Running technique query

A snowHead

Any expert runners (hey since when did anyone need to be an expert to have an opinion on here!) care to offer views?

I have been running 2-3 times a week for a fair while in an effort to keep flab off and fitness up and have a number of regular routes. I am pretty one paced and fairly sure that I am naturally a "heel striker" but have read a few articles about improving running style.

Last night I went out round one of my regular routes, 5.2m/8.3km round the fields, mainly flat but a few hills (one steep) and made a conscious effort to be more on my toes on the flat, extend my stride on the downhill and keep my cadence/knee lift up on the hills.

It was pretty hot so I didn't expect anything too great but I ended up beating my best time by over a minute and my normal time by 3 minutes. Is this likely to be the change in technique?

I'm no Mo Farah (too old, lazy and fond of pies/beer) and the time involved was 47m 20s so just over 9 minute mile/just under 6 minute km pace

A snowHead

DJL, I have moved from a heel strike to a mid-sole/fore strike and I find that I am both faster (a little, but enough to notice) and with that and adding in regular ITB stretching I can run for longer more comfortably than before.

That said, from what I have read it's not for everyone and brings with it a different mix of potential injury.

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Don't run too much on your toes tho, as it can lead to a shortener achilles. A good mid-landing is good, as described by under a new name. Take it easy tho as your muscle groups and joints won't be used to it yet.

What little running I do (mainly at the gym on the tradmill) I do wearing Vibram five-fingers which are like running barefoot. That very quickly forces you to move from a heavy heel-strike as you just can't do it.

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Thanks guys. I'll try to keep on my toes. No ill effects from last nights efforts.

I've just ordered some new shoes - New Balance MT110 - which are low drop (4mm) trail shoes which have had some good reviews and I hope will be good for on the paths/pastures around Chatel. These are typically mostly rocky and dusty in the summer rather than muddy and soft. My road shoes are no good for this and my orienteering shoes have enormous great studs in the bottom. Hopefully these will get me a bit more forward. Report back on this mid-August.

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DJL, have a look at "Chi Running" on You tube, lots of videos there if you want to know more.

feef, I've wondered about getting some of those Vibram's, do they take much to get used to them?

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Ray Zorro, It's hard to say as I've come from them from a near-zero running background so I don't have an existing shoe to type to which I'm used to.

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DJL, I think you had a good day. Adjustments to running technique are not going to make a difference over 5 miles unless something seriously wrong with your technique which is unlikely. The WORK you did is the same and your cardiovasc system / metabolism are the major determinants of how much work you can do. Be careful forcing new running techniques on yourself, an overuse-typ injury can be hard to shake even when you revert to original technique.

After all it is free

I have always run in cushioned shoes and bought some minimalist shoes earlier this year (try explaining barefoot running shoes to people and see their confused faces). I was amazed at how difficult it was to run in them. feefs right - take it easy to start with and do plenty of stretches, without cushioning your heels soon start to feel it if you slip back to old technique. It took me a good few months to get up to longer distances at decent speed so it does require patience but my knees have been a lot better since making the move.

Don't rush the transition. I ended up pulling both calf muscles trying to change too quickly

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I think a few of you may have been right on the money here. Two runs in and my calves are a bit tight. Not sure if it was effort at a different technique or the new shoes.

Anyway I'll keep it going but try not to overdo it and see how it goes.

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DJL, I was just re-reading your first post. 47 minutes for 5 (?) Miles? Not exactly speed of light. Sorry not meaning to offend, but it shouldn't take much to shave another 5 (or 10) minutes off I would think. You don't need to change your style, just speed up a bit

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Oi peanuthead, don't rub it in. I know I'm no Olympian! In my defence the route is 95% off road, hilly and winds around in the woods a bit. I go a bit faster on things like Parkruns but even then I'm only just under 25mins for 5k.

I thought some of my lack of speed might be due to the slowing effect of heel striking so just giving it a go in the hope of speeding up a little bit. Well aware that training more will also pay off.

if you want a good book about running technique take a look at "natural running" by Danny Abshire, available on that amazon website thingy for about £13, probably about the best book on the subject i have found, (i have 8-9 on the shelf for work reasons, but this is the easiest to read/implement)

You know it makes sense.

DJL,

Don't get too obsessed about heel strike. An efficient stride will result in the heel landing slightly before the mid-sole (you roll from the heel towards the front of the foot). Just try to run faster, and aim for a higher knee drive and efficient arm movement (arms not moving across the body). Try to minimse any unnecessary upper body (mainly shoulder) and head movement.

A good running technique involves the whole body, not just the bit that makes the contact with the ground (a bit like skiing really!)

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

DJL, landing the bottom of the heel and rolling through the stride is okay so long as the strike point is pretty much below your centre of gravity. If your previous heel strike was combined with a low cadence (below 85 per minute, depending on height, local estimates may vary) and long stride, then your strike point may have been forward of your center of gravity which would quite likely mean that your quads would be working to absorb the landing, actually giving a slight braking action.

If you land with your support foot beneath you, then the part of the foot you land with is determined by the amount by which your ankle is flexed and your foward lean. Skiers style maximum flex wlll present the heel, ballroom dancer pointing will present the ball of the foot. If you run on varied terrain, you will probably be doing the whole range of this by virtue of the gradient. On the flat, you will notice a difference pretty rapidly and calf muscles, achiles tendons and ankle ligaments will tell you that you need to ease off. If you can ease off before getting the warnings, so much the better.

4mm is quite a low heel. How does it compare with your previous shoes ? some basic road shoes are about 12mm. I'd keep the initial runs short and easy. I experimented with doing my track warm downs with my shoes off and the first try was the half lap return from 5000m. I felt it in my lower calves next day and that was going from a 6mm heel drop and deliberately using a very short stride and slight heel landing. I'm now up to four laps easy jogging. I tried a lap of deliberate forefoot landing as gently as I could manage, I won't be doing it again.

