Danny Dreyer from Chi Running on Energy Efficiency, Injury Prevention and Intelligent Movement

He said the hardest thing there is of any martial artists or anything is to really learn really good posture because that's your structure, that's what supports you. And so I thought, okay, well, this feels good. So I really worked on my posture. And then I said, well, what if I take this posture line and do what I've been trying to get into my running and throw— get posture but throw a tilt into it? And all of a sudden, man, the whole world opened up. To a really different ballgame.

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of The Extra Mileage Show. My name is Floris Geurman, and on this podcast I talk with different guests about ways to become a stronger, healthier, and happier athlete. And I couldn't think of anyone better to explain this concept than Danny Dreher. He's the co-founder of Chi Running and Chi Walking. This is a revolutionary form of movement that basically combines tai chi with running and with walking. He has coached hundreds of thousands of different runners around the world in intelligent movement, energy efficiency, and injury prevention. He's an incredible athlete himself. He has run many different races out there, including 43 ultramarathons, with 40 of them actually having a top 3 podium finish. I can highly recommend his different books, Chi Running, Chi Walking, and Chi Marathon, and I will make sure to link to these books in the actual show notes at extramileus.com/25. That is the number 25. I've been following Danny's work for many years and it has made a huge impact on my own running as well. And in today's podcast, he shares many different principles that you can apply to your own training and racing right away. This episode is brought to you by PATH Projects. This is my absolute favorite running gear. These are the only running shorts, baseliners, shirts, and hats that I run in. And all of the shorts have 3 or 4 different pockets so that you can easily carry your phone, your gels, your credit card, your keys, any other items without it bouncing around. Full disclaimer, I'm one of the owners of the company and we've only been shipping for about 2 years at this point, but we have a lot of customers around the world who are using all of our gear daily for short training runs all the way up to very long ultra races. You can check it out at pathprojects.com. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Danny Dreher. Hi Danny, welcome to the Extra Mile Show.

Yeah, Floris, nice to be on this.

Yeah, absolutely. I first came across your work actually already in 2007 when I started getting into marathon running.

Yeah.

Definitely. I signed up for an actual Chi running class myself and I came across your book and I was very fascinated about it. So I'm very excited to take a deep dive into Chi running today.

Good, good. I'm ready.

Good. So maybe for the audience, it will be good to get a better understanding of you as a runner and also as a running coach. So maybe we can start out there, like how you initially started with running and how this eventually turned into the coaching as well.

Yeah. How I started off with running was, it's interesting. I'm, I didn't start out like most people do. My first race was an ultra.

There you go.

I started at the other end of the spectrum and I'm now I'm working backwards, shorter, shorter distances. The older I get, the shorter it gets. But, um, I, I remember why I started ultras and that was because I, there was a, I was not, not until I was 45 years old. I'd already been running like 25 years when I started doing ultras. And, um, and I grew up in Boulder, so I was really used to running lots of trails and things like that.

And that's beautiful running out there.

Yeah, it's a great place, but I never ran really long. And so, um, but I don't know if it was midlife crisis or what, but I wanted to see what distance I could be competitive at. And I thought, okay, I can run an 8-minute mile. Where could I be competitive? Or I could run 10 8-minute miles, you know? And so I looked up the record books and I kept— in order to get an 8-minute mile that showed up anywhere, you had to go longer and longer distances. So when I got up to 50 miles, you know, I was like competitive nationally if I could— wow, I could do that. And so for the next 3 and a half years, I upped my distance, always adding an 8-minute mile. And, uh, so I ended up my first race was the JFK 50-Miler.. And, uh, uh, so that, that's how I started ultra running really. And, uh, actually I ended up running, I think, 43 ultras, something like that. And, um, ended up because I followed this system and also worked on my technique, I was able to do pretty well in the ultra circuit. Um, so it was fun, fun intro.

Wow. And then from there on, like, did you already start coaching at that time as well?

Or did that come later? I didn't actually, when I started, training for ultras. I was coaching a little kids track team, and they were actually— wasn't a track team, they were doing 5Ks and 10Ks, but they were all mostly under 12 years old or something like that. So I was helping them, but no, I hadn't really officially— I didn't really start coaching people till, um, 1999, which is actually when I started doing G-Money.. And, uh, so we officially launched it. That's why this year is our 20th anniversary.

So 20 years already. Incredible. And how did that all come about? How did you develop this Chi running method?

Well, it was an interesting thing because I was an ultra marathoner. I was, and I've always been fascinated by how the body moves, you know, how it works and my own body and how it works. And so I'd be out on an ultra and You know, 30 miles into a 50-mile race, some guy had come flying by me like he just stepped on the course, you know. And so I watched those people and I watched how they were doing it. And almost every single one of them that passed me was running with this little forward fall. Okay. So I started playing with that and then, um, and it really helped, helped to get my, really cooperate with the pull of gravity. But then a few years later, a friend of mine introduced me to, um, a guy in Boulder who was just came from China and started teaching Tai Chi classes. And that's what really rocked my boat because I went to the very first class. All he taught me was posture. He said the hardest thing there is of any martial artists or anything is to really learn really good posture because that's your structure. That's what supports you. And so I thought, okay, well, this, this feels good. So I really worked on my posture. And, um, and then I said, well, what if I take this posture line and do what I've been trying to get into my running and throw, get posture, but throw up a tilt into it. And all of a sudden, man, my, the whole world opened up to a really different ballgame. And I said there's something to this and not long after that I moved to San Francisco from Boulder. The first thing I did in San Francisco was look for a tai chi teacher because I wanted to find somebody who was really interested in showing me how I could apply the principles of tai chi to running and I just happened to fall into this master that was really willing to teach me that stuff. I worked with him for 9 years and That was how it all started. And then it was just experimenting. How do I take what he knows into my body and then into my running? And how do I explain that to other people? So that's how it really, how it all kind of organically built.

And how did this change your running? How did, how did it go from before you came across this to afterwards?

