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Hey, I'm David Weck. Today, I'm going to teach you how to optimize your running mechanics by training with the BOSU Elite. Notice that I have a stick in my hand because this is functional strength training that will lead to athletic balance. It’s not balance training, its strength training.
So here's the way it works: First we have to get the feet strong in the correct way. What that means is that we need to get the feet strong with the toes extended, where you're able to distribute your weight through the ball of the foot through the end of the toes and you want to be able to balance with those two points across the foot right here. You want to be able to send weight through that and the BOSU Elite is very friendly, you can pulse through that; you want to be able to be strong there and if you notice what happens when I do that is my knee goes forward. The shin angle becomes more aggressive for projecting my body forward, so I need my body to be strong that way.
Now I want to just continue that. The calves and the bottoms of the feet are going to send the knee forward and pass it off to the hip flexors, which are going to finish the job of the flexion of the hip and the bending of the knee. What this does is this teaches us not to use the hamstrings to actively bend the knee. We want the hamstrings reserved for extension of the hips. We master that basic weight shift where we're just shuffling the knees forward, but stabilize it. You're punching the knees forward and landing on the foot.
Now, we take that, once you got those mechanics, to do what looks likes high knees, but I'm not lifting my knees high. I want to keep my head perfectly level and I want to send my foot up. So watch my foot: my foot gets sent up, and then I drive with the hamstring down. What this marching is going to do when I start hitting it and putting as much force into the Elite as I possibly can, that is fortifying the lower extremity of foot/ankle/plantar/fascia/achilles/etc. and it’s giving me that proper balance and timing of knowing where my center is and knowing I can BOOM. As my body is falling to the earth at 9.8 m/s2, I have the mechanics to beat myself down there with the base and strong position that sends me forward without disturbing the balance of the center.
So now we can get to the really hard part and fun part; we're actually going to run in place on here. You'll eventually get to the point where you don't need the stick, but I highly recommend you use it so that you're getting more quality reps. Now, I'm running in place and notice how I'm perfectly still here through core stability and the range of motion is happening at the hips and it’s the mechanics. Once I start to hit the BOSU ball and emphasizing speed power hitting, doing both sides, of course [for non-dominant side training], now my body is primed when I come down to the ground to be projecting forward. When I land, my foot is not collapsing, sending me forward.
It has taught me the mechanics of how I get the foot to cycle through the gait cycle with the least amount of cost and the proper coordination of all the musculature. Its a fantastic cardiovascular exercise as well. That's how you can truly make a difference in optimizing proper running form, because it’s an internal queuing that happens from time on this very special form of tension. When you're on that very special form on tension, it’s creating this training effect, connecting the center to the base, and coordinating the base to hit the ground better.
Nothing will improve your running more substantially than a better exchange with the ground and this is the vehicle for feeling it, for training it and owning it. It’s not in your head, it’s throughout. That's running better with the BOSU Elite.
