Learning
and practicing proper run form and developing run economy will serve all
endurance athletes well. Beginner to
professional – this is one of the best ways to run stronger and longer while
reducing the risk of injury.
Most athletes new to the endurance arena, namely runners
and triathletes, overlook or discount the importance of learning the
fundamentals of running. I suspect this
may be the case for several reasons, but quite simply, humans are land
animals. When we want to run, we
run. Unlike swimming, where proper form
has a major impact on forward movement and successfully swimming, you can
easily fudge running for at least a mile or two.
While running a couple miles is great for most people, if
endurance events (10k, Half Marathon, Triathlon, ect) are what you’re
interested in, the first couple miles are usually just the warm up. As athletes train to run longer and/or
faster, form and economy play an increasingly important role.
And remember, run related injuries affect 60-65% of
runners each year and are by far the most common among endurance athletes.
Below we will go through the basics of proper run form as
well as touch on 3 vital components of improving your run economy.
Proper Run Form &
Economy
The
biomechanics of running is the form component of running and good running
biomechanics improves speed and helps prevent injury. Proper form enables running to be more
enjoyable and helps improve your economy allowing you to run longer and
stronger while helping to reduce the risk of injury. In other words, proper run form and economy
will increase your body’s “miles per gallon” allowing you to go further using
less energy.
Runner’s World has a great introductory breakdown of
Perfect Run Form, which is a great place to familiarize yourself with how you
should look. However, knowing how you
should look and how you actually look is where a coach or friend can be a big
help.
A few items I’d like to point out that the Runner’s World
article doesn’t quite touch on include where your feet should fall, cadence and
vertical oscillation.
Where do your
feet land? Your foot should land underneath you
as opposed to out in front of you. By
landing each foot fall under your center of gravity you will naturally be more
like to land on the forefront of your foot.
The forefront of your foot is between your toes and heal, specifically
right between the “knobs” of your foot.
This is the ideal place to land.
By landing here your body will absorb the force exerted on each leg much
more efficiently. If you only run a few
miles a week you may never experience the consequences associated with heal
striking, however, as you increase your mileage the risk of injury goes up.
TEST 1: Jump
straight up in the air, about a foot off the ground, and land on your heels.
OUCH! This is essentially what your body is absorbing with each stride you take
when running if you’re a heel striker.
TEST 2: Take
off your sneakers and try running 100 yards.
You’ll probably notice that you naturally land on the forefront of your
feet as you run; absorbing the force your body creates quite nicely. NICE!
Additionally, as a heel striker you’re essentially
putting on the breaks each time your foot lands. Think about this for a second… if you run
this way, each time your foot hits the ground your heal digs in and essentially
breaks or slows a lot of the forward movement you’ve created. Not only that, but instead of going instantly
into your next step you have roll from your heal to the forefront of your foot
to push off for your next step forward.
Needless to say, this is not very efficient.
What is run cadence? Run cadence is the number of steps per
minute an athlete takes while running.
Cadence is typically measured by the number of times ONE foot hits the
ground over a minute. Similar to cycling
cadence, as you run, you should strive for a cadence of about 90. You may have noticed many elite marathoners
appear to float along as they run, barely touching the ground and at a cadence
in the high 90’s this is no surprise.
Run cadence is important for a couple reasons.
First, the higher your cadence the less amount of time
your foot is on the ground. The less
time your foot is on the ground, the less impact your body absorbs with each
stride.
Second, cadence is the same as stride rate and stride
rate multiplied by stride length equals speed.
Stride Rate x Stride Length = Speed
Most untrained athletes run at a cadence of about 80. Anyone can have a high cadence when sprinting
or running fast, but most cannot sustain that pace. The trick here, is learning to increase your
cadence (or turnover) when running slow or at a comfortable pace so that your
heart rate does not spike. This takes
practice and patience, but if you are diligent it WILL PAY OFF. Not only will your body thank you, but if you
can increase your cadence by 5 while holding your HR steady, you’ll be able to
knock off 2 minutes (or more) over 10k (6.2mi).
You can easily check your cadence by counting the number
of foot falls over :15 seconds and multiplying that number by 4. Manually counting is a great place to start,
but I often find this to be a misleading way to check your cadence. When athletes count their steps manually,
more often than not they’ll hit the target of 90 even if they’d normally never
come close. As a result, I do believe
this is a good method of training yourself to run at the proper rate, but in
terms of checking and monitoring cadence I prefer using Garmin’s
foot pod, which counts for me. This
way there’s no cheating.
Another great tool to use while learning to run at a 90
cadence is a metronome. You can set the device to beep at 180 beats
per minute. Each beep will represent a
foot fall. I recommend running with it
on first a few times and then alternate turning if ON and OFF throughout your
run to “check in” to see if you’re holding a 90 cadence. Remember, it is important to practice this
while running at a slow comfortable rate.
You must avoid increasing your pace in order to hit the proper
cadence. The more you practice, the
easier it will become.
What is vertical
oscillation?
While watching people run it is
not uncommon to see athletes run with a bounce or spring in their
step/stride. Vertical oscillation is the
up and down movement that occurs with each stride. While everyone will “bounce” slightly while
they run, the goal is to reduce this as much as possible. Too much bounce, wastes energy and decreases
the distance forward with each stride.
You can help reduce your vertical oscillation by trying
not to lift your knee so much when running.
In order words, all your energy should be behind you, not in front of
you. Fellow USAT Coach, Kelly Wisolik
does a great job at explaining this below.
“Lifting versus pushing is the concept that is better
described as “muscling versus springing.” In distance running, an athlete does
not want to “lift.” Lifting means “launching.” This involves a lot of muscular
use as it requires power and strength to lift and launch forward. It’s good for
power running like football and basketball players and track sprinters. But
this extra energy expenditure is not advantageous for distance runners and
triathletes. Lifting pulls the chest up and not only uses more muscles but more
oxygen too! Lifting occurs when the stretch-shortening cycle is not effectively
being employed during the running stride. Pushing is the idea of pushing off the
extended leg during the running stride. Pushing is an effective use of the
tendons and momentum. Dropping the knee, leaning forward and springing from
extension engages the natural reaction of the Golgi Tendon. This conserves
muscles and oxygen and therefore is good for distance runners and triathletes.
This is the concept of “dab and push forward,” “drop and spring” and “lean and
push” which reduces power loss unlike “lift and pull.””
While the description above is well written, sometimes is
best to just pretend like you have a glass of water (or wine) on the top of
your head and you’re trying not to let it spill.
Be Smart
Many athletes find it invaluable to seek out a local
coach to take a look at your form (swim, bike and/or run) and help correct
it. Clinics offered by local run/bike
shops and triathlon
clubs are another option. Whether you’re looking to improve your economy
and make you a little faster or if you’re mostly concerned with injury
prevention, working on proper run form is well worth the effort.
Written by: Chris Kaplanis, Ridgewood Tri Athlete
Chris
Kaplanis is a professional triathlon coach.
He is the Managing Director & a coach at Ridgewood Tri Athlete, a multisport
coaching business and tri club located in NJ.
You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisKaplanis. Find out more about RTA on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/RidgewoodTriathlete
and on Twitter: @RTA_Nation.