Well, amazing number of things because, because I was working a whole different system. Of mechanics, of physics, of everything else. Cause I used to run really upright and like everybody else, I would reach and pull and reach and pull and push and, and a lot of muscle work. And so when I first started developing this, I just noticed that everything got easier. And not only that, I noticed that after ultras, especially there was very little recovery time. So there was some way I wasn't overusing my muscles. I was really using some other kind of leverage, which was really working with the pull of gravity. So, if I could let that larger force take most of the workload and I just do what it takes to cooperate with that, um, pull of gravity, then, um, that's how it changed. And so, so, uh, uh, really short recovery times and, um, more speed and easier endurance. So I noticed that my breath rate didn't really increase that much, you know, It's interesting because this is a little aside, but it kind of answers your question. People ask me all the time, so what does it feel like when you're chi running? So what I tell them is it's not what I feel like, it's what I don't feel. And these are a lot of the things I started not feeling as soon as I started developing this chi running. I wasn't feeling what I don't feel. Is soreness, stiffness, um, you know, anxiety, high pulse rate, high breath rate. I don't feel impact. I don't, you know, and, and so it's just all of those things you associate with running being like this, you know, difficult, gut it out kind of sport started disappearing, you know, really disappearing. And then I said, man, if I could show people how to do this, that would be a cool thing. And because I am all, you know, just, you know, and your audience knows I'm still working on it. You know, this is, this is a work in progress. And it's, it's like, you know, you don't take one yoga class and go, you know, I got this. You know, you don't take one Tai Chi class and go, I got this. It's a lifelong kind of study of how can I get even closer? You know, how can I get just that much more efficient or a little lighter on my feet or a little bit better range of motion? So, Anyway, that's, that's kind of how it's developed, is always, always developing.

It is so fascinating to me, the part that you mentioned as well, and, and it comes across in, in your work and in your book too, of the trying to run relaxed and not so tense. And even that part, once I started paying attention to that and becoming more mindful in the running, not just with relaxing the shoulders and the body and following the force of nature, but even with the breathing and being more aware of your of your breath and of your steps and the surroundings. It's all really connected together.

Oh, totally. You know, at this now I've developed, um, we'll get into the Qi Gong school later, but there's a lot of, uh, ways I've developed, uh, um, groups of lessons. And so one group of lessons is technique. One group of lessons is conditioning. And one group of lessons is performance. People think performance running is all about getting stronger, and that's not my take at all. It's not about getting stronger. Some strength is involved, but that's not the goal, is to get stronger. When I think about performance, what I do, and I ask people, I go, improving your performance is really a big a big part involves getting rid of what slows you down. So before you start building strength, before you start doing all your reps and all your aerobics and plyometrics, get rid of what slows you down. Otherwise, all of that training, you're just going to be working against yourself no matter how much training you go through. Right? So, so when you talk about being able to relax, not only your shoulders, but your breath and your hips or whatever, Tension is what slows you down. It's what slows anybody down. And so that's why when you look at the Kenyans, they are just not tense anywhere, you know, and there's nothing slowing them down. And you look at Eliud Kipchoge, you know, doing that sub-2-hour marathon. He didn't look like he was carrying any tension at all. So smooth. And when he finished the race, when he finished his run, he wasn't like bent over at the waist trying to recover his breath. He just went around going, yeah, this is great.

He turned around for high fives.

Left and right. Yeah, he was not exhausted, you know. So what's different with that picture than, than what everybody else is trying to accomplish when it comes to performance?

Yeah, absolutely. So when you would have to explain some of the basics, because you just mentioned like the posture alignment, there's more to it even with the hips and the loose ankles and the knees.

Can you talk through that a little bit more? Well, um, you, so the whole system is tight. Everything I've got, I've brought into it from Tai Chi. So you got to look at the basis of Tai Chi to inform how it is you move your body regardless of what you're doing, playing golf, you know, riding a skateboard, whatever it is. So, um, The way the body is set up, and this is what a lot of people don't really realize, especially runners sometimes, is that the way the body is designed is all the bigger, stronger muscles are in your core, right? The central part of your body, the bigger muscles. As you get more distal, as you get further and further away from the core, you get smaller and tinier muscles, little bones, smaller pieces, parts, moving parts get little. And so this, the way of moving in Tai Chi, you always move from your center and everything else just follows that lead. The thing that's incorrect with how most people run is they run with their legs. So your legs are not your core. They push off with their toes. That is like the smallest muscle group in your body. Why would you want to use those to propel a 140-pound body through the air against the pull of gravity? Think about where all the running injuries happen. Almost 95% of running injuries happen from the knees on down. Right? So, you get runner's knee, iliotibial band syndrome, calf pulls, Achilles tendon problems, plantar fasciitis, Morton's neuroma. You know, all kinds of overpronation problems. Those are all below the knee. So when you really transfer all the workload to the part of the body that was designed to do that, then all of those parts get to do less and less and less work. The further you get away from the center, the less work should be required of any of those parts. And that's why, you know, people are getting injured. So when you ask me, you know, well, so what's the system? The system is really acknowledging that you need to start from your center, and your center is right in line with this whole posture line. So if you move your center, everything on that posture line has to go with however you move that center. So that's the most important place to move from. And then everything else will just follow naturally, especially if you relax all those little parts, you know, then they're just along for the ride really. And so, um, I mean, you can, you can look at how the Kenyans are built, you know, their calves are about this big, their quads are about this big, right? So how are these guys doing, you know, 4 25 miles for, for a marathon. You know, it doesn't make sense. They don't have any legs. And so, um, it's just a whole kind of, it's, it's almost like the difference between a front engine, you know, front wheel drive car and a rear wheel drive. It's like the difference between a pickup and a Honda, you know, they don't use the same rules to go down the road. And so that's, that's the biggest thing I'm trying to get people to realize is that you can't run how it's been traditionally taught if you expect to go farther or actually really go faster or keep up with the Kenyans or whatever you want to do with it. So yeah, you start there and then get the other, get the moving parts to cooperate. So there are certain rules that each of the moving parts have to follow in order to be led the most easily by this core that's moving down the road.

