Running Form Basics - Lower Body Mechanics II
Hey! I’m Coach Andrew Simmons Head Running Coach at Lifelong Endurance. I’ve spent the last 6 years honing my skills and developing a method to help athletes unlock free speed by working on their running form.
Taking the time to focus on your form allows you to simultaneously build fitness, run faster, and stay injury free. On average 67% of runners will see at least one running injury, 56% will see more than one injury in the next 2 years. What was the biggest factor that if improved could lower a runners risk? Improving their running form and mechanics.
We’ve built a free guide to help remove frustration and help you break bad habits.
Lower Body Mechanics 2
Cadence| Landing | Application
Cadence
Running Speed = Step Rate X Step Length - increasing one or both means you’ll run faster but don’t forget that each of these come at a pretty big cost - energy! It’s only a problem if you’re trying to conserve it! Working towards 180 steps per minute is an ideal construct and is something you work towards over a period of time. Cadence is key in learning how to land more underneath your CoG. Studies have shown that a slight uptick in cadence while maintaining your speed tends to tighten your mechanics. If there was one thing you could do to improve your running form and reduce your chance of injury, it would be to work towards a cadence of 180 spm. If you find yourself unable to hit 180 steps per minute on your runs you may still be shuffling.
Cues for Cadence
Use a metronome intermittently throughout your easy run days to train your natural stride towards 180 strides per minute
Feet underneath CoG
SOFT Landing - the harder the foot fall the more Ground Reaction Forces we’re taking into our legs
Light on your feet - this cue can also help you find your forefoot more easily
Shorten your stride. Seems counterintuitive to speeding up right? Get your cadence right first, then you can open things up when your form is perfect.
Landing
There have been numerous books and resources created that debate or call foul heel strike vs. mid-foot vs. fore-foot landing and as of yet, no one has been able to hold up a trophy saying “forefoot striking is best” or “heel striking is the bane of all running”. Simply put - there is no text book perfect running technique. There are numerous techniques but it comes back to one simple argument - Load vs. Capacity - is how you run overloading certain areas? Have you built strength (capacity) to manage that load for 10K, 13.1, or 26.2?
There are 2 questions I get asked as a coach time and again “should I be a mid-foot striker?” and "“will barefoot or 0 drop shoes make me a better runner?”; simply put the answer to both of these questions is very difficult to break down in a simply blog post. This is best solved by defining the why behind the questions - are you looking for a specific performance gain? Are you looking to wear a different style of shoe out of comfort? Are you really motivated after reading Born to Run?
The answer is a potential “maybe”.
What really matters about foot strike and foot contact is really about finding out what is most efficient for you and your current mechanics. If you change your arm swing, impart greater knee drive, and accrue more mileage your gait and mechanics will adjust. You can create good habits just as easily as your create bad habits - are you creating more problems by changing your foot strike (or any form change) or changing shoes? You may be inviting more problems than you’re solving - the incidence of achilles and lower leg injuries skyrocketed with the introduction of Vibram Five Fingers.
So give it to me straight, what’s right?
What’s right? It’s not about HOW as much as WHERE. We can argue endlessly about joint angles, impacts on the kinetic chain, impact loading etc. etc. etc. If you are landing ahead of your Center of Gravity (learn more in Part 1) you’re going to incur a significant amount of braking forces whether you heel strike, mid foot, or fore foot. Take a look at the break down of the Lieberman study from Harvard.. There is a big argument for forefoot striking and there are a few key points we can walk away with from reviewing this study.
Peak Force at midstance is the same for both kinds of gaits. This peak reflects the ground reaction force when the body's center of mass is at its lowest point. Because peak force at midstance rises slowly, it is probably less related to injury.
Heel Striking - Effective mass is approximately the foot plus the lower leg, which equals 6.8% of total body mass in the runners measured in Lieberman et al. (2010).
Forefoot Striking- Effective mass is the forefoot and some portion of the rearfoot and leg, which equals 1.7% of total body mass in the runners measured in Lieberman et al. (2010).
Forefoot Striking-This kind of collision produces a very slow rise in force with no distinct impact transient. Impact Transient is KEY. Read the study to learn more.
It’s not simply one thing…
While a runner can avoid experiencing a large impact force by fore foot striking properly; how it lands is only 1 factor, you have to include where it lands in respect to your Center of Mass and the impacts of lower body kinetics and kinematics throughout the gait cycle. Landing mid-foot won’t itself save you from needless injury, just like one workout won’t get you a PR - it’s about the collective work. Is your form as a whole going to put you at greater risk of injury?
Slowing it down
Big knee drives, heels to hamstrings, and landing underneath your center of gravity are key to high power, high speed, and proper mechanics at speed - but what about your easy days? We know that everyday isn’t a workout, so what should my heels be doing at 11,12 or 13:00 a mile? Do these same rules apply? Everything we talked about above still applies but at a much lower amplitude, you still need to focus on picking up your heels, and driving from your knees. How your foot lands is key - every time you are out in front of your body (CoG) you are absorbing unnecessary ground reaction forces for a longer time than necessary.
Focus on Foot Placement (Respect your center of gravity!)
Cadence (176-180 spm) should be your goal at any speed
Listen to how loud you are running (Light and Soft)
Strategies for Application
You should put your focus in one area on each run, trying to apply everything in this post all at once will get you frustrated. Frustration and lack of immediate progress are the 2 biggest reasons people go back to bad running habits. You are absolutely going to have to slow down, be patient, and turn your focus inward. Self-Awareness and a full understanding of what you’re doing may require you to grab a friend or spouse and film you.Taking time to reflect and look for the small nuances is crucial to your development. Here are a few strategies of how to painlessly move your form work forward.
Start with Cadence - add 4spm to your current average every 2 weeks. Don’t try to jump to 180, you have to develop the rhythm and muscle memory. Give it time!
Focus on your CoG and foot placement. Focus on landing underneath yourself. Bounding Drills + Resisted Running Drills are crucial at this stage
Add in a focus on knee drive and heel return last. These will naturally increase as you get sharper and more confident with your drills
Be Patient. This work is constantly in motion. Make drills a regular part of your warm up (especially before speed work)