This book is designed to help normal people learn how to run with the best possible technique. Your objective could be to begin running for fitness, improve your best time in a local race, finish a charity fun run or even complete the marathon. Whatever your running goal, the first thing you need to do is avoid getting injured. Happily, if you’re aware of what good running technique should be and you begin taking steps to run better, avoiding injury is possible. If you can do this then performance improvements will also soon follow. In this book there are some fresh ideas for anyone who believes they can run faster with fewer injuries than their current training allows. If you have questions about running technique - the answers are here. If you’ve given up running because your body couldn’t take it anymore, perhaps you can be tempted back to the sport with some clear suggestions for improving the way you move over the ground.
My objectives for writing this book are to help
existing runners improve their running technique and provide sound
knowledge for beginner runners to give them a head start and avoid
getting hurt. Whether you’re seeking to avoid or come back from
injury, start running for the first time, run faster or just enjoy
it more, there’s likely something of interest for you as I:
- share my experiences in making changes and improvements to my
running technique;
- provide insights on what good running technique looks like in
every phase of the running cycle;
- specifically identify the muscles needed to power and sustain
good running technique;
- help you decide if you should consider changing or improving your
technique;
- provide a framework for evaluating and improving running
technique for coaches and runners;
- detail strength and coordination principles for runners of
different ability levels and explain how these relate to the muscle
activation patterns needed to run better;
- offer mental cues to break you out of bad habits and get a sense
for how running better can feel;
- provide advice on footwear and barefoot running in improving
technique;
- break down unhelpful myths and misinformation about how running
works; and
- translate scientific language used in academic writing so it’s
understandable for the lay person.
If you’re an elite or talented runner you already consciously or unconsciously know what you’re doing, but while you’re here, you might be interested in learning why you are so good and how you could get better by enhancing what you have and correcting minor chinks in your armour.
Coaches should find value in having an objective framework to evaluate running technique and clear guidance on how to improve their athletes’ techniques no matter how good or bad they first appear. The goal of the coach should always be to encourage and help their athletes improve their craft; too often this has been restricted to training methodology, important, but neglectful of teaching the fundamentals of good human running biomechanics. I don’t blame the coaches; there is little information to work with. I hope this book will help take your athletes to improved performances, fewer injuries and promote greater retention in the sport.
This book is a comprehensive guide on running technique: a step-by-step program to learn running and strengthen your body to enable progressive adoption of a better technique. It takes the mystery out of why gifted and elite runners move better than mortals like you and I. In doing so you will learn how you can adopt the basic elements of this technique and enjoy the freedom and pleasure of running faster and more freely than you would have thought possible. You’ll learn how to develop the strength and coordination to allow you to emulate better running technique. I don’t claim to be able to get you to the Olympics, but I do think I can give people the knowledge to develop a competent running technique and most importantly, avoid injury.
How much more is there to say about running? I asked this question not as an intellectual exercise or a prompter to you the reader but as a true and difficult question to myself. I had to be able to answer in my own mind before committing the time, effort and heartache involved in any significant writing exercise. For me the answer was simple - there is much more to say about running because there is so much about running technique that remains unsaid or obscure.
One issue is the lack of literature on how elite runners actually move. My starting point was to understand and document their movement pattern, which muscles were responsible and begin exploring a method for adopting and training for this benchmark. I needed to understand why there can be such a disparity between the pace an elite runner can sustain over longer distances compared to what a normal person is capable of doing. I can accept not being as good at something as the best in the world, that’s life, generally there’s going to be someone, sorry probably a large number of people who are better than you. But even if that is the case I refuse to give up until I am doing everything possible to improve the way that I run by identifying all the elements that will allow me to run faster, for longer and with fewer injuries.
Most running books describe (very well) approaches and programs on how to train, some including Daniels’ Running Formula (2005) include fantastic information on how hard you should train based on current fitness. This is perfect for avoiding over reaching and leaving your best work on the training track or getting injured by trying to run too fast. But as good as these books are they don’t include much information on technique. I’ve read dozens of publications that sit on the fence when it comes to a recommended running technique, heel-toe, forefoot, knee lift etc it was all a mishmash that ultimately included a statement along the lines that each runner had to find their own fatalistically determined pathway. Read: you’re stuck with what you’ve got because if your body is doing it that way it is because it has determined the best way for you to move. When did my body get the right to tell my brain how we’re going to do business? I just didn’t believe it, don’t believe it and by the end of this book you won’t believe it either. If the only way to improve is to run more miles then there are limited options for people who break down in the process. I’m definitely here to provide more choices for regular runners.