Yeah. So over the years you have worked with thousands of different athletes around the world. You have many different instruments. Instructors of Chi running around the world now as well. What are, what are some of the main things that you have seen improvement-wise in some, in most of these athletes starting to run with Chi running?

Well, that's a good question because when you mention athletes, the range of people that I've taught over the years goes anywhere from, you know, an 8-year-old to an 85-year-old and from, uh, an elite runner on down. So it's not just age, it's ability. And regardless of the ability of the runner, there are plenty of things that you can teach somebody to run more efficiently and to run with less impact. And so those are the, um, the two main themes I'm trying to get across regardless of Who I'm teaching. And it's an interesting thing is that when I, when I, or any one of the instructors that we have teach a running class, it's not restricted to elite runners. It's not restricted to beginning runners or young runners or old runners. It's like everybody comes and whoever comes, that's where you start. You know, that's where you start. If you're an elite runner, it doesn't mean you're the best runner. It just means you're really fast. Okay. Doesn't mean you can't improve. Just means you're really fast. People don't realize that. So a lot of elite runners, you know, not as many elite runners come to my classes because they think, oh my God, hey, you know, I'm running the fastest of my life. Why should I come to you? Because you could actually run faster, you know? And, uh, so it's, it's really approaching everybody in the same way, but it's always all relative to where they're starting from. But everybody could use better alignment. Everybody could use more relaxation in the moving parts. And, you know, that's, that's where we start with everybody regardless of who they are.

Yeah, it is. It is great to hear that you're even talking about 8-year-olds in your class because I have a 6-year-old daughter myself and a 3-year-old too. Even this morning, we run to school quite frequently, and even this morning we went to run to school again, and just watching her run and like just how natural and how smooth it is. And then you look at other runners that you come across and it totally changes with age with some of these runners as well.

It's fascinating to notice that it totally changes with age. I think the only people that don't really change that much with age are people who play soccer their whole life. You know, they keep that really nice circular stride and they run the same way all the way through adulthood. But the rest of us get desk jobs or sit in a car too many hours or, you know, go through life experiences. The interesting thing about that, that thing with kids, you know, kids do have a really beautiful natural running form, but they don't know what they're doing. They're just following instinct. They're just falling with gravity and they're trying to make it as easy as they can, but they're not trying to do it. They just want to keep up with their buddy across the playground. Yeah. Okay. And, and my Tai Chi teacher says, well, that's, that's a part of the thing of like, um, being human is you have that ability naturally when you start off, but he says it's really important a part of the process is losing that. You have to lose it and then you have to get it back consciously. And that's the whole idea of being an adult is to grow in your consciousness and your intention, your mindfulness, all of that. And then you really own it. It wasn't like, you know, so that's one part about having to lose it and then gain it back, but gain it back consciously. The other part is, is that most people run as kids. You see your kids, they have this really nice forward fall, right? The older you get, the more, the further you get from the ground and you go, dude, I am not going there. You know, I hate falling down. It's a long way there. And, um, more damage can happen, you know, as you get older. So, so people get cautious and they start running more upright and that changes the physics changes everything. Because when you run upright, your center of mass is right over your point of contact with the earth. And the only way you're going to move is if you push yourself or somebody else pushes you, because there's no reason for you to move. But if you start falling, then most of that is taken care of. So, so then, so people always ask me, so why should I learn to run? I've been doing it my whole life. But what I tell them is, you don't run anything like you did when you were a kid. You don't even have the same body. There's probably not one of the same cells in your body as you had when you were a kid. So, so much has changed that you really need to actually do a reboot, you know.

Yeah, yeah, very well said. Absolutely. And that's the thing in many other sports, whether it is tennis or volleyball or soccer or whatever it might be, people do end up taking classes as well and training. And yeah, it's sometimes with running, we just all think that we can run, but yeah, there's, there's different types of running there too.

Exactly. And then the other thing that people don't realize when they think about running, or if they read books on running or studies on running, is that there are two different types of running. One is sprinting. And short distance races. And one is endurance running and they're not even the same sport. They don't use the same muscles. They don't use the same mechanics. The everything, almost everything about it is different. Okay. So you can't compare a study done on 20-year-old college athletes. If you're, you know, 45 years old and trying to figure out how to do a 10K. No, no, it's not going to work for you. You're not going to be following the same rules. The breath rate is different. The stride rate is different. The muscle usage is different. Everything is like pretty different, but everybody compares themselves to Usain Bolt and comes up short. I wonder why, you know?

It's like, yeah, you mentioned, uh, the breath work is different. Can you talk a little bit more about breathing? Because I've noticed you have mentioned nasal breathing a few times in your work. Work. What do you feel is the best approach, especially if we talk about endurance runners in this case?

