Blog Post

Some runners argue they don’t need to work on form. They have all kinds of reasons: I’m not serious enough to need to learn; nobody taught me how to run in the first place; I’ve been running fine for years; my body runs as it should. I understand. But why not challenge yourself; see how good it can feel to reinvent your run form. Also, if you’ve been suffering from aches and pains and even injuries associated with your running, there’s a reason, and one of the root causes is likely poor form.

Our bodies are designed to move in a certain way, common to all of us, and because of this, I fundamentally believe there is a single “best” form to run. Yes, some may have more innate ability to do so than others (just like in other sports). But with the proper instruction in form, you can learn to run to the best of your ability, with the greatest efficiency.

Not to be cute, but I describe the ideal of running form as “performance “ because “form” is at the heart of the word. Without form, there’s no performance.  Everything in proper form begins with the foot, specifically the forefoot. Landing there, as you see in this video, is the first line of stability in your stride. The toes, especially, the big toe, engage the ground. The arch then fires, and you are creating a stable base that brings the knees and hips into alignment. By landing on the forefoot, your ankle, which should not extend past the knee, provides some shock absorption as your heel follows down. Striking with the forefoot also helps prevent you from overstriding (though it’s no guarantee) and allows for a quicker cadence.

The right shoes are critical to developing proper forefoot strike. Shoes with a built up heel and thick outsole keep the heel and calves from engaging fully. This stops your calves from firing well, causing you to lose power and elasticity, throwing off your muscle equilibrium.  Once you switch to a flexible, more natural shoe, you’ll really feel those calves working, as they should.

Foot Strike Technique and Awareness

• Strike the ground first with your forefoot
• Keep your ankle under your knee. Don’t ever let your foot reach so far out in front that your ankle is in front of your knee.
• Regardless of speed, the forefoot’s strike in relationship to your body should not change.
• Your shoulders should stay in line with your hips; don’t lean at the waist.

Drills

These drills are critical for you to understand proper form and to experience how good form should “feel”. They also serve to help you practice and reemphasize good form, creating the right muscle memory. As you progress, they can be performed as a warm up before a run—and even during runs to get the right feel back.

• Barefoot Jumping In Place: This drill allows us to understand and feel the foot strike from the forefoot.  Runners should strike first with the forefoot and then allow the heel to hit.  The faster we run, and the stronger our feet become over time, the more the heel can stay elevated off the ground.  But when first working on form, and when running slow, you should allow the heel to drop to the ground after the forefoot.
• Barefoot Running In Place: You really can’t run wrong while running in place.  Without coaching or instruction, you’ll do it well, especially when running in place fairly fast. We will naturally strike the ground with our forefoot, bring our knees out in front of us, and drive power directly into the ground.  When running for real, the only thing that changes is that we angle our foot to the ground to propel us forward, rather than up and down in place. This is also a perfect drill to understand how we should drive through the ground and lift our knees in front of us.