Every year, 85% of recreational runners are injured. That statistic hardly fluctuates year after year, no matter what advancements are made in technology,
watches, shoes, gear, etc. and causes us to question “why?” The answer must be that 85% of runners are doing something wrong; they are not strong
enough, not flexible enough, or simply do not know what proper form looks like.

Back in 1977, Dr. Nicholas Romanov, a Russian sports scientists and a high-level athlete himself, began to question that alarming statistic. Surrounded
by fellow track athletes, he noted this high rate of injury and began to look at film strips of runners to see what commonalities, good or bad,
he saw in each of their movements. This truly was the beginning of researching and understanding running and its form—up until that point,
if you asked anyone what running was, you would have gotten a myriad of definitions. There was no pure understanding of this activity.

During his years of researching the idea that there had to be a proper running technique, Dr. Romanov began seeing patterns of movement and was able
to highlight three basic elements in running (along with a lot of variables that occurred based on the individual). Based on these three key elements,
Dr. Romanov constructed the first real definition of what proper running form is. The three elements are the running position (“Pose”), the use
of gravity to help accelerate (“Fall”), and the action of picking your foot up off the ground (“Pulling”). He went on to create a systematic approach
to teach people to implement these three elements through a series of drills. The drills are utilized to increase perception of how to move through
space. With better understanding of how to get from one position to another, you can run more efficiently while also and avoiding injury.

The Pose Method of Running has been widely used with Olympians and other high level athletes and, in 2008, when the US Army noticed a shockingly high
rate of injury in their new cadets, they brought the Pose Method in as a basis for teaching their cadets how to move, especially while running.

As a physical therapist, I have personally treated runners for over fifteen years and always felt that there was a component missing in the rehabilitation
programs I was designing and implementing for these athletes. I could get the symptoms of their injury to go away, but as soon as they went back
to running, the injury returned. I knew I was missing something in what I was teaching them—until I was introduced to Dr. Romanov and the
idea of the Pose Method. There was no longer a reason for runners to be reactionary to an injury that occurred…both they and I needed to
focus on preventing injuries from ever occurring. Utilizing drills, video analysis, and hands-on cuing, this systematic approach of teaching proper
running technique through the Pose Method has allowed patients to improve their understanding of where their foot should be landing in relationship
to their hip, how their shoulders can be used to help them become lighter on their feet, ways to utilize nature’s forces to help them run faster,
and how to maximize the biomechanics of the body to help them run longer.

Once your body is able to modify bad habits that have been formed from years of running without thinking about how your body is meant to move, learning
and maintaining the concepts of Pose is quite simple.