Postural Alignment

The four main components of the ChiRunning form are posture, lean, heel lift and arm swing. This blog entry discusses posture.

Within the ChiRunning technique your aligned posture is the foundation upon which everything else is built. When I focus on the components of the ChiRunning technique during a run, I always start with my posture and will not move on to any other component until I am certain my posture is aligned. If my posture is out of alignment (and regardless of how I implement the other components) I will simply not achieve the desired results. I constantly tell myself “If my posture is out of alignment I can’t ChiRun”. I learned this the hard way through a number of runs where the proper alignment of my posture was not adequately emphasized and I wasted my time trying to get everything else working.

You align your posture so that when viewed from the side you can visualize a straight line through your shoulders, hips and ankles. When viewed from the front or back you can visualize a straight line creating a central axis running down from the top of your head to the middle of your feet.

This central axis can be thought of as a needle that runs vertically through a cotton ball. The needle is the postural alignment of your neck, spine, hips and legs. When you align your posture, all you do is move the neck, spine, hips and legs in place and without using muscle energy to hold it there. When you are in alignment everything else around the needle is the cotton and should be soft and relaxed, especially when you run.

When you align your posture you deal with your body in three separate sections. The lower body – which is everything from the hips down. The pelvis, and lastly the upper body which is everything above the pelvis to the top of your head.

You align your posture in four separate steps. First you align your lower body by aligning your legs and feet. Then you align your upper body by lengthening your spine and straightening your neck. Then you align the pelvis with the upper body by levelling the pelvis. At this point, the body is two separate straight sections and hinged at the hips. The last step is to bring those two separate parts in alignment with each other. Detailed instructions and exercises on how to align your posture are provided within the ChiRunning book, video DVDs and audio CDs.