The four main components of the Chi Running form are posture, lean, heel lift and arm swing. This blog entry discusses arm swing.
In Chi Running the arms are completely relaxed from the hands all the way up to the shoulder. They are also constantly bent at a 90 Degree angle and swing at the same cadence as your legs. Keep your shoulders relaxed and down and let your arms hang down from the shoulder socket.
This 90 Degree angle because it creates the shortest arm length, which also is the easiest length to swing. To emphasize the point try swinging straight arms (longest length) versus arms bent at 90 Degrees (shortest arms) and notice the difference in effort.
The arms swing at your side front to back with a slight angle inwards in front of you but never crossing your centerline. If they swing past your centerline, they create momentum in the sideways direction rather than to the front, which wastes energy.
You never swing your elbows further forward than your ribs. This throws your legs forward which can cause heel strike and also rotates the shoulders. You also never swing your wrists further back than your ribs.
Your arms swing like pendulums from the ball in the shoulder socket and as separate entities from your shoulders. This is to ensure your shoulders don’t swing with the forward and backward movement of the arms. In Chi Running your shoulders always point forward, and never rotate. If your shoulders rotate they reduce your stride length and you lose speed.
You swing you arms to the rear like you are elbowing someone behind you rather than swinging them to the front like you are punching someone in front of you. Once your arm is swung to the rear, just let it fall forward using gravity. Swinging their arms to the rear instead of forward will keep their shoulders stable and not rotating along with the arms. This helps stabilize everything above the midpoint of your spine. It’s everything below this midpoint that rotates when you run.
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