Chi vs. Pose

I can't comment on Chi or Pose, but your situation sounds similar to mine (orthos + MC shoes + ibuprofen as daily supplement), and I found out that I had run on a stress fracture for over a year.  My podiatrist could not think above the ankle and finally referred me to an orthopedic specialist who diagnosed me correctly.  If you haven't had this looked into, especially if the pain is only in one leg, you should consider it.

I don't know the difference between Chi or Pose.  But I can tell you what I know of Pose.

I had pretty severe ITBS as a heel striker.  I was a heel striker for about 20 years.

When I hired a coach last year he suggested I switch my gait to forefoot landing, which I did.  I had absolutely no ITBS that year of training.

I just recently hired a Pose coach to teach me the technique.  He said I was 70% of the way to running pose so I guess my "before" and "after" running technique wasn't that much different.

However, what I can tell you is that from now (running Pose as best I can) and then (heel striker) I have no ITBS trouble and am dramatically more efficient in my running!  My pace at LT actually went down running Pose vs running just forefoot landing with absolutely no training.  Now that is significant improvement in efficiency in my opinion.

From everything I've read it really seems to me that Chi and POSE are just slightly different ways of thinking about the same biomechanics. Efficient running technique is a matter of the laws of biology and physics. If you think about those things in terms of energy, focus, and balance as in Asian philosophy (yoga, tai-chi, various martial arts, etc.) then Chi running is goint to connect with you better. If you prefer scientific method approach to the same information and technique, then go POSE...

my $.02

Interesting question. I train at a tri center in Houston where they have recently switched from a Pose coach to the Chi method. The rationale as I understand it was that the Chi method was more straightforward. Also, the coaches felt the Chi method was similar in some ways to TI, which is the swim program they use (and I am a huge advocate of as a beginning swimmer).

Also, there was an article about the Pose method in Runner's World a few months back that I felt was fairly negative. They presented pros and cons, but I felt like the cons were significant. Essentially the downside was with the Pose, one may avoid one set of possible injury patterns but inherit another.

I had my first gait analysis two weeks ago, and they will be prescribing some drills for me in keeping with the Chi method. I'll let you know if I find MY Chi......for now I'm going to sit crosslegged and hum to myself, thinking of a happy place until I can go home. :-) C'mon shift change!