Proper Running form
RUNNING FORM How the right running form can help you become a better runner.
What is ‘good running form?’ Many coaches and athletes seek the correct running form but is this really possible? Over a variety of speeds from walking to jogging to sprinting the movement patterns of the body change in a variety of ways. So, is it really possible to develop the perfect form?
Investigations have shown that when you give a runner a ‘form make-over’ which forces the runner to learn and utilise new movement patterns, which most experts consider optimal, you often make that runner worse, not better. This change in form normally makes a runner need more – not less – oxygen and energy than they previously required.
The question is therefore what should we do about form? Surely there is a biomechanical adjustment which would allow you to shave time from your 5k or 10k PBs without having to spend months training to upgrade physiological variables such as lactate threshold, VO2max, and specific endurance. Well, Peak Performance surveyed the scientific literature on form improvement dating back to 1980, searching for information which might help your running. We found several ‘gold nuggets’ which could revamp your running style in a positive way.
Dr Nancy Hamilton from the University of Northern Iowa is one of the most tireless and practical investigators on optimal running mechanics. Hamilton has analysed running form with the process of ageing, based on her observations that running performance and form change rather dramatically due to ageing.
The Hamilton tapes
So, at the World Games in Eugene and the National Championships in San Diego in 1989, Hamilton spent hour after hour videotaping 162 competitive runners (83 males and 79 females). She then carefully analysed the runners form using a biomechanical technique called digitising. This involved slowing the videos down and carefully analysing each runner frame by frame so she could observe and analyse each runners form to the minute detail. She compared fast runners with slow ones, older runners with young ones. She became convinced that performance differences between runners of the same age and also age-linked declines in velocity might be caused to a very large extent by mechanical factors such as range of motion at the hips, knees, and ankles.
This range of motion was bound to have an effect on the two key components of running; stride length and stride rate (the two aspects, which must change if you’re to become a faster runner). It is possible to make all the improvements you want in VO2max, economy, lactate threshold, and form, but without any change in stride length or stride rate you will not move more quickly.
It’s the length – or the frequency
By using a simple equation it is possible to calculate how an improved stride length or frequency would improve your performance. For example, you currently run a 5K at a steady pace in around 18:30 by taking 180 steps per minute (90 strides) with a stride length of 3 metres (1.5 metres per step), you’re automatically locked into approximately a 1667-stride (3334-step) race, since 5000 divided by 3 equals about 1667 strides. Now 3334 steps divided by 180 steps per minute gives you a finishing time of around 18.5 minutes, or 18:30.
If you improved your stride rate by 1% (without any decrease in stride length) you’d run 5K in around 18:20, a 10-second improvement. If your transformation produces a 1-per cent increase in stride length instead of rate (without any loss in rate), your 5-K time will slide down by the same amount – to that nice 18:20. Of course, simultaneously upgrading stride length and rate by 1-per cent each will bring you home in about 18:10.
Do stride patterns change with ageing? Of course, but Hamilton was startled to learn that stride rate dropped off to only a small extent with the stride rates of runners in their 80s only about 4 to 5% slower than those of the 35-year-old whippersnappers. Although stride rate didn’t change much, stride length did decline by rather massive amounts. Hamilton found that stride length of 35 to 39 year olds were 4.72 metres per stride compared to 2.84 metres per stride of a 90 year old – a 40% decline! Hamilton concisely stated, ‘Even though the legs of older runners were still moving quickly, they were not gaining as much distance per step’.
Hamiltons finding reinforced other research in relation to walking patterns. Basically walking speed declines with age, even though ‘gait timing’ (the number of steps per minute) remains constant. The key change is the rather remarkable plummeting of step length.
Why does it happen?
So what was the reason why this stride length decreased so much? One reason Hamilton found was that ageing increased the amount of time each foot remained in contact with the ground during running. Older runners were not ‘exploding’ from one foot to the other. This therefore produced greater deceleration (the longer your foot is on the ground, the more speed you lose) and thus accounted for some of the stride-length dip.
Stride length fall offs also turned out to be related to changes in range of motion (amount of movement at joints) at the hips and knees. During running the range of motion when bending the knee decreased by 33% from 123° to 95° between the ages of 35 and 90. This therefore meant the lower part of leg could only attain maximum flexion at a right angle to the thigh during the swing phase of running (the phase when the leg is brought forward to make the next contact with the ground) rather than an upward motion towards the buttocks.
This reduction in knee flexion, by having the foot at knee level instead of near the buttocks, creates an extra long lever with a heavy foot on the end of it, which is bad news because long levers are harder to move than short levers. The weight of the foot adds weight to the lever and therefore resists the motion. As your leg begins to swing forward, it’s best to have that knee tucked up by the buttock, cutting your lever almost in half by making the knee – rather than the foot – the endpoint of your limb.