Absolutely. Well, the thing about breath, and as I learned a lot about breath from Patrick McEwen, who, if you haven't interviewed him, you should, you know, yeah, I'm adding him to my list for sure. Yeah. Good. Because he literally wrote the book on breathing, you know, but he's done all the scientific studies and everything. And And, um, between what I already knew about breathing and what I learned from him was that, um, breathing is, I mean, it is as crucial to running as your feet. You know, you have to pay attention to your breathing and you have to breathe correctly. So the, the main thing any athlete is into is, um, your oxygen exchange. The O2 max. How can you get more oxygen per molecule into your blood so that it can fire your muscles so you can be either more efficient or faster? All right. You got to get oxygen supply to your muscles. So, um, if you're breathing correctly, uh, you can figure out how to get more oxygen per molecule into your muscles. It's a really bottom line physics. Um, But how most people breathe is so inefficient that they, they don't really get very much oxygen to their muscles. So for instance, the, the, there's two types of breathing. I mentioned nose breathing, there's nose breathing and there's chest breathing. Okay. A sprinter cannot run as fast as they do with nose breathing. You just can't do it. You can't get enough oxygen. You have to breathe in through your mouth. Okay. When you breathe in through your mouth, you chest breathe. Okay. When you chest breathe, you're missing about two-thirds of all the alveoli that line your lungs. Those capillary beds happen in the lower lobes of the lungs. And so if you're breathing chest breathing, you're only getting a third of as much oxygen as you could. But then if you're sprinting, you get to go home after 10 seconds or, you know, 30 seconds or something. So you're not worried about having to breathe that hard or through your mouth. You just need to go as fast as you can and, you know, do it. Now, on the other hand, um, endurance running involves persistence running. That's different than sprinting. It's persistence running. So if you can imagine, you know, a Kalahari Bushman out there in Kenya somewhere, hunting down a gazelle. Who's faster? And the guy's got a spear. So, so he's hunting the gazelle. That's like, every time he even gets close, this thing like sprints away. Well, he can't throw a spear 200 meters, right? And expect to hit the thing. So what he does, he gets into this nose breathing, belly breathing, real persistence kind of mode of just very relaxed running, relaxed breathing. And that, that over a period of time sets up a different fuel burning system in your body. You start accessing body fat that's stored in your muscles and your blood and your liver and everywhere else. So you have this, this long-term fuel system that works for you. If you're a sprinter, you're burning through straight glycogen. If there's any blood sugar in your, in your veins, it gets burned up. Just It's like a flash burn. Burns hot, burns quick, and it gets you really fast. But if you're chasing a gazelle, you don't want to follow the rules of the gazelle. He's going to be— the gazelle is doing short bursts, sprinting. You're doing persistence running. So what this persistence runner does is he just keeps plodding along. The gazelle sprints away. He runs up to the gazelle. The gazelle sprints away again. He runs up. Pretty soon, the gazelle runs out of gas. Runs out of glycogen, and then he can't fire his muscles because it takes glycogen to fire muscles. So then he just spears the gazelle to put him out of his misery. That's what the spear's for. It's not, it's not like to throw it and try to hit it. No. And so just think of those two different entities, how they run very differently, how they breathe differently.

So when you're an endurance runner, and I would say an endurance runner is anything from a 5K on up, Really, you know, um, but definitely even at a 5K, you would like, I understand that in the training component, but even in the racing component, you would apply that kind of breathing.

Depends what level of 5K runner you are. You're an elite 5K runner. You might still treat it as a sprint. The mile is treated as a sprint now. Yeah. So, but I would still, even that said, um, Patrick McEwen talks about learning to nose breathe. As a way to— it actually ends up restricting your oxygen supply, right? And so what it does is it teaches your body to be tolerant of CO2. So how— why most people breathe so hard is they try to breathe out all this carbon dioxide. Well, that helps, but you also need carbon dioxide in the in the oxygenation system, because oxygen will bind to carbon dioxide molecules. So if you breathe them all out, you don't have any transport system for your little oxygen molecules. It has to have carbon dioxide to transport through the blood. You breathe it all out, you're— you've got all the gas in the world and no, no fuel line.

You know, I find this very interesting though, because I do quite a bit of experiments with heart rate training and with nasal breathing and where's the crossover point where I feel comfortable. And for me, let's say it's about 137, 138 beats is where I almost start feeling that need of having to chest breathe versus nasal breathe. Yeah. Whereas if I run a marathon, I will be racing at about 158 heart rate or 160 around lactate threshold, a bit in that zone. So I, I can't even picture nose breathing in a marathon because I'm going to be 20 beats out of breath. But it sounds like you're telling me otherwise here.

Oh, absolutely otherwise. Yeah. Because, you know, you can— what happens is if you— what Patrick McKeown does, he has people do breath holding while they're running, just hold, you know, holding your breath, you breathe out and then you hold, but you train your body to, to get more tolerant to CO2. So that's what happens if you hold your breath, there's a buildup of CO2 and all of a sudden you just have to gasp and get some oxygen in there because you go into oxygen debt. And so what he teaches you to do through his breathing technique is to increase your ability to sustain oxygen debt. Okay. You get more comfortable breathing less. That's how it comes out. Okay. Because if you can, if you go into oxygen debt repeatedly and train your lungs to build more capillary, more extensive capillary beds in your lungs, then every, even if you take a small breath, that small breath, almost all the oxygen gets transferred into your blood. See? So it's, it's like, it is in a way like the Maffetone system, you know, keep your heart rate low and, you know, your body gets used to this whole way of working. Well, same thing works for oxygen. You know, if you starve your body of oxygen, then when you, when you breathe, there are— your body responds by building more extensive capillary beds, not only in your lungs, but along the lining of your muscles where that oxygen then gets put in. You see? So, so you're, you're changing your physiology.

That's very interesting. I'm excited to start experimenting with this more as well.

And then there's, yeah. So there's a difference between belly breathing and chest breathing, right? So if you breathe in through your chest, you don't get as much oxygen. If you belly breathe, you get the oxygen, whatever oxygen you do get, deeper down in. And then there's nose breathing and mouth breathing. So most nose breathing is associated with belly breathing. And most mouth breathing is associated with chest breathing. And the interesting— there's one more little caveat with that is that when you nose breathe, it really sets up the parasympathetic nervous system gets triggered. And then your body, your hormones start, your body starts producing, you know, serotonin, the relaxing, you know, runner's high and endorphins and all that stuff. So it's a relaxing mode. It's a sustaining mode. On the other hand, if you chest— as soon as you chest breathe, your body knows it's an emergent situation. So it starts burning glycogen because it needs to access that. So you get adrenaline, cortisol, all these other things fusing through your body. That is a really different body response to the demand. So if there's very little demand, but it's over a long period of time, That's nose breathing, belly breathing. If it's sprinting, it's mouth breathing, chest breathing. And so that's why on every level they're different.

