Importance of Relaxed Ankles when Chi Running

The essence of Chi Running is the use of the momentum of the forward fall to pull you forward rather than using the muscles in your legs and feet to push you forward. The ankles play an important part in facilitating the momentum of the forward fall.

When running, the support phase of your stride occurs whenever one of your feet contacts the ground and supports your body weight. During the support phase you create the momentum of the forward fall by ensuring your posture is aligned and leaned in front of the ankle of the foot in contact with the ground. Provided there is no tension in the ankle, the forward momentum is created by the lean which moves all your body weight in front of the loose ankle. Your ankle serves as a hinge between your aligned posture and your foot. You want this hinge to operate freely without any resistance that would impede the forward fall and its momentum. This is only possible if the ankle is completely free of any tension. Tension is created by engaging the calf muscles or the muscles in the foot. Therefore to ensure there is no tension in the ankles all the muscles from the knee down must be completely relaxed. Imagine how may fewer running injuries you will fall victim to by not using the muscles in the lower legs!

Calf muscles and foot muscles are used to actively create movement of the foot. The term “active” is used to mean muscles are intentionally engaged to cause movement. The easiest way to ensure the calf and foot muscles are not actively used is to just visualize releasing all tension in the ankles. Another great visualization that helps avoid actively engaging calf or foot muscles is to pretend that you have no feet and you are running instead on your legs only. Remember the pirate “Long John Silver” who has a peg leg? Well visualize you are “Long John Chi Runner”? who has two peg legs :->