Picture it this way: as you are running along, your left foot has just initiated contact with the ground. Your right leg is flexed at the knee, and as your left foot rocks forward toward toe-off (leaving the ground), you swing your right leg forward. As you swing your right leg forward, it’s most economical to have your knee flexed so that your right foot has moved well up toward your buttock. If your leg stays straight, or flexes only moderately at the knee, too much weight will be at the end of your right ‘lever’, which has its pivot point at your right hip. As a result, that leg will be very difficult to accelerate.
That blasted hip
Along with movement at the knee, Hamilton also found an even greater loss of motion at the hip – dropping by 38% between the ages of 35 and 90. There was a slight age-related difference between the two different types of range-of-motion decline, with knee ‘stiffness’ striking with greatest force after the age of 50 and hip problems waiting until the age of 60 or so. However, Hamilton’s research suggested that preservation of hip flexibility was more important for maintaining speed, compared with the maintenance of knee suppleness.
Specifically, Hamilton found that the key to optimal hip range of motion was the conservation of hip mobility in the kick or drive phase of running. This occurs at toe-off when the gluteal and hamstring muscles contract to move the leg backwards while the quadriceps also work to help straighten the leg for the backward push (movement known as hip extension).
Maintaining and improving stride length
Can older runners maintain hip extension and younger runners improve it thus maintaining and improving stride length? The answer is yes, with flexibility of the quadriceps one key method. Over-tight quads will resist backward leg movements and through consistent stretching routines for the quads – carried out only after a thorough warm-up – can certainly help make the quads and their associated connective tissues more supple.
However, Hamilton points out that another key is to deliberately alter the way you run, e.g. to focus more on using the muscles around the buttocks to push backward on each step. Therefore altering your form. As she puts it, ‘Rather than reaching out with the foreleg to get maximum distance forward during a stride, think about pushing back as hard as you can on each step. Use the buttocks and hamstrings to do so, very much the way you might push out hard from a set of starting blocks. Run from your hips – not from your knees’. Make sure you do this only after your quads are warmed up and loose, to avoid overstressing them with your new-found form.
So three great ideas for form transformation are to improve quadriceps flexibility, increase knee flexion during the swing phase, and heightened backward pushes with the hamstrings and glutes, with the goal being the natural advancement of stride length. Hamilton also recommends to have limited knee flexion in the stance phase (when the foot is on the ground). Having too much knee flexion and also ankle flexion on impact is that you have to straighten these joints at toe-off and therefore the more they are flexed, the greater the amount of time spent in footstrike.
Improvements in performance associated with decreased footstrike time can be rather phenomenal. For example, take the case of the elite female road racer who has been finishing her 5-K races in about 16 minutes. Figuring that she takes about 190 steps per minute, that is a 3,040-step (16 X 190) race for her. Snip just one-thousandth of a second from her footstrike, and she’ll be home three seconds sooner, perhaps enough of a saving to help her pass another runner or two. Trim 1/300th of a second, and she’ll arrive 10 seconds more quickly, perhaps enough to finish among the top five runners. Shear off just 1/100th, still a very small change, and she’ll cross the finish line 30 seconds sooner, enough to win the race.
If footstrike is made too brief it might not allow enough time to generate maximal force, which could then affect stride length. But many distance runners don’t have this problem as they are not explosive enough with the usual problem being the reverse e.g. a rather sad collapse of the foot against the ground, poor stability, modest force development, and mediocre acceleration over to the other foot
Some form experts recommend an excess knee flexion during the stance phase to help absorb shock and although this proposition has a certain appeal there is nothing in the scientific literature to suggest runners who flex more actually experience less forces at the hips, knees and spines or have lower injury rates.
So there are four ways to improve your running form to maintain or improve your stride length and knock seconds off your PBs. Expanded knee flexion during the swing phase of running is good but during the stance phase is not. Increase your quadriceps flexibility and focus more on the muscles of the buttocks will increase stride length. But is there a danger of ‘overstriding’ with these fine-tunes? Not if you avoid ‘reaching out’ with your swing leg, and not if you let your leading foot land just slightly ahead or just under your centre of gravity. Your body will almost catch up with your lead foot just before impact with the ground, which will avoid any ‘braking action’ and will put you in great position to move powerfully forward.
To find out more about running techniques then check out this month’s Your Personal Trainer which explores the use of plyometric training to develop speed, to find out more follow this link:
http://www.sports-coach.net/prewp/rtb10-ypt9.html
Hoop Masters Blog 
I am sorry, that I interfere, there is an offer to go on other way.
Is all of that analyzed video footage (or highlights) available somewhere? I would love to see more high quality / slow motion running form videos.