually loading didn't increase. What increased, they're leaning forward, they call it like that. And they messed it up, they should have been calling it falling. They're smart, but not so smart.

I was reading this article, I'm like, the answer is right there, guys. So if I want to get started pose running, which I have done that before. I did a CrossFit endurance seminar for a weekend, and my calves were pretty sore, which means I wasn't doing it right in the first place. That's correct. But if I want to get started, if somebody want to go okay what do i do

all right you've convinced me i want to i want to row you know uh run pose optimally what's their first step in a practical way i would if you live in miami for example i would ask you run on the sand you know you see on the sand you can't be on the hills like the loose soft sand or like the sand that's right close to the water

that's firm loose sand so you can't you're saying that if you heel strike in the sand you're not gonna have any locomotion

no interesting I never even thought about that before and you cannot over stride over there you understand you cannot

do push off I used to run in the sand a lot and now that I think about it yeah it was we always And you cannot overstride over there. You understand? You cannot do push-off. I used to run in the sand a lot. And now that I think about it, yeah, it was all, we always, I felt like I always had to shorten my stride. Yeah, of course. You just blew Mike's mind. I'm like, holy shit, doctor.

Instant fix. I ran on the beach for months and months and months, like every day for a while. Yes. That's interesting. So you can't push off you have to lean and use use gravity while falling and if you try to push off it's too loose it'll dissipate your force and it'll be it'll screw you up it's correct i have a good one because nate brought nate helming was on a show he's been here speaking he said generally i guess he would agree with you and he's not gonna argue but i guess he said on our show like one question he had was like what do you do when there's some variance?

For instance, you run pose, but what if you need to go up a hill? It doesn't change gravity. It doesn't care when you run downhill, uphill, or on an interfering course like trail. Gravity still works the same way. What? I'm just kidding. So if you're running up a small hill, your center is still well above ground level of course right so you can still lean forward and have your

center mass even with a very high level of inclination you're still falling it's not like a push-off but maybe you have to raise yourself up more than you fall you have to extend the legs and raise up and you fall instead of just forward. You're still falling the same way, but there will be work done to vertical development of your body. Is that a...

The Princeton... No, it's not a fire alarm. It's a very polite fire alarm. I think it's someone's phone. Oh, then it'll show. It's not mine. I think it's someone's phone. Oh, okay. Oh, then it'll show. It's not mine. I heard you don't use phones. No, no, no.

That's right. Is there something in the Russian culture that frowns against phone use? Did you say in a very classic way, oh, he's classic Russian, no phones. Was it Brian McKenzie? I was trying to get a hold of him. Oh, Brian said it. No, I was on Thursday. I was like, I knew that Dr. Romanoff was going to be here.

I was like, I don't want to miss him. So, Brian, I know you know him. So, can you, like, shoot him a text or give him a phone call? He goes, ha. Bro, he's old school Russian, bro. Whoa. That's definitely what Brian said. When I hear old school Russian, I picture you doing math on a board, drinking vodka,

nailing out these problems. But you live in Miami now, so you drink vodka or tequila? No, neither one. I'm disappointed. Different creature in this case. I do love red wine, nice red wine.

My favorite is Pinot Noir. Oh, yeah, me too. All right, if you ever open in Northern California in the next month, I'll be there. Fantastic vineyards. We can go. Is there still a community that is like super opposed to the Poe's running method

and you get hate mail from them all the time saying you're fucking totally full of shit? Does that happen? It was the beginning. He doesn't have an email. Is that why you got rid of your phone? Look, I told you I'm old school Russian. No communication.

There's got to be people that are stuck in their old ways that don't want to accept any new ways of doing things, right? Of course, it's happening. Some people even deliberately would come to my clinics to oppose and dispute what I'm saying. How dare they oppose post? Obviously they failed because there is no really any kind of scientific evidence they could bring up.

I studied this field thoroughly for so many years. And what people are bringing are disappointments. Let's get one t-shirt. What you're bringing is only disappointment. Step away from the microphone. I really never met any serious counter arguments. And I met deliberately some people, very highly educated people, like astrophysics guys from Nederland.

