What is NPR?

Definition | Born to run | Adaptations | The principles

Definition of NPR

Let’s define what we mean by NPR. It’s the way you ran when you were a young child, the way animals run. Can you remember? Look at the way young children run fast leaning with arms swinging easily and legs flying back with bent knees, in a style that is unique to their physique, but perfectly natural and bio-mechanically efficient. It’s the way our ancestors evolved to run and it’s still in our genes. Of course over the years all of the physical and emotional events in our lives have imprinted themselves on our bodies resulting in tightness and stress often in those very joints that used to be free and loose. We may not be able to return to the perfect form of our childhood but we can take steps to get back to our own natural running form. That is NPR.

Born to Run

The impetus to change our running form started in 2005, when Daniel Lieberman, anthropology professor at Harvard University, gave a lecture from a study called “Born to Run” at the University of Calgary. Daniel Lieberman told the audience “Humans were born to run” according to two million year old fossil evidence. The study suggests humans left their tree dwelling ancestors behind because they developed into endurance runners. Lieberman identified a range of physical traits that suggest human beings evolved as distance runners. The adaptations helped them chase down prey and compete more effectively with the speedier carnivores on the open plains of Africa. The study notes that athletic humans can outrun horses and antelopes over extremely long distances. In parts of Africa this technique is still used today by hunters to exhaust their prey.

Adaptations

These adaptations include long spring-like tendons, which store energy and reduce the metabolic cost of running by half. Likewise the longitudinal arch of the foot – another well developed set of springs important in running - evolved in Homo erectus. Long legs are also vital for endurance running because speed is gained by increasing the length, not rate, of strides. In addition, because running exposes the body to much higher stresses than walking, humans evolved large joint surfaces in the lower body to act as shock absorbers.

Similarly a more balanced head, broader shoulders, a narrower waist, and shorter forearms – all characteristics of humans amongst primates – help the upper body to counterbalance the lower body while running. Even our large buttocks – conspicuous in their absence in our closest relatives – apes – are considered critical in stabilization while running. Finally, our ability to sweat is unmatched, with our estimated 3 million sweat glands. Couple that with the fact that we aren’t very furry and you have a cool running machine.

Natural Posture Running requires a paradigm shift in your thinking, reducing your dependence on strong leg muscles, and letting your body run in the way it was designed to.

• Using your feet as springs – not as brakes
• Being aware that your core is your engine
• Letting correct posture distribute the pounding forces
• Allowing gravity to pull you forward
• Allowing your arms and legs to swing freely like pendulums
• It’s about tendons and ligaments not muscles
• Making your speed a function, not of your ability to push harder physically, but to relax and lean
• Breathing relaxed

By making your body solid, using your core muscles, it gives it a straight bodyline, which travels from your ears, shoulders, hips and ankles. Any impact from landing on a surface travels now in a straight line up the body and transfers the impact forces over the whole body instead of only the knees or hips. Running from your core is another aspect, which makes you a more efficient runner. Imagine yourself to be pulled forward by a string from your belly button. It really gives you more power since the center of gravity is near that belly button…. and you activate it by keeping your focus on running from the center of gravity. When you lean your solid body you engage the laws of gravity.

Since your core is providing the power your arms and legs are now free to do other tasks, which makes you a better runner. The arms swing relaxed as a pendulum and help your body go faster. Your arms also balance your body while it leans by opposing the legs. Your legs don’t pound the pavement but swing from mid foot landing towards the back, again using the pendulum principle and making your body go faster. Energy from muscles, which you would normally use, is now freed to improve your total performance.

When we combine the natural and posture then we optimize our natural inborn characteristics with better posture, fewer injuries and efficiency to improve running economy, speed and endurance.

All these factors will have to become your own by adaptation. And as you know slow adaptation is very important!
You will have to focus on some of these changes in your running form by greater self-awareness of how your body functions. Self-awareness, adaptation, a straight and solid body and applied physics and gravity principles will make you a NPR runner.

The Principles

In short - The Principles - Man is born to run; Use of natural capabilities combined with the forces of gravity and physics; Gradual adaptation to the technique; Visualization of natural posture, performance and technique.
How – Straight body posture; Running from your center; Relaxed shoulders and legs; Torsion from your core rotates shoulders and hips; feet and ankles using tendons as springs.

This system can transform your running; it has rejuvenated and re-motivated our running.
- Roger Davies & Helly Visser.