What ChiRunning® Can Do for You...

ChiRunning offers benefits to all types of runners, from beginners who are not running today to experienced, competitive athletes.

Following is a brief summary of what you can expect based on your current level:

Beginning Runner

If you have thought about taking up running, have run in the past but it has been a while, or maybe you're looking for a safe and effective way to get in shape that you can do anywhere. Whatever your motivation, ChiRunning is a great way to get started:

Strong Foundation — ChiRunning focuses on good biomechanical form and injury prevention so you will learn great habits to build your running program on.

Strong Core Muscles — ChiRunning teaches you to run primarily using a strong set of core muscles, rather than strong legs. This can benefit your life in many more ways than just running, including some forms of back pain relief, great posture and even better decision making.

Less Soreness and Stress on Your Body — Taking up running doesn't need to be punishing on your body. Because ChiRunning focuses on relaxing while you run, it uses much less muscular energy, which means your muscles will experience less overall soreness.

Fitness Runner

If you run primarily for fitness, whether it be an early morning run to start the day off right, or a 5K loop from the gym to get your cardio workout, ChiRunning can improve your running experience. In addition to the benefits above, you'll also experience:

Reduced Injuries — If you have experienced any common running injuries such as tight calves, tender achilles, tender hamstrings, shin splits or sore knees, ChiRunning will give you the tools to correct the root cause of the pain and injuries and keep you running injury free by focusing on correct biomechanical form.

Reduced Effort — With ChiRunning, covering the same distance gets easier, leaving you free to use that extra energy to lengthen your run or to more fully enjoy any other aspect of your life.

Mind/Body Connection— ChiRunning can offer a fresh new way to think about your run, putting the emphasis on listening to your body as you ask it to make that lap around the neighborhood or park. ChiRunning can help you recharge your batteries as you run giving you more energy to take to your job or life.

Experienced or Competitive Runner

If running is your passion, ChiRunning can completely transform your running life. Whether you run for sanity, to train for marathons, or triathalons, ChiRunning will give you an edge that will pay off in your workouts and your results. In addition to the benefits that all runners will see (above), you'll experience:

Faster Recovery — Recovery time is an issue for anyone that pushes their body hard to reach their goals. ChiRunning takes the muscular stress out of the running form and reduces the impact on joints and tendons to minimize post-workout soreness. This is beneficial to everyone, but is indispensable to the endurance athlete. You'll need less off days and feel much better the day after a long workout.

Less Interruptions in Training Program — Sure, injuries were mentioned above, but injuries have a completely different level of importance to high-mileage runners and endurance athletes. Injuries require time to repair the trouble spot, and can cost you valuable cardiovascular conditioning that may take a long time to rebuild. ChiRunning can analyze your running form to find the bad habits that may be leading to repetition stress injuries and give you the tools to fix them.

Improved Hill Work — If you love to run, but hate hills, or maybe running into a persistent wind, ChiRunning can show you techniques for making hills or wind feel as easy as flat surface running.

Faster Times — While I would not encourage faster times as the primary goal of ChiRunning, it is a very predictable byproduct of learning and applying the form. Virtually everyone gets faster, if they choose to. Since you are using less muscle and energy over the same distances, your sustained heart rates will be lower, and you'll have more energy to put back in to faster splits or finishing stronger. Running faster becomes a function of relaxing more rather than working harder, which is a revolutionary new way to think about speed work.