I wrote the following for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer in Raleigh; it appeared in both papers on Tuesday, Sept. 17. It runs here with links. Check out my personal take on Chi Running, which I wrote about last week.

The best way to get the most out of running?

“Look at the way you used to run as a kid,” says Pat Reichenbach of Angier. “They’re constantly taking quick steps and leaning forward to let their body, not their legs, do most of the work.”

In a way, carefree children have been pioneering what is emerging as the next big thing in running: Chi Running.

Chi (pronounced “chee”) Running borrows from the Chinese martial art form of tai chi and is becoming increasingly popular for everyone from beginners launching into their first zero-to-5K program to longtime runners frustrated by successive injuries.

The essence of Chi Running and its main selling point: Running and injuries needn’t be synonymous.

It’s a good pitch considering that an estimated two-thirds of runners suffer an injury serious enough to curtail their training in any given year.

“It was life-changing,” said Amy Peacock, 42, who endured a litany of common running injuries – shin splints, heel pain, plantar fasciitis – after running her first marathon in 1997.

The Charlotte woman heard about Chi Running in 2005, attended a clinic and hasn’t been injured since. She became so enamored of Chi Running that she became an instructor in 2006 and works with everyone from long-time, competitive runners to newbies in a zero-to-5K program she began teaching last week at the YWCA Central Carolinas in Charlotte.

To the uninitiated, its ties to tai chi may suggest an eastern philosophical bent, but really it’s about common sense and good form.

As Chi Running founder Danny Dreyer, of Asheville, says, “Running does not cause injury; incorrect or inefficient running technique is the true culprit.”

That may mark the biggest difference between the Chi approach and traditional running: There’s a much greater emphasis on form than you’ll find with more traditional running programs.

“It’s a very efficient approach that made a whole lot of sense to me,” says Dan Heyl, a Raleigh engineer who attended a Chi Running clinic two years ago.

“You don’t think twice about good form being essential for golf and tennis,” says Reichenbach, who, like Peacock, became an instructor shortly after taking the course. “Why not running?”

6 main principles

Chi Running’s approach is based on six key principles:

• Correct alignment and posture. Much of the instruction focuses on getting your body in line while running to avoid injuries associated with certain parts of the body absorbing too much of the running load.

• Landing with a mid-foot strike. This dovetails with the premise of Christopher McDougall’s 2009 best-seller, “Born to Run,” which is widely credited with sparking the current running revival.

Runners became injured, McDougall wrote, because plush running shoes promoted a heel-strike stride that was the antithesis of our natural running form and encouraged injury. The foot’s bone structure, McDougall and Chi Running proponents agree, is built to handle the pounding of a mid-foot strike.

Many Chi runners tend to use less-padded shoes than traditional runners.

• Using a “gravity-assisted” forward lean. The big advantage here: Leaning forward lets you take advantage of gravity, which saves energy. It’s not so helpful on uphills, but a noticeable plus on flats and downhills, say practitioners.

“It’s tremendously helpful on downhills, says Tim Whitmire of Charlotte, who with the help of Chi Running has resumed his quest to run a marathon in all 50 states (he’s currently at 26). “I release myself and let gravity take me downhill.”

• Engaging core strength for propulsion, rather than relying on leg strength. This concept gets a little more physiologically esoteric, but basically by engaging your core by sucking in your stomach and tightening your abdominal muscles, your core assumes a greater workload, keeping your legs fresh.

• Maintaining a short stride and quick cadence. Doing this does several things, say instructors. It encourages a mid-foot strike, it keeps your center of balance over your feet (especially helpful for trail runners, says Peacock, who are more prone to tripping on tree roots and rocks), it makes hills easier and it puts less stress and demand on the leg muscles.

• Connecting the mind and body. For most runners the transition to Chi Running doesn’t happen overnight. “It’s a lot to learn at one time,” says Reichenbach, whose workshops generally last five hours.

“I’m still a student,” says Heyl, who took Reichenbach’s workshop two years ago. “I’m constantly doing a body scan, feeling the road, my ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, what I’m doing with my arms.”

He says the scan is quick and doesn’t detract from his run. “It’s not a distraction. It’s very quick. It’s like a finger snap.”

In addition to reducing injuries, Chi Runners say the approach enables them to run longer and more frequently. Perhaps more importantly, though, a passion that due to injuries had devolved into a labor of love has dropped the downside.

“It’s made running so much more comfortable,” says Heyl. “It’s made running a lot of fun.”

It’s also given Heyl, who recently turned 50, a carrot to keep him active into old age.

“It’s so easy on the body,” he says. “I was looking for something to do into my 80s and I really think this style of running will let me do that.”

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More info

Chi Running, which puts far more emphasis on form than traditional running, is growing in popularity. Proponents say there are fewer injuries because runners land mid-foot rather than on the heel. For more info:

• On Pat Reichenbach’s Chi Running clinics in the Triangle area: www.patspersonaltraining.com or call 919-753-5734.