I made a special appointment with this guy in Eschen. His bones are in the end. Throw that thing out the window. And that guy, incredible mathematician, you know. I came to him and I would like to taste my idea and my concept about running. He told, speak up. I told, let me show you some graphs.

He told, don't worry about this. I do understand this. It's just the same concept. And I'm telling, it's very simple. You know, it comes from things like Galileo Galilei's things and I consider that we are moving forward by gravitational force which translated through rotational torque and body weight moment you know and he told and what's the problem here I told not just I think this is what how we're moving in running at all, in any movement, he told.

I did not see any problem. He's like, and? What's the actual question? Yes, and next single, he told. It's fine. And I have two questions, I told. Please do. He's asking me, did anyone come with this concept before you? I told, not really.

He told, well, good. Next, my question is, did you publish in Scientific American or Nature? I told, not. He told, I advise you. So this is what story. You see, this guy, nothing to do with running, you know. He doesn't care about his ego not hurting

because of my concept. So he's free. And I met people of that level, several, you know, and none of them was against this. So people who are going to resist might have a bias towards protecting the way they do things. It's correct. They just don't want, they're not open to saying maybe they were wrong and maybe they could learn a change. This is a fundamental issue. It's not the science.

It's not the idea. No, no, no. The real scientists are absolutely quiet about these things, you know, and they understand behind this logic, you know, and not just pulled down our ceiling, you know, or sucked from the thing. It was coming from a long story of human beings, you know. It reminds me when you hear arguments of, people will say quite passionately,

well, certain other ideas in science are bullshit too. Like, you know, for instance, species don't descend through certain mechanisms and adapt to an environment to which there's no limit to the evidence to the contrary. No one's going to argue certain things in nature because we have just loads of evidence. In this case, a lot of mathematics

that can't really be further. This is the language. I have already a set of equations explaining how it's happening, you know, how rotational movement is converting

into linear movement. We have already these things and we invited real mathematicians who developed these equations for us, you know.

Yeah. So you have a book, we're going to have to wrap this up here in a second. You have a book coming out? Yes. When is it coming out? What's it called?

Where do we get it? It's a book called Running Revolution. It's coming September 30th. It's a publishing house. Yes, it's Running Revolution, September 30th. Penguin House. It's in Amazon. The pre-sale is going on.

Do you guys have any printed copies already? Yes, it's right there. Go grab one and pull it out. Yeah, yeah, show it on the camera. It's Publishing House. Send us some copy. Do you guys run a website or anything like that where people should visit?

Yes, Pose Method or Pose Tech. Yeah, I'll link to all this stuff in the notes. It's PoseMethod.com. Yeah, I'll link to all this stuff in the notes too. It's PoseMethod.com. Mm-hmm. Okay. That's also the name of your other book? Yes, it's correct.

That's right. If you guys enjoyed those videos, those are online. YouTube.com slash learn how to run. Learn how to run on YouTube. Mm-hmm. YouTube.com slash learn how to run. And we're going to put the links in the show. Make sure to go to barbellshrug.com slash learn how to run. And we're going to put the links in the show. Make sure to go to barbell shrug.com.

Click on, you can go to like wherever we're posting this, which will be on the blog, the podcast link, and you'll be able to get all the show notes and all that kind of stuff. We do that now. So there's value to go into the website. You should also go sign up for the newsletter.

So you can find out when we do things like come to Princeton and kidnap Dr. Rock. Maybe you won't miss out next time. Thanks for coming on the show guys. letter so you can find out when we do things like come to princeton and uh kidnap dr rock maybe you won't miss out next time thanks for coming on the show guys oh my pleasure we're only scratching at the issues yes it's correct i would say i would miss this communication between you and me it's very lovely and very friendly and thank you very much inspiring communications thank you guys I appreciate from bottom of my heart if you would like to move into other fields related with movement I would be yours you flatter you making us feel good definitely gonna have you back