By Jack Nirenstein

The single force that makes all of us walk run and sprint is being taught incorrectly by all the gurus in the world. The force is gravity. Most gurus believe that you push yourself forward to run. The pushing method will make your leg collapse. It would require you to release the muscles that cross the front of the knee that straightens the leg to support your body and toss you in the air.

Lately a gravity method has been made popular. The gurus that teach it have the gravity method wrong. Their way would also make you fall to the ground. They want their students to stay straight as a pole and hold that pose at a forward slant without bringing the foot forward. When they demonstrate how it looks they bring their feet forward and hope nobody notices them doing it.

I first discovered my true gravity technique by seeing how I run and saw that it is the only way anybody can run. So you all run somewhat correctly.

You cannot stand in place without the force of gravity holding you there. You cannot run without your strides being off balance. I observed that at a steady pace the feet always land slightly ahead of the waist for everyone. The area around the waist is where the full weight of the body is. The forward slant of the body will not make you move forward if the waist is vertical over the feet. It is bad posture to slant the upper body forward to run. It hurts your back muscles and rounds your shoulders to crunch your body.

The lesson to run is to take notice of how you run so you can run relaxed, perform better and avoid injuries. To pick up speed everyone lands behind their waist for as many strides as it takes to get to their pace. To stop picking up speed everyone lands slightly ahead of their waist and you can only stay at a steady pace that way. To pick up speed again you must land behind your waist again. To slow down you land far ahead of your waist to reverse the pull of gravity.

As an example when you land slightly ahead of your waist on your first stride you go into a walk. When you land behind your waist for three strides you go into a run. When you land behind your waist for ten strides you go into a sprint.

The faster your run the feet spread farther apart. The foot gets flipped back and high. To keep speeding up you must know how to return the feet forward fast to keep you in balance for the speed.

The new barefoot running trend claims to be more efficient than running with shoes is also insane. The gurus claim that running with running shoes forces you to land on your heels and land far ahead of your waist with a straight leg to destroy your joints. You can only run backward landing far ahead of your waist. And when you land far out front running backward, it can be done with a bent knee to protect your joints. You can also land on any part of the foot with running shoes. I have a method to land softly and build your joints stronger.

I am the author of a book called, Nirenstein’s First Law of Running. I applied Newton’s Law of Gravity to running correctly for the first time. Gravity is a vertical force but it cannot push the grounded foot down when the body’s center is at an angle. It rotates the leg around the grounded foot. When the body is tossed up at an angle it comes down a stride length ahead.