On the trail, I sometimes use Huaraches, if I am sure of the surface, it's a nice day and I'm not training for pace. I'm about a minute per mile slower than I am in Fuji gels.

There seems to be a current obsession on running forums for people with a few months of running to want to 'transition' to a forefoot strike. The same people also post that they went for a two mile run in their new style and now they can't walk. I think they may have misinterpreted the word 'strike'. Bouncing around like a kangaroo for a couple of miles, first time out, is a recipe for disaster.

A snowHead

Thanks for the input from all.

I have had a few runs the new shoes both in the alps and at home and the main trouble is my right second toe - they are a bit snug there but seem to be getting better. The change in heel drop is not too much of a problem I don't think. I'm sure my road shoes have 10mm plus but my orienteering shoes are much less than that and they seem better on rough ground with less chance of turning an ankle.

I did have a bit of calf ache which I think was the new shoes/technique change and my knees were a bit sore when I got home but that could well be the walking with several days involving 800m+ of vertical which gets me on the downhill a bit.

I think I'll keep trying for less of a braking effect and see how it goes.

Anyway something is working - maybe two weeks of "altitude training" followed by a taper (i.e only one short run the week I got back home) - as I knocked 20 seconds off my parkrun PB on Sturday even though I didn't feel I was going that well.

A work in progress.

A snowHead

My advice would be find what is comfortable and stick with it.

If you really want to transition to a forefront strike - and there are significant advantages as well as disadvantages - the best thing you can do is break an ankle, tear some ligaments and be forced to learn to first walk and then run again. I did, and it worked for me, I then taught myself to run as I felt comfortable. Sometimes I heel strike, sometimes I mid-foot strike sometimes I forefoot strike. It all depends on the terrain. Teaching yourself a new style of running takes a long time, I don't think people reading all the buzz around barefoot running and the like realise just how long. We're talking years here, not months. You have to undo a lifetimes worth of conditioning the muscles and joints in a particular way.

I now regularly run 60-80 miles/week and compete in ultra-distance races. Perhaps compete is too strong a word: take part!

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macgyver, i think you are vastly over doing it in saying it takes years to change... most runners can transition from heel to mid foot in a matter of 8-12 weeks if they go through the correct drills and their bodies are all operating properly

this is not about "barefoot" it is about running in the way your body was designed to run, what cannot happen though (without a lot of effort and time) is to transition from heel strike to forefoot strike effectively, the body is smart it can go from heel to mid or forefoot to mid but to jump from one end to the other is incredibly hard

whilst i don't run ultra's biomechanics is my subject Little Angel

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Getting ready for winter sport: A combination of Pilates for core strength, Tai Chi for the busines of Breathing, and a weekly Park Run (5km or 3 miles), plus some jogging mixed with sprints will, I believe, help make my skiing and other activities that much more enjoyable. Wishing you the best of health. Naturopath 25.09.2013

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I'd a 10 minute running tutorial with an Alexander Technique teacher 5 years ago, which made a big difference

I'd an upright , shoulders back, quite long-striding, heel-striking posture. He remarked that I was effectively braking with every step.

The advice was to allow the shoulders to relax forwards, and take smaller strides. The subtle thing, and it's something that I still have to work on with every run, is to slightly adjust fore-aft balance so that there is a tiny imbalance driving forward.

To try to describe this in a nutshell: if you are running at a steady speed, and you suddenly want to accelerate, your posture will change. Your shoulders will drop, and your centre of balance will move forward slightly. Try and capture that change, just enough so that a tiny forward imbalance works for you. Too much, and you will have to work too hard chasing it.

Get that right, and the hind-foot/fore-foot striking thing just sorts itself out naturally, and hopefully without undue risk of injury. It's easy/hard - easy to do and get that sense of how to do it; hard to capture and use consistently. For me, it's still work in progress!

Hope that this is helpful
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My running days are over but I'll give you my thoughts as someone who used to run circa 70 miles a week for 20 years...
Serious runners generally develop an imbalance in their quadriceps which can pull the knee joint out of alignment and leave you susceptible to knee injuries. The best way to address this is to ensure you also do some resistance training, leg extensions are particularly useful or keeping the quadriceps balanced.
I can't run anymore due to a prolapsed disc in my sacro iliac joint, caused primarily because my ham strings were always incredibly short and this in turn pulled my pelvis out of alignment. The twenty years of running did the rest of the damage but it was certainly exacerbated by virtue of the fact that I ran in completely the wrong shoes for the first few years and failed to adequately stretch both before and after my run. I can't stress the importance of stretching out your ham strings.
Choosing the correct running shoe should be approached with no less care than choosing your ski boots. Get your running style assessed by professionals and get the right shoes, are you a neutral runner or do you pronate or suppinate etch etc?
I agree with the previous poster that we aren't all biodynamically efficient, I found out too late that I wasn't but I also hold a different view on training now, believing that short intense sessions are far more valuable than long endurance sessions.

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I used to HATE running, I got tired easily and struggled to get under 33 minutes for a 5k and 110mins for a 10.

I bought some "barefoot" Merrels and slowly (over about 6 weeks) transitioned to them. I discovered that by moving to a forefoot/midfoot strike ALL of the pain in my knees and back disappeared and my times now hover between 4.40 and 5.40 perkm depending on distance…dipping sometimes, I am old and crap.

I love it when people stare when I trot past with no shoes on (summer only and not for too long as it can be uncomfortable on concrete) but it is LOVELY on grass!

Help!!

Running technique query

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