Relax upper body effectively to move lower body effortlessly.
Start with the Right Technique
There’s no doubt about it, if you want to run your first 5K or get a personal best at a marathon, the best place to begin is with good running technique. Distance, conditioning, and speed then come with ease.
Effortless Training
Learn the ChiRunning technique to bring ease to your running. You’ll use gravity and the force of the oncoming road as your ally when you are properly aligned and no longer using your legs for propulsion.
Speed Comes Naturally
Improve your running skills so you can go at a greater speed with less effort, higher mileage with less recovery time. Use your alignment and your forward fall as your gas pedal instead of your legs to move faster and with more ease.
Strength Develops Naturally
Bring ease to your training as you incorporate deep, healthy conditioning of the mind and body. Enduring success comes out of running correctly, not out of the pressure to perform better. Practicing form and mental stamina allows you to go the distance.
Confidence in Mind & Body
Transform and up-level your performance by being both physically conditioned and mentally on top of your game. Training your mind and body to work together as a team will optimize your results and boost your confidence.
choose your starting point
The formula for success is a combination of technique, conditioning, and performance.
Technique
Learn Better Technique From The Ground Up
The two causes of running injuries are impact and overuse. Impact affects your joints – from hitting the ground too hard as you run. Overuse injuries happen in your muscles when you demand more from them than they can deliver. There is good news: Both of these types of injuries can be avoided by improving your running technique. Once your body mechanics are aligned and you put the Chi Principles to practice, overuse and impact injuries become a thing of the past. ChiRunning is based on a centuries-old principle from T’ai Chi: shift your workload to the core muscles. This allows your leg muscles to do less, and the lower leg muscles to do almost nothing.
Run with Built-In Efficiency
In T’ai Chi all movement is based on having a strong core, relaxation in your muscles and mobility in your joints. These three themes go perfectly with running. In order to create easy, fluid, and faster movement, the entire body needs to be supple and relaxed. Any held tension restricts your ability to run easily and economically.
But, true relaxation can’t happen without a strong core supporting all your movement. We’ll show you how to use your core more, so you can rely on your legs less. Now, that’s efficiency!
Take the Workload off Your Legs
A T’ai Chi principle we love is shift your workload to your core and relax everything else. This allows your legs to relax and do less, and your lower legs and feet to do almost nothing. Most runners do just the opposite; pushing with their feet and toes, while neglecting the abundance of power in their core. That’s not only a formula for fatigue, it’s why over 85% of all running injuries occur in the lower legs!
We’ll show you how to run without ever over-working your legs, so you can reduce your injury rate to zero.
Relax Your Movement for Efficiency
It might sound counter-intuitive, but running with your legs relaxed is the secret to efficiency, endurance and speed. When you learn how to use gravity to assist your running, your legs will feel like they took the day off.
This is only one of the secrets to making all your runs pain-free and easy… and fun!
Conditioning
Get the Best of ChiWalking & ChiRunning
What makes ChiRunning’s training different from virtually every other training program is the focus on creating a pain-free experience through technique. We know forced physical effort while training is risky and may cost you your race. So we teach deep, healthy conditioning of the mind and body that leads you to successful finishes time and again. If you’d like to run multiple distance events in a season, it is important to focus on technique and conditioning, developed from training regularly and mindfully. Training is just as important for beginners as it is for seasoned racers. Conditioning your body and mind for your personal best is as easy as following one of our training plans.
Build a Solid Base
The Technique Phase teaches you how to build upon your body's strength with the building blocks of good technique Specific form focuses keep you relaxed and efficient while running. Once your technique is honed, you’ll be able to run any distance, at any speed, and enjoy running for as many years as you choose to do so.
Condition Your Mind & Body
The Conditioning Phase trains your mind and your body to work together as a team to create optimal results.
During this phase, you’ll condition yourself to hold and consistently apply the basic skills of the technique over longer and longer distances. The physical efficiency and focused mindset build the conditions for feel-good running.
Train for Your Next Race
The Master Phase gives you confidence from rehearsing your race before you even step up to the start line. Manage your energy for speed without overstressing your body.
You’ll easily adapt the form focuses to the specific details of your event. You’ll be optimally prepared to handle all of the challenges that could possibly be thrown at you on race day.
Performance
Improve Your Running Skills
Forced physical effort while training is risky and may cost you a race entry. Deep, healthy conditioning of the mind and body leads you to successful finishes time and again. If you’d like to run multiple distance events in a season, and improve your performance, it is important to condition your mind and body using a technique that protects your body and builds your confidence. Performance relates to how you show up for your training and for your events and whether or not you achieve your goals. If you sustain an injury, it will interrupt your training and can negatively impact your mindset towards running and your physical abilities. Staying sound and building mental stamina from body sensing will keep you off the sidelines and performing your best.
Improve Through Perpetual Movement
ChiRunning is designed to bring you into a perpetual discovery process.
When you improve your running technique, you can create greater speed with less effort, higher mileage with less recovery time, and the ability to instantly respond well to any challenge.
We believe the performance of runners should be judged on the diligence of their practice and dedication to improve their running skills, rather than their speed.
Develop Mindful Skills to Improve Performance
The Chi approach to training is so much more than a training plan.
You learn to pay attention, body sensing, and develop mental focus. Your performance will improve as you become strategically aware, adaptable to changing conditions, persistent in your efforts, and relaxed in both mind and body.
These skills, while consistently monitoring your body’s limits – all play a role in creating your peak performance.
Focus on More Than the Medal
Medals are great, we know. But we want you to walk away from each event with even more.
Your Chi training will keep you safe from impact and overuse injuries, keeping your recovery time to a minimum. Your mental and psychological readiness will keep you on top of your game from start to finish.
This doesn’t just take event training to a whole new level, but in a different direction altogether. We guarantee you’ll feel the difference.
