Barefoot Drills for runners and track and field athletes

Barefoot Walking Drills

This post is going to be entirely about drills you can do to develop the muscles in your feet and lower legs to prevent injury. There is no magic bullet, and I won't say that all of these will cure anyone who is a heel striker or that they will cause anyone to eradicate shin splints or knee pain. What I will say is this, when you drive your car and your tires start to go bald, your brakes wear down quicker and your gas mileage suffers. What do you think happens when your feet aren't doing their job as you run? 

Developing your running tires

Here is a description of the drills I suggest. These are not all inclusive, but they are the ones I think are the best. Why do I think they're the best? They're easy to remember and they hit all of the foot.

I like to do these through grass, but your living room is fine. I suggest 20 meters for this and all of the exercises, and I suggest you take off your shoes and socks, but if you're uncomfortable, just your shoes is fine. You'll see below why feeling where and what you're stepping on is important. 

Toe Walk 

Just as it sounds, walk on your toes. You'll lift up, and do your best to keep yourself up on the toes. As you walk, be upright, looking forward and NOT down. Do your best to make sure your feet are facing directly forward.

Heel Walk

Why would anyone want to walk on their heel if we try to avoid heel-toe striking? Because we will heel-toe strike when we get tired or by habit. Walking on your heels requires you to lift your toes, this will cause the muscles on the front side of your shin to activate, which can aid in preventing shin splints. Walking on your heels, you'll want to be upright as best you can, just like the toe walk, looking forward and not down.

Outside foot walk 

Rolling from heel-toe is again not something I suggest for runners, but while you're in your bare feet, try this. Roll from the heel to the toe on the outside portion of your foot. It will either be really easy or really hard, but do it, maintaining the same posture and let your foot muscles develop.

Inside foot walk

This is just walking and rolling on the inside of your foot. If the outside was easy, this won't be! Develop these muscles though, and notice if you feel the insides of your knees aggravate at all, or if you notice any similar feeling to to when you have a running pain? If you do, that may be a sign of what you're actually doing while you run.

Grass Grabbers

This is my new favorite! Start with a walk, but this will become a run. You're going to step over the opposite ankle and as your foot strikes the ground, your toes are going to grab the grass under you and try to "pull it out." This requires your foot to contract, and it requires you to land on the balls of your feet. Start slowly, and get a little quicker.

Conclusion

In the end, you'll probably find some of these difficult and some really easy, but I am certain that while they may not alter your running form or gait, they will help you develop into a less injury prone person. Repeat these everyday or every other day and see what happens. 

If you would like me to post video for a demonstration, please write in the comments section below. I would be happy to do that if it's something people would want to see.

Running Form: Foot Strike and how impact force can be good or bad!

Foot Strike

Good vs. Bad running form - how your feet strike the ground

When you are a runner, the last thing you want to have happen is for you to become unable to run. It amazes me as I watch people run how differently we all run. More than that, I am intrigued by how children run. They don't over-stride, they don't hunch, they sometimes don't use their arms or they put their arms up for protection, and other times they freely swing their arms, but don't protect themselves from the wall or something else. My son's foot strike is below his body, it is forceful, and when he hits the ground, his ankle joint, knee joint, and hip joint are all activated. I hope not to make him run like the slower adults who jog past our house sometimes, but I fear that he will be told by someone else as I did the exact WRONG way to run.

Today is all about foot strike.

The picture above is of an athlete's left foot as she lands, you can see how her toes are up. We call that a dorsi flexion, but that should only be happening in the air. As she strikes the ground, her foot should be under her body so that the balls of her feet can hit the ground and create a reactive force. By striking on her heel, she is still generating a lot of force, but it is putting pressure on her knees, shins, hip, etc. and creating a greater possibility of injury. 

The best way to see why she is doing that is to look at this next picture of a different girl who will do the same thing, but this image is of her legs in flight. 

As you see, this girl's front leg (left leg) is out in front of her body. Her knee is almost straight, and her body is literally waiting to land on the ground. From a RUN FAST perspective, this is not good because she is wasting time in the air, but from an injury prevention standpoint, we want to be fully flexed out (ankle extended, knee locked, hip open) in a triple extension at take off, but not at landing. This girl is very fast, and has gotten better at this, but a conscious effort to cut your stride by 5 or 10% may reduce your chance of injury greatly!

The next image is of a pretty good foot strike: 

Notice how this foot seams to almost be floating parallel to the ground? Yet she is about an inch off the ground. If we had a much higher speed camera, I could have grabbed the next image which would have been her planting on the ground. That would show the ball of her foot (front half, behind the toes) landing on the ground, her toes in a straight line with her shoulders, and her body ready to literally bounce off the ground! 

How do you strike your foot correctly?

Running up hill, the ground will meet you, so you're going to be less likely to over stride. Learn what that feels like, and do your best to mimic that. When we walk, we land heel-toe, so when we run with shoes on, our body doesn't always adjust. Learning what that feels like can be a huge step in making the correct adjustments. The next post will be some drills to help develop the muscles in your feet to do this better.

God Bless!

Run at Work day

I hope you had a great "Run at work" day today. I did, I had the pleasure of running with my assistant coach Katie through the area that our runners did their repeats today and through the woods a little bit on some trails. As we were running, I couldn't help but look over to her and watch her feet (and also feel where mine were landing) to determine how we were doing with preventing ourselves from becoming injured.

Here is what we focused on (aside from our interesting conversations!)

Don't over-stride! When we reach too far out, we tend to land on our heels. If we push our feet down through the ground hard and underneath our bodies, we didn't over-stride, and we landed on the balls of our feet. That's a good thing.

Push our feet through the ground. Pushing our legs down allowed our knees to recover and lift up. I don't know if I like the idea of focusing on a foot "drive down" or a knee "lift" better, but the more I study bio-mechanics, the more I realize the driving of the foot down will give us the improvements we're looking for. That also enhances the likelihood that we won't over-stride and we will land on the correct part of our feet.

Stop looking at Katie's feet! After a little bit, I realized looking over at Katie's feet was drawing my head down, which put me out of a great alignment of my body. Once I was able to remember to keep my chin up and my head up, I was able to do a better job of keeping my posture right and make great strides. I could feel my own feet striking the ground correctly, and hopefully Katie was doing things right. When I'm running, I guess it's better that I stop coaching for a few minutes!

Intro

I love running, and pole vaulting; I often get asked by friends, family, and strangers about some of the best running practices or why there is a right and wrong way to pole vault. I am fortunate to have a job as a cross country and track and field coach, so not only do I like to give advice, you could say it's my calling. I hope in this blog to provide answers, insight, and some fun in regards to track and field, and maybe also in life.

My goal is to post some information on a regular basis (a few times each week) and also to provide some videos of drills as often as I can, but with the goal of at least once each week. Whether you are a runner, a pole vaulter, a coach, or just someone who enjoys watching others put themselves through the torturous pursuit of improving themselves, I hope you'll enjoy this and stick around for more.

God Bless You!

Greg