You know, this whole breathwork is so fascinating. I had a deep conversation with Wim Hof about this on one of the past podcasts as well. And obviously he's really into the breathwork and cold exposure and everything as well. But yeah, yeah, there's, there's absolutely a lot about it and even becoming aware of your breathing while you're running, because sometimes you just— that's why I very often don't run with music or podcasts or anything. I'm just out there running and listening to my breath and how it's all in line with the cadence and everything.

Yeah, a lot of what I teach with all my classes is body sensing. You know, that's our— the biggest skill you could ever get is body sensing. And you can't do that if, you know, you're distracted with other things. And so So you turn the focus inward and you can feel how your body works and you feel where it's efficient, where it's not, how you're breathing, how you're not breathing, how you're paying attention or not. You know, so much can go on if you want to be mindful about it. And some people just go, ah, you know, I just want to run and blow off steam. And that's okay. But if you, if you really want to do it well, you can do it well and also go out and blow off steam. And, By the way, come back more relaxed than when you left, you know, or with more energy than when you left, or, you know, all these better things. If you pay attention to how you move, everything gets— the more you practice it while you're running, the better it gets while you're running. And so when you finish running, what is there to recover from? You just spent a whole hour or hour and a half, you know, increasing your blood supply, of breathing better, of relaxing more, of improving your posture, of strengthening your core. I mean, what's not to like about that? You know? And, uh, so that's the, but a lot of people are resistant to being mindful.

Yeah. Especially in this 24/7 connected, everyone on their phone nonstop. So important. I saw your, uh, your Monday Mindful Monday videos where you actually talked about taking a minute out of your day just to be more in sync with your body.

I really enjoyed that. They're fun. I, I've liked doing those because they're not about running. You know, they're really— you can— I've taken them from my running. I've learned them. But then if you can learn what it is you practice internally, your internal practice when you're moving, and translate that into your life, all of a sudden these principles start working, you know, to actually improve your quality of life. And that's underneath all of it. That's really what I'm shooting for. When I'm trying to teach people, I want to show them how to actually improve their quality of life instead of— most runners, their quality of life goes down if they try to go too fast or too far or don't prepare enough or anything. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's talk about cadence for a bit, because when I think back about my initial experience with G running was the metronome. Yeah. And many of us in the training program were running with a metronome set to, I believe, 85 or 90 beats. Um, talk a little bit more about the integration with G running.

Yeah. Now the metronome is an interesting thing and it's, it's probably one of the best teaching tools I've ever had. I'm not a gearhead. I don't go out with heart rate monitors and all that stuff, you know, but that metronome, I tell you, and it really works. And what it does is that— so first of all, you know, the ideal cadence for human beings, if there is an ideal, usually falls between 170 and 180 strides per minute. So when you said 85 to 90, that's counting only one leg. So if you count both feet, 170 to 180 strides per minute, about average. If you— and I've seen the science on this— if you get slower than 170, you're spending more time in contact with the ground, which means more time in your support stance, which means more muscle usage to support your body over time. Okay. So if you're doing a marathon, those little fractions of seconds add up to a lot of just standing on one leg, right? On the other hand, so that's muscle usage in during the support stance. Now, If you're going over 180, then yes, your contact time shortens. But when you go over 180, you start using muscle to turn your legs over faster. That's another muscle usage, a different type. One's support, one's propulsion, turning your legs over. And so most people fall within that 170-180, and taller people kind of drift towards the slower end because their legs are longer pendulums. Yeah, that makes, that makes sense. Longer to swing. And shorter people have shorter pendulums and they can go faster, but the metronome, what it does and what I'm a big proponent of always having the same cadence. Cadence stays totally solid. And if you, if you, what most sprinters do is the opposite. As they run faster, their cadence turns over faster. And for a sprinter, that's necessary. You have to do that. There's just no other way around it. But for an endurance runner, what's really important is economy of motion. So, you really want to have a very economical cadence, one that's matched to how you run, hopefully between 170-180. If it's matched, then if you want to go faster, you remember this forward fall, If you want to go faster, fall at a little steeper of an angle. That's it. That's the only thing you need to do. You don't need to push harder. You just need to fall steeper. If you fall steeper, gravity is going to pull you even faster. But at the same time that you're falling more into the pull of gravity, you need to relax the moving parts, meaning your arms and legs. Right? So if you relax the moving parts, that means your stride opens up. It's a longer stride. If you have the same cadence and you relax your legs to where you get 2 inches, 3 inches per stride longer because you're really relaxing that leg, then the same cadence but more distance in the same period of time equals speed. If you want to go at different speeds, It's like a car, how a car is designed, or most cars, I'm with the exception of like the Prius electric cars, because they don't have a transmission, but a car with a transmission is designed to be the most economical. You get your best gas mileage if your engine's turning over at like 2,500 RPM, right? So it's doing 2,500 RPM in first gear, you're moving really slow, 2,500 RPM in second gear, you're moving faster, 2,500 RPM in third gear and fourth gear, whatever gear you're in, You're more economical if you can keep that engine turning over where it's designed to be the most optimal. In the human body, you want to have that same— for the same reason, you want to feel like, "Okay, my optimal cadence is comfortable for me. It feels really good." If I can get used to how good that cadence feels, and then if I want to go faster, I just fall forward a little bit more, but relax my legs. Then I have the same comfort level with a longer stride, same cadence, same comfort level, longer stride, because I'm relaxing more. So what have I done? I've just shifted to a higher gear within the same effort range or close, but it's not like my perceived rate of exertion is going to go through the roof if I get into a fast run. It's going to go, it's going to just very slowly incrementally rise. It's not going to be like a sprinter because if I'm a distance runner, I don't want to have to maintain anaerobic, you know, running forever. You want to keep it within your aerobic capacity. And if, and ideally within a really good comfort range. I mean, Eliud Kipchoge was in a comfort range that really worked for him and it just happened to be really, really fast. But he had to get himself to the point of being comfortable at that pace. Okay. And so, so that's what this is. It's really use the metronome to keep a very steady cadence. Then if you want to go faster, you just fall forward at a little steeper angle. The cadence stays the same and it forces you to relax as you go faster. That's the cool thing about it. It forces you to relax. If you go up a hill, Downshift, you get a shorter stride, same cadence. So you're shifting like you're doing your bike, you know, shift to a lower gear and you go up the hill. It still feels the same. It's that, it's that range of perceived rate of exertion stays just within a very tiny window instead of like all over the place.

