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!
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