Everyone had impressive improvement with their running form during the seminar on Saturday.

back row (l to r) Adam, Aney, Lindsay, Brian front row (l to r) Max, Allison

Analyzing Allison's form

What is a good morning?

The good morning is a compound movement working the back and hamstrings. It is used as an assistance exercise for strengthening the posterior chain.

With the bar on your back, bend forward at the hips until your torso is parallel to the floor, then return to a standing position. In other words, take a bow with a weight on your back!

Why is it such a great exercise?

The good morning is an effective way to strengthen the back. It also requires confidence and control to perform well, which are useful skills to master.

Although it might look a bit dangerous at first glance, it is perfectly safe if performed with proper technique and an appropriate weight.

Good mornings have been a standard assistance exercise in olympic weightlifting for many decades. Heavy good mornings and concentric good mornings have been popularised for powerlifters by Westside Barbell.

How to perform the good morning

continue

We have scheduled another Running Seminar for Aug 14th at Crossfit NYC from 9-4.

Click here for more details and to sign up.

Here are a few words and phrases which might be used to describe a good runner: light on the feet, bouncy, ‘quick’, floating, easy, relaxed, flowing, taut…

Here are a few words and phrases which are more likely to spring to mind when watching many runners at the average running race, marathon or triathlon: tired, heavy, flat footed, plodding, uncomfortable, painful, ‘slow’, saggy…

If you ran as a kid, and have been running ever since, there is a fair chance that you will be able to run well without having to think about it too much.

If that isn’t the case don’t despair. There are a few things that you can do to improve your running technique – and simply running more miles isn’t necessarily one of them. Learning new techniques, however, does take time so, though you might feel a change straight away and for a short distance, it will probably take a while before your you see the impact on your times and results.

The first thing to do is to understand a little of the mechanics of running – just enough to understand what it is you are trying to achieve, which things will be beneficial and which things will be counter productive. And why.

The aim of running is simply to propel your body forward as quickly and efficiently as possible. Any energy that doesn’t contribute to propelling the body forward is wasted. This could be energy which is used to push in the wrong direction or energy which is not converted to movement in any direction.

I don’t care how efficient I am, I just want to go faster… It’s a pretty safe bet that if you are running more than 50 meters then you already have the ability to run faster. To run faster times, however, you must be able to keep going. Eating will provide you with the fuel, a trained cardiovascular system will carry the fuel to the muscles, strong muscles will turn the fuel into a lot of force …and inefficient technique will waste it.

Here are a few ways in which running can easily become inefficient:

for the full list, continue reading at Crossfit Balboa