Yeah. That's so well said because I do hear from time to time different questions coming up about this of like, hey, I'm trying to run in this optimal cadence zone of 170 to 180, but my heart rate is going up more and more the harder I try to get my cadence up. But you explained well that that doesn't have to be the case. It's the lean forward where it does make a difference.

Yeah. If the big part is falling forward more, but the biggest part, the reason why their heart rate goes up is because they're— they think they need to push harder to go faster. Instead of relax more to go faster. And if you relax more, your heart doesn't have to work as hard and then your heart rate doesn't go up. And then you can breathe through your nose even for a marathon because you're not breathing that hard. You know what I mean?

It all starts adding up. Yeah, absolutely. What, um, what, and this kind of goes hand in hand with, with cadence to some extent as well with natural running. What are your thoughts on the right type of footwear that's optimal for runners?

Okay. So I have a rule. I had to come up with a rule because, you know, uh, I have to have something to base what I say on. Right. So I made up a rule. So my rule is when you go out to find footwear, unless you're a barefoot runner, but if you go out to find footwear, Here's the rule. You want to wear the least amount of shoe, the least amount of shoe you can safely run in, given how you currently run and the distance you currently cover. I'll repeat that. You want the least amount of shoe you can safely run in. So some people, if they're a hard hitter, the least amount of shoe they can safely run in is a Hoka. You know, I don't know. It could be, you know, But if somebody has really clean, efficient running form, the least amount of shoe they could safely run in might be zero shoes, or it might be, you know, a minimalist shoe. Um, but for you, what's the, the least amount of shoe you can safely run in given how you currently run, your technique, and how many miles you like to do that for? And that pretty well will answer almost every single question. About shoes. Now, that being said, there are actually— start finally starting to becoming— the shoes are starting to be designed in a way that is actually taking the foot into consideration, which sounds crazy, but unfortunately the foot has never played a part in designing shoes. It's bottom line profits that have designed the shoes. They have a cool little pointed toe box or they have, you know, a big high heel thing for cushioning or they have arch support. So it's not about the foot. It's about what they can sell you to hopefully get you to buy the shoe. Oh, well, I'm an overpronator. I gotta get one of those ones with the cool medial post. No. So, You know, change how you run, change yourself as a runner, and then you get to choose what shoes you wear to fit what your needs are. And so the bottom line for a pair of shoes is they have to fit. They have to have enough room in them all the way around the foot that the foot actually gets to spread a little bit. It has to be relaxed. You can't run well if your feet are in jail, you know, if they're cramped up inside of a shoe or if the shoe is really stiff. You know, the foot is meant to bend and flex and, you know, has all these toes and it has all these bones that really want to work. And if you buy shoes that keep the arch from going down because they got such a medial support, if they're too stiff in the forefoot, if the heels are too high, that's throwing your feet into a realm that they don't belong. You know, and so I'm a big fan of zero-drop shoes. I'm not necessarily a big fan of minimal shoes. They're great. They're good if your running technique can support running in such a minimalist shoe. And the running shoes, unfortunately, found out the hard way by, by promising people— I mean, Vibram FiveFingers made the mistake of promising you wear these shoes, your running form will actually change for the better. Well, people put on Vibram FiveFingers, went out and ran a 10K and ended up with all kinds of injuries and they sued Vibram. Why? You guys lied. They forgot to say, don't forget your body takes time to change and take a lot of time to transition from one shoe to another.

And I think, I think people shouldn't underestimate that part indeed, that it does take your time your body a while to, to transition and get used to, yeah, different, different type of footwear.

Yeah, but, and, and that's if you just change footwear and don't do anything else. Yeah, yeah, and obviously with your, yeah, running, you change your running, then you got better odds of getting more use out of a minimalist kind of shoe.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

And, um, oh, sorry. Oh, the only thing I would add to that is, um, is as I get older, I've found that I like a little bit of cushioning, not much, but I like a little bit. So, um, uh, it just works better for me, especially if I'm running a half marathon or marathon and they're on roads. You know, I don't want to be out there in a minimalist shoe. It's like I can run really efficiently and really soft along the earth, but it just helps me to relax even more if it's not— if it's just got a little bit taken some of that edge off. Yeah. Yeah.

Are there any, um, strength, mobility, flexibility, um, exercises that, that you work with with some of your athletes, or do you focus mostly on the running component only?

No. Um, well, how I would respond is if an athlete needs to have to need some changes in their structure, in their physiology, yes, it's a really good thing to do certain stretches or certain strengthening things. Like for if somebody lands on their support leg and their hip goes lateral, yeah, you got to do some core work so that your body stays really true to the direction you're headed. If somebody's feet are weak, yes, you have to do exercise to get their feet stronger. So then their plantar fascia works like it should, their ankles flex like they should. And most of the time, I don't across the board just say you need to do strengthening. But what I do rely on is that I teach people how to move their body as cleanly as I can. Okay, so The 3 things that I teach people, well, there's 2, but one of them has 2 parts. So alignment and relaxation. Everybody needs to be aware that they need to have their body aligned and they need to be relaxed in their movement. You don't do something, one of those 2, you're going to run into trouble. Within alignment, there's 2 types of alignment. One is postural alignment, so that's your support stance. Your bones got to be supporting your body, not your muscles. That's more economical over a long term. And the other part is directional alignment. So, there's not just posture alignment. Directional alignment is like how do you move your body forward? You want to have the least amount of— basically what I say is I have another rule. You want to have as many body parts as possible headed the same direction you are. Pretty basic rule. But how many people, you know, swinging their arms side to side or their upper body goes like this when they run? Yeah, I see it all the time. Their feet splay out. You know, if you can clean up all of that stuff, it naturally strengthens all the muscles that are weak and causing that. You know what I mean? So if your feet splay and every step you take, you're rotating your entire leg to where your foot points forward, you know what muscles are going to be strengthened? Your adductors, those muscles that are too weak, which is why your legs can't go straight. So when I— so I rely a lot on people. If they— if you can stick with a very clean technique, all the muscles that are required to do that get strengthened naturally. You don't have to go to the gym. You don't have to do all this extra stuff. But if you are weak enough that you can't even go to that more efficient mode of running, then you need to do strength work.

