More Meat Volume 9: Good Form Running

Adam and I did indeed attend the New Balance Good Form Running seminar at Fleet Feet sports last Thursday night.  This was completely independent of each other and the face that we both were wearing Making Tracks for Celiacs shirts (different years at least) did prove that our ongoing tribute to the Ace and Gary cartoon will not be denied.



I've heard about and read about this good form stuff for a while, but having it demonstrated live (and having us go through it in person) finally made it sink in for me.

Does running with good form matter?  Not really.  But it is the most efficient stride and also puts less stress on your legs by cutting down on the impact caused by "heel striking".  So, if you truly want to get the most out of your races and with the least risk of injury, you should consider incorporating a more efficient stride.  It will take a while and should be eased into.  Attempting to change over cold-turkey will leave your turkey cold and you frustrated and perhaps injured from the abrupt change.  For those of you who are tempted by the siren's song of the minimalist running movement, this form is almost mandatory.  The minimalist shoes, or barefoot running, is much less forgiving to the heel strike running form and therefore this softer step goes hand in hand (foot in foot?) with the minimalist process.

As Adam teased on Facebook, there were four steps they emphasized:

1) Posture.
What you would expect here.  Feet shoulder width apart and facing forward, body basically straight up and down and shoulders not slouched forward or not thrown back.  The simplest check here is your feet.  Stand up in what you think is your neutral position.  Then look down at your feet.  Are they facing directly forward?  Mine are not.  My right foot toes out a little.  This is something I can work on just when I'm standing around. I tend to lock in a hip and flare out a foot.  This then carries over to my running in a negative way.

He also went into arm position and it turns out that he would claim that I hold my hands and arms too low.  (Much to Adam's delight.)  His neutral position has your elbows bent at a 90 degree angle (no chicken wings!), hands in a thumbs up position (no zipper lines!), and then a nice relaxed swing.  So, not a big change here from what you've heard before, but the 90 degree angle is an easier one to see for yourself or to pass along to others.

2) Midfoot.
Adam called this strike, but I think they officially called it by where they want the foot strike to start - mid foot.  This is the step that had never sunk in til Thursday night.  It is not toe-running as I suspected it was.  You do not strike mid-foot first and then continue to roll forward like you do when heel striking (heel, mid-foot, toes).  What you do, is hit mid-foot first, quickly followed by heel, followed by your push off.  He got us to get the feel for this by simply marching/walking in place.  Do it.  And sure enough you feel the pad of the foot go down first, followed by the heel, and then you are pushing off again.  It's very simple when done that way.  Translating to a running motion, doing this means that you are not reaching your leg out ahead of you when it lands.  You are letting it land almost directly underneath you.  I've ready before that it is like a pawing motion...pawing the ground like a bull does.  The foot sets down underneath you and then paws off the ground.  It makes for what seems like a shorter stride, but he emphasized to lengthen your stride back out BEHIND you.  Very little stride forward, longer stride behind.

It's certainly not easy when switching from stepping in place to actually running, but it game me an idea for the feel of it and it makes sense that you don't want your legs reaching way ahead of you, only to heel strike (which is a breaking motion momentum wise and a jarring motion injury wise) and have your body catch up to where your foot is.

3) Cadence
I may attempt to demonstrate this in groups tonight during the warm-up.  He claimed that a typical, naive, cadence (counting both feet, total steps per minute) is around 160.  Ideally you want this closer to 180.  As before, you should not just change this overnight.  If you do have a slower than ideal cadence, you should slowly adapt it.  There are watches, apps, and even music for your mp3 players that should have a cadence metronome built into them.  I'm hoping to have an app tonight and will have it playing a couple different ones tonight during the warm-up jog.

4) Lean
This one was barely demonstrated and while the example was useful, there was no way to truly get a feel for it without running.  So, I can't describe this one very well, yet.  I need to see if I can "feel" it myself when I do  my first practice run with all these techniques in place.  You are not supposed to lean back.  And you are not supposed to slouch or bend forward.  You are supposed to have your nice, upright, posture and then lean your whole body slightly forward as you lean into your stride.  I can have everyone repeat the same exercise he led us through, but as I said, this is the one that was harder to translate into what it will feel like while running.

And that's it!  Easy, right?  Just be careful if you attempt to change over to this more energy efficient and softer stride pattern.  Old habits die hard, so give it some time and test yourself with it starting with short portions of your run.