3 Things You're Doing With Your Arms That Are Making You Slower
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Quick answer: Most people don't know that the arms are what drive speed, not the legs. If you want to run faster, three things have to change: stop pumping forward, open your hands, and swing all the way back behind your body. Fix those three and the rest of your run starts to work the way it was designed to.
We see running backwards
We are a forward-facing species trying to run forward, so coaches around the world cue the forward pump and the forward reach. But it is everything happening behind the runner that propels them forward faster.
Most of us read running with dyslexia. Our eyes watch what is in front of the runner. The work is happening behind.
Three things your arms are doing right now are quietly making you slower.
1. You're pumping forward instead of swinging back
The forward pump feels like the engine. It is not. The backswing is where the magic happens. Everything else is just the return.
You do not need to push your arms forward. Your anatomy takes care of that for you, like a pendulum. The moment you focus on pumping forward, your hands rise up by your face, your body crosses over itself, and your hips drop. Three problems in one motion.
Drum the thumb down and back. That is the coaching cue. Chase the back, let the forward happen on its own.
2. Your hands are tight when they should be open
Clench your fist and you cut off the flow all the way up through the arm. The shoulder tenses. The elbow locks. The swing stops feeling like a pendulum and starts feeling like a punch.
Open your hands. Spread the fingers wide. Keep the wrist soft. When the hand is open and relaxed, the energy flows freely down the arm and lets the backswing do what it is built to do. Everything feeds the backward magic.
3. Your swing is too small
A lot of coaches will tell you to stop your arm swing at the hip. That is how you end up running like a chicken, arms tucked, elbows pinned to the body. Chickens are not fast. There is a reason.
A real arm swing goes all the way behind your body. Past the hip. Past the waist. The hand finishes well behind you. That full backswing is what unlocks the full leg stride coming through underneath you. Cut the swing short and your stride gets cut short with it.
Open hands, an aggressive drive, and a swing that finishes all the way back.
Quick sidebar while we are here. I keep a tin of Neuro Gum next to my keyboard when I write these posts. One piece, a few minutes, and the fog lifts before the first sentence lands. Caffeine and L-theanine, no crash. You can find it here: Neuro Gum. (Affiliate link. I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.)
How to feel the fix today
Stand tall. Open your hands. Drum your thumbs down and back. Aggressively. Past your body. Let the forward return happen by itself.
Do that for one minute standing still. Your hips will lift. Your weight will shift to the balls of your feet. Your legs will want to come up on their own. That is your body lining itself up to move the way it was always built to move.
The bands that train this on you, not in your head
You can read this and agree with every word and still default to the forward pump the second you start running. Movement programming is wired deep. You cannot think your way out of it.
This is why we built Two8 Bands. They are the only resistance bands in the world designed to train your arms for you, progressively loading more force, more power, and more endurance into the mechanics until your backswing turns violent on its own.
The Movement Band teaches the path. The Super Band reinforces it under load. Together they turn the backswing into a default.
Built by coaches. Athlete approved.
Want to understand why we move the way we do?
This blog scratches the surface. The book goes all the way down to the root.
If We Knew Better, We'd Move Better: The Seeds of Movement is where I lay out the full system. Why your movement DNA was programmed before you could write your name. Why most coaching cues miss the mark. What you can do about it, no matter what age you are reading this.
Go deeper. The thinking in this post comes straight from my book, If We Knew Better, We'd Move Better. And when you are ready to train these patterns with the tool built for them, feel the difference with the Two8 Bands set. You can also grab the set on Amazon.
Some links in this post are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.
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