Yeah.

Right on. Otherwise it's fun. You know, the more you practice it, the stronger you get in the muscles that need to be stronger and the more relaxed you get in the muscles that need to relax. It, it's amazing how it just kind of everything rebalances itself, you know? Yeah.

So the person who actually introduced the two of us, is Amelia Frabel, and she is part of our Extra Mileage community and a marathon PR training program. But she's also an instructor for Chi running.

Yeah.

And so I've realized that you have a lot of different Chi runners out there. Can you tell a little bit more about your Chi running instructor program and where people can, can find out more about some of these classes?

Yeah, absolutely. We have an instructor training program and we do it two different ways, teach instructors. One is we have about once a year I teach an instructor training. I live in Asheville, North Carolina, so I'll have a training here. And the other way to do it is for people to do one-on-one training with one of our master instructors. Some people can't make it out here to do a whole training, so they work with somebody in their area if you happen to live near somebody. But what it is, the instructor training is very thorough because we obviously want people to be really good teachers if they're going out, because it's kind of a complicated system, but it doesn't have to be. It's how you teach it that makes it either complicated or not. But there's a lot of parts, a lot of moving parts. And so we want to make sure that our instructors are really up to speed with how to integrate all those parts and get somebody regardless of what level they are, how to get them to move well. And so there's a 3-month home study where they get, you know, potential instructors, they get an instructor manual, they study the lessons and how to teach the lessons, they practice on friends, and, and then they come to a 4-day instructor training, which is then where we teach them how to become really good instructors. You know, they learn the materials, they bring that with them, then they learn really how to get it across, how to watch people, how to correct people, how to demonstrate different exercises and stuff. And then after they go through that, then there's certain requirements to be able to become fully certified, you know, and it's not a huge big deal, it's just lots of practice, lots of practice. So we want our instructors to be really good. So I'm having instructor training here in Asheville on April 30th to May 3rd of this next spring. And then we also have instructors, Master Instructors, all over the world that teach. We have a Master Instructor in the Netherlands, for example, and they run their own instructor trainings. We have Germany and UK, Spain, Um, we just have them all over the place in China. And so they run their own instructor trainings and they're all the same because I wanted them to be, you know, imparting the exact same knowledge. So yes, it's cool. It's very thorough. And once you're a certified instructor, you can, um, not only teach chi running, but chi walking, because that's a part of, part of it. And so, yeah, and we have over 200 instructors all over the world. Wow. And we're 200, 200, and we're in 23 countries now.

And that's incredible. I'm so happy that the word of like this holistic approach of running, of actually healthy running is spreading so far.

That's incredible. It's taken a while, you know, and when I first came out, you know, obviously people were saying, why should I learn to run? You know, and not only that, but, you know, people like Runner's World, even were going, ah, yeah, don't worry about these flakes. They'll go away. You know, we didn't go away. And not only that, if you read a Runner's World from 1999 or 2000, how they talk about running technique is completely different now with all this influence coming in. And we've helped influence other coaches and other modalities and stuff, but it has started to spread that. Yeah. You don't just go out and give it your best shot. If you're really more mindful about how you move, then things happen better and you don't get injured. So, you know, the bottom line principles, the reason why I even started all this is for the two main principles any runner should have: energy efficiency and injury prevention. Nobody likes getting hurt and nobody likes getting tired, you know, and so You know, and it always for running, it's a high injury sport, you know, still 60, 65% of all runners every year get injured enough to break up their training. Okay. How do you work with it? That's, that's part of why I started like that's 2, that's 2 out of every 3 people. And how can we change those numbers? And, and I don't know if we changed the numbers worldwide or anything, but within the Chi running community of runners, I would say that if we were to do across-the-board measurement of just how often, how much injuries, I would guess that if, if average runner gets injured 65% of the time, I would say a Chi runner probably would get injured 15% of the time, you know, and I can't back that up with a study, but I would love to have somebody do this study. You know, and I'm sure we would prove it out, you know, just don't get hurt. Last time I was hurt was in 1991.

Yeah, it's definitely an entire different approach again for anyone listening to this. If they want to learn more about Chi running, if they want to get into this, I've seen that you have a Chi running school on your website as well.

Yes. That's, It's probably, you know, I came up with that because it really is one of the most efficient ways to learn Qi running. It has a lot of parts to it, like I said, and people come to a class and they learn all this, totally changing everything in their body. And they go home and they go, oh my God, where do I start? This is so much stuff. You know, it's like trying to learn a new language or something. And so I developed a whole, what's called the Qi Running School. And they can go on our website, qirunning.com. That's C-H-I, Chi Running. And they, if you, it's a subscription thing for lessons, you get one lesson delivered a week to your inbox. And that lesson contains like an 8 to 10 minute video of just one piece, arm swing, maybe how to hold your head right. How to, you know, let gravity pull you. One lesson. And you get that lesson in your inbox and that video comes with a downloadable audio. So you can put it on your phone, you know, wherever you want. So you can listen to it when you're out running. So you can actually have somebody taught me talking to in your ear saying, here's what we're doing today. Here's what we're doing today. And, and so one a week and we, and I developed enough lessons for 2 years, 104 lessons.

Wow, that's a big 2 years. You could be an awesome program.