• On Amy Peacock’s eight-week Chi Running Training course at the YWCA Central Carolinas in Charlotte: www.ywcacentralcarolinas.org or call 704.525.5770.

• On Chi Running in general: www.chirunning.com.

The post Chi running: Run like a kid again appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Their parents didn’t swim. A traumatic event involving water in their childhood continues to haunt them. There wasn’t a pool where they grew up — or there was, but they couldn’t use it. They worry about their hair.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37 percent of American adults don’t know how to swim. In 2007, says the CDCP, the nation’s clearinghouse for health information, there were 3,443 “fatal unintentional drownings” in the U.S., nearly 80 percent of whom were adults. The vast majority died because they didn’t know how to swim, a fact that’s scaring a growing number of non-aquatic adults into taking lessons.
Earlier this year, 36-year-old Rhonda Ingram of Raleigh and her family were vacationing at Myrtle Beach. Her 3-year-old and 1-year-old were bugging her to go swimming in the hotel pool; she said no because she knew she wouldn’t be any help if they got into trouble.
“I always thought if I put my face in the water, I’d drown,” says Ingram.
Which is why she and a half dozen other adult women are in the three-foot-deep end of Raleigh’s Optimist Park Pool, trusting instructor Roger Sharrett to put their assorted fears of the water to rest.
“It takes a lot of confidence and faith to be comfortable in water,” says Sharrett. That touches on what instructors say is the biggest challenge for people learning to swim later in life.
“Adults have more fear,” says Kelley Chisholm, who also teaches at Optimist. “Eighty-five to 90 percent of adults have had some traumatic event, an uncle or someone who threw them into a lake.”
“Adults have a bad experience and it tends to carry with them the rest of their life,” adds Craig J. Howard, aquatics director at the Stratford Richardson YMCA in Charlotte.
Which is why before his students even hit the water, Howard gets them to talk about why they haven’t learned to swim. It’s why he spends 30 minutes of the first lesson just getting them to stick their face in the water and blow bubbles.
That was key to Jebronis Knight, a 40-year-old student of Chisholm’s who was reluctant to even get in the water the first day.
“You could see the fear on my face,” says Knight. It took three lessons, but Knight managed to reach what instructors say is the tipping point for most adult learners: He’s relaxed enough, his breathing controlled to the point he can now float. His ability to float makes him confident of achieving his goal: to go snorkeling in the Caribbean on a cruise later this year.
Fear isn’t the only factor that’s held back some adults.
Charlie Spencer Lackey is an African-American who came of age in Anson County in the 1960s. There was a public pool in town, but even with the repeal of Jim Crow laws in the 1960s her family couldn’t afford the suddenly-imposed $500 membership. She took lessons in 1970 when she got to North Carolina Central University, but the instructor, who remained in street clothes on the pool deck, didn’t inspire confidence.
Health issues — rheumatoid arthritis and stomach issues — prompted her to try again. Since discovering the Optimist pool last October (initially water walking, now taking swim lessons) she’s dropped a dress size and her joint paint has diminished to the point she no longer needs a cane.
“I sleep better these days,” says Lackey, who is 59.
Access to year-round pools, says Howard of the Stratford Richardson YMCA, is a main reason why the lack of swimming skills is particularly acute in the African-American community. According to a 2010 survey commissioned by USA Swimming, 70 percent of African-American kids don’t know how to swim, compared with 58 percent of Hispanic kids and 40 percent of white kids.
Even when there is access to year-round pools such as the Stratford Richardson Y, the reality of $50 swim lessons is an economic deterrent, he says, which is why the Y offers financial assistance.
Howard says another concern is more challenging to overcome: “Minority females worry about their hair and what the [chlorinated] water will do to it.” (There is product, he assures them.)
But the main goal for most newbie adult swimmers is simply to become comfortable in the water.
“Once you learn how your body works in water, you learn that it doesn’t want you to drown,” says Candice Robinson. That, says the 32-year-old Raleigh swim student, was a big relief, though not the only one.
“Finding out you’re not the only 32-year-old person who doesn’t know how to swim, that was good to know.”

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Learn to swim

Most pools that offer swim lessons for kids offer lessons for adults as well.

Charlotte area
Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation, 704-336-3483
YMCA of Greater Charlotte, (704) 716-6200.
YWCA Central Carolinas, (704)525.5770.

Triangle
Durham Parks and Recreation, (919) 560-4355.
Raleigh Parks and Recreation, (919) 831-6852.
YMCA of the Triangle, (919) 719-9622.

Photo: Is it time for you to ditch the floaty and dive in with the kids?

The post Adult swim: It’s never too late to learn appeared first on GetGoing NC!.