The Tiny Twist That Makes Your Running Smoother
Unlocking your spinal engine and why most of us are running stiff
Where’s Your Belly Button Pointing?
Yesterday, the group played with a simple question:
What’s your belly button doing when you walk?
I asked the group to slow things down and observe the motion of the navel — not as a gimmick, but as a way into something deeper: your spine's role in natural movement.
Here’s what they said:
🟩 ~50%: “Nothing much. It stays forward.”
🟨 ~33%: “It turns toward the lead leg.”
🟥 ~20%: “It turns away from the lead leg.”
That second group — the one noticing a twist toward the lead leg — is doing what movement theorists call a contralateral gait. That’s the pattern we’re wired for: left leg forward, right arm forward, and a subtle rotation through the trunk that ties it all together.
But here’s the kicker: only 1 in 3 of us actually felt that happening.
The Spinal Engine
Serge Gracovetsky — the physicist behind spinal engine theory — argues that the spine isn’t just a passive column we stabilise while the limbs do all the work. It’s the driver of locomotion.
Instead of thinking of running as pushing off with your legs, think of it as winding and unwinding a coil. The legs and arms respond to the twist of the spine. Not the other way around.
The engine’s not in your calves. It’s in your spine.
And yet, most of us are taught to brace, lock down, and stabilise, especially if you’ve had military training or any kind of coaching that praised “core strength” without understanding what that really meant.
Bracing might help carry a pack. But running freely? It’s like trying to skip with your ribs set in concrete.
What Stuart McMillan Teaches
Stuart ‘Fingermash’ McMillan is keen to stress that we all move in different ways, and even at an elite level, patterns of movement are unique to each athlete. There are, however, fundamental patterns of human movement. Here he is coaching athletes into some lovely deep hip openers with twists.
Stuart teaches that good movement flows through the spinal coil — it’s the connection between upper and lower body, and without it, your stride gets cut in half. It becomes stiff, choppy, and over-muscled.
You can see this difference in elite runners. Watch their torsos: they’re not rigid. They glide, twist, and oscillate. Their belly buttons are alive.
That subtle twist, right around the navel, is often what separates efficient movers from grinders.
A Drill You Can Try
Try this:
Walk backwards.
Go slow. Feel your toes, then heels hit the ground.
Once that rhythm is smooth, let your belly button turn toward the lead leg (the one in front). Don’t force the twist — just let it happen.
You’ll probably feel weird at first.
You might overthink it.
You might Frankenstein your way across the field.
But give it time.
Once you stop trying and start trusting, you’ll feel a coil start to build. A whip through the midsection. A softness in the arms. Less pounding, more gliding.
What This Means
Fascia — the body’s connective tissue web — plays a critical role in human movement. It facilitates intermuscular coordination, helping muscles work together rather than in isolation. It stores and releases elastic energy, allowing for springy, efficient movement rather than brute-force effort. And it provides proprioceptive feedback, meaning it helps the body sense itself in space — a kind of internal GPS.
When we explore and restore our rotational patterns through mobility work (like belly button drills or spinal spirals), we’re not just loosening up stiff joints — we’re tapping into fascial training principles. The result? Improved efficiency, power, and resilience in how we move, especially in a dynamic pattern like running.
Let me know what you discover out there.
What direction is your belly button pointing?
— David
Poles & Crocs