Yes, that's incredible. Yeah. And so it, and it really works because it does, it works incrementally. And the whole thing about learning how to run differently or better or be mindful, whole thing is all about brain training. Because however you move your body, your brain is set up to move it with a certain neural pathways working. Well, what we're doing is trying to change, alter those neural pathways to where something different happens than used to. And eventually you do this, repeat it enough, enough, enough, the old pattern falls away. Those neural links get dissolved. And all of a sudden, that's how you've established a new habit of moving and everything. So this Qigong school does this one week at a time. And it's, and it's so effective. And then the longer you go, the more, the more of these little audio clips you can add into the file on your phone. And you just go out for a long run, hit shuffle, and I'm, and I'm just going, let's try this. Let's do this. Let's do this. You know? And it's been really successful. So yes. And there's different levels to join at and things like that.

That sounds good. I'll make sure to link to this program and to the instructor courses and also to your 3 books. You wrote Chi Running, Chi Walking, and Chi Marathon.

Yeah.

And I'm very impressed by those books. I've read them myself and I can absolutely highly recommend them.

So, yeah, the thing with the marathon book, it's, uh, it's not just about training for a marathon. It's how to train in a way that is more holistic and is really mindful about training. And people don't train mindfully. They just go out and put in miles and think that that's going to— and it might work, but it might not. And I've seen plenty of times when it didn't. So it's all about technique-based training and combining that with race-specific training. So you're always working on your technique. You're always working on the specifics of the race you're going to be doing. There's a hill at mile 3. You want to be ready for it. How? Do you run that hill? What technique do you need when you get to the hill? When you go down the other side, what technique do you use? Because you don't—

people think you run with the same technique throughout a race and it's just, it's silly. One takeaway for me that I will share is after coming across your work, I started to realize the importance of relaxing even in my race environment. And I remember very well, sometimes when I get to mile 20, so 32K into a race, and I feel that I'm getting tense. And I try to just tell myself, breathe natural, breathe normal, and try to relax. And all of a sudden you start noticing almost this lift off your shoulders and you just run much more smooth again. So that's just one of my takeaways from your work.

So yeah, my big— my favorite tagline is create the conditions for energy to flow. That's what you did. You just relax, then energy can continue flowing. If you get tense, energy can't flow through tension, you know? Yeah.

So yeah, it's an easy one to remember.

Absolutely.

So one last question here for you. There's, there's in the audience a lot of people looking to improve their running in, in shorter distances, but in longer distances as well. And, and that's not only becoming faster, but also becoming stronger, healthier, and happier athletes. Do you have any other thoughts, any parting thoughts for people looking to improve their running?

Yeah, if you're going to improve your running, do it incrementally. Don't— people get ahead of themselves and then they get injured and then they get set back, then they got to start over, and then they got to get the ball rolling again. But you do it incrementally and you do pretty wisely and don't ever go too far beyond what your body is currently capable of doing. Yes, push the envelope a little bit, but don't go out and go nuts week after week trying to think you'll get stronger. You'll just get more hurt. And so I would suggest anybody who wants to either get faster, go farther, just make those increases well within your capabilities. They could be just beyond what your body conditioning can handle, but don't go— don't take such giant leaps. You know, I had somebody email me this morning about, I just twisted, you know, I injured my ankle 2 months ago and I want to run a half marathon next month. And I'm going, no, I think you need to, like, first of all, heal your ankle and then practice running on the flat and then add in hills. And then, I mean, you know, People don't realize that your body takes its own time. You can't make it heal faster or run faster just because you want it to, you know? So, so people, anybody who wants to improve, do it deep from the, from your structure, from your movement habits. Start there. You know, don't go for a time goal.

That's, that's dangerous. Absolutely. Very well said, Danny. Thank you very much for sharing all of your insights. I'll make sure to link to all of the different items discussed in this podcast. I appreciate it. Of course. Yeah, I absolutely hope we can continue the conversation at some point again.

Oh, there's way more to talk about.

I'm sure. All right.

Have a good rest of your day. Okay.

Thank you.

Wow.

That was a lot of great information right there. Thank you for listening. I would love to hear from you. What was one key takeaway from today's episode? Please let me know in the comments. And before I share with you one of my key takeaways and how I apply this to my own training and racing, I want to let you know that today's episode was brought to you by PATH Projects. It is my favorite running gear, and so you can find out more at pathprojects.com. Moving on. So Danny mentioned in this podcast that 170 to 180 cadence was ideal for most runners out there. When I took this weekend the cadence meter to the track and actually looked while I was doing a 2-hour extended math test— I was warming up for 2 miles for about 15 minutes, and then I started an actual math test for about 2 hours. I started looking at what my actual cadence was, and it was anywhere from 184, 186, sometimes even 188. Knowing what Danny had just shared, I wanted to bring that cadence down a little bit more towards the 180 zone. So what I did is I worked with the natural force of nature. I started leaning forward a little bit more. However, I started to relax a little bit more as well, and so I opened my stride And by having a stride a little bit longer, about 3 inches longer, so whatever that is, about 10 centimeters longer, all of a sudden I noticed I was running at the same effort, but my actual speed ended up increasing by about 5 to 6 seconds per mile. And so I'm using less muscle power at that point and more of a force of nature. At the other side of the spectrum as well, Though I do hear runners quite frequently saying like, my cadence is only 160 or 165, and as soon as I'm trying to increase that cadence, my heart rate is going up. So in this case, actually what Danny described as well is if you focus on the lean forward, the force of nature, and you relax the body, you are able to run at a higher cadence without necessarily having your heart rate go up. So this is one of those things where you do take some of these lessons that are being mentioned in the podcast and you apply it to your own running as well. So I would love to hear from you if any of these lessons apply to you. So please let me know in the comments. Many more podcast episodes are in the works, so make sure that you subscribe and you'll be the first to know when a new episode drops. Thank you for listening, and I hope to see you again at the next one.

Bye now.