Chi Running--any thoughts? (Read 1313 times)

But I am wary of the fact that correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

Of course it does, Jeff. However on page one we learned that in one year trishierunner took 41 minutes off of her marathon time by NOT doing ChiRunning. On page two we learned that chi-tom-run took 30 minutes off of his marathon time in a year WITH ChiRunning. Therefore, NOT doing ChiRunning is a far superior plan than doing ChiRunning. By 11 minutes over the marathon distance, obviously. It's just simple math. BTW are you going to keep the Appalachian State logo all year now that big blue is on a roll?

BTW are you going to keep the Appalachian State logo all year now that big blue is on a roll?

Yep. And the shirt I wore for those first two games stays in a heap in the corner, untouched. I was going to wash it, but I decided that a) I didn't want to contaminate the wash and b) cleaning it may render its current power as a reverse jinx useless. All of this pale in comparison to the stuff I used to do. Bear in mind that I was in the Michigan Marching Band while in school; the first few seasons after graduating, I felt that the only way to guarantee victory was to go to an empty football field the night before the game and march through my old spot in the pre-game show. Now, I focus primarily on the influence of facial hair, apparel, and bathing as it pertains to football excellence. That 1997 thing was real BTW. The one morning that I didn't shower and shave, we were losing 21-7 at halftime to Iowa. I showered and shaved at halftime, and we went on to win 28-24. Actual. Scientific. Data.

Chi-tom, We've had our share of people posting purely just to hawk their wares (while claiming simply to be satisfied users), so we can be a skeptical bunch. As I said before, I'm neither pro nor anti-chi running. I was just skeptical of the one-week claim. But we definitely welcome your input. And I'm glad the chi-running has been successful for you. Cheers, Jeff

Am interested in recovery and endurance training/events. Not seeing a bunch of recovery, but not spent tons of time here yet in all fairness.

What kind of recovery are you looking for (how people recover, how long people take to recover, recovery time for certain distance, etc)? As for endurance training/ events, do you mean HMs, marathons, ultras, ironmans, etc.?

Gee wiz, sorry tom. But it's just that your first post ever on this site was lamenting all the negative comments about ChiRunning by people who knew nothing about it--when in fact the comments seemed to fall equally on both sides up until then. Then when asked what ChiRunning was all about, you only gave some resume details that included the kind of fantastic claims many of us have come to associate with snake oil salesmen, such as chopping a half hour off your marathon time as a direct result of a single ChiRunning class. These things plus the fact that your screen name is subject related and you have no public log or profile tend to cause people to get their guard up. Can you really blame them? You haven't really contributed anything to the conversation. Feel free to join in.

I only take issue with something like this when it is presented as being the SOLE cause for a person's improvement, and then gets a blanket application to everyone else. While I'm quite sure that people who have read/attended training for Chi Running have been helped by it, there are people who have been negatively impacted as well. Some people develop injuries related to the change in form. My point is, the basic tenets of it are sound. I just disagree with the idea that it can be applied to everyone equally. I'm also willing to bet that improvement has more to do with someone's training, and less to do with harnessing their chi.

still searching!

Found.

Maybe because the original poster's question was only partly about ChiRunning and had more to do with taking his marathon time from 4:53 to 4:00. The path to improving race times is well worn and does not require ChiRunning. One doesn't need to know first hand exactly what ChiRunning is all about to know that. There are parts of ChiRunning's basic premises that I agree with. Running is very natural. Children do tend to do it better than adults. Focusing, body sensing, breathing and relaxing are all good things while running (which is why I find it ironic that some of ChiRunning's proponents ALSO use HRMs and iPods but that's another story.) But ChiRunning quickly gets off the rails from posture, breathing and relaxing and into fanciful claims about running at your current level with 30% of your current energy output, and running faster and farther with less effort. These claims are directly targeted at our collective instant gratification impulses. Experienced runners who know what it takes to run injury free and to improve race performances over the long term see this for what it is--another marketing scheme targeted at people beginning running later in life with more money than time and wanting instant results. There is probably some value in runners actually learning Tai Chi (or yoga for that matter.) Balance, relaxation, posture, core strength--these are all good things. But ChiRunning looks and smells like a marketing scheme designed to separate insecure newbie runners from their dollars.