What you will learn: This book describes a fundamental technique for jogging and running. This is done through the clear explanation of my observations and experience and the research I have undertaken into biomechanics and kinematics of running (see below for explanation).
External and visual indicators of good technique: you will understand what good technique looks like from the outside (kinematics), allowing you, your running coach or training partner to get immediate feedback on how well you are executing your technique. You will learn how to spot and interpret the key visual cues to good technique and technical errors.
Internal muscle activation that drives good technique: what good running looks like is one thing; next we need to understand how the body produces that movement pattern. This is where we need some basic knowledge of biomechanics. I’m assisted here by a number of good studies that have analyzed which muscles are firing at different stages of the running cycle. Using these studies, I have been able to describe which muscles need to be engaged to produce good running technique. What does good running feel like? Inevitably you’ll wonder as I did what is this technique supposed to feel like? How do I know I’m doing it right and how do I send my muscles the right messages to make this happen? You will learn cues to help trigger the right responses from your body.
As you begin to understand how you are supposed to move, a detailed explanation of the principles and practice of strength and condition will help develop the functional strength and coordination needed to run with correct technique. I also include guidance on how to start modifying your technique and avoid many of the mistakes I made along the way. This will take you step-by-step how you can learn or teach this difficult task.
How to train during and after you make changes to your technique - you need to be sympathetic to your body and mind as they grapple with moving differently. In this section of the book I explain how training for technique needs to become part of your approach rather than just running longer and harder.
Isn't running just running? The first thing we need to agree on is that running isn’t just running. What do I mean by this? There’s clearly a few ways humans can move over the ground. The obvious examples are walking and running, but what are these movement patterns driven by and comprised of? What I’m getting at is this: there is more than one way you can move quickly or run. To give an extreme and easy to understand example, consider race walking; the world record for 50km is 3:40:57, giving an equivalent marathon time of about three hours. Most runners would be extremely pleased to produce a result this fast and many never get close to realizing this level of performance. No one would argue that race walking uses the same technique as running, although some may argue that race walking isn’t walking, but that’s another story. Race walking isn’t elite running technique, but it can enable humans to move quickly over long distances. Many regular runners use muscle activation patterns or techniques that are very or slightly different to the best runners in the world. Others move with a good muscle activation patterns, but lack the strength and coordination to execute it consistently. Whether you are close or far from good technique there is always the possibility to improve.
One example that I am personally very familiar
with (see the image above) is being a runner who carried himself
forward by lifting and thrusting his legs ahead of the body using
the hip flexors and quadriceps: a running style with little drive
from the buttocks or hamstrings. The insidious results of this were
to:
- land with a straight leg ahead of the body, usually contacting
heel first, leading to harsh braking forces (that slow you down)
and cause impact injuries because the body’s natural shock
absorption systems at the hip, knee and ankle are not
engaged;
- use muscles designed for stabilization and elastic energy return
as prime movers, thereby fatiguing them quicker and resulting in
overuse injuries;
- have unstable weak hips and excessive twisting of the shin and
pronation (ankle collapsing inwards) of the foot and ankle;
- generate limited rear thrust as evidenced by very low carriage of
the leg behind the body;
- slow turnover and extend ground contact time, the leg is
retrieved from a low, distal (far away from centre) position from
the body meaning you are playing catch-up with the leading leg;
and
- retrieve and drive the leg forward with the quadriceps and hip
flexors (the muscles at the front of the leg and hip) rather than
the torso being propelled ahead of the hips.
How can people run in such different ways? The answer to this is beyond the scope of this book, but my theory is that there are a number of factors involved.
Poor instruction: many of us were taught to run heel-toe, therefore our technique progressively evolved towards supporting a movement pattern designed to focus on a single part of the running cycle i.e. landing.
Muscle weakness: (atrophy) that occurs over time through sedentary lifestyles and limited physical activity. Many of us spend twelve years or more sitting through school and then we get jobs that have us sitting some more. This must have an impact of the strength and use of the core, hamstring and buttock muscles that could carry over into running.
Running with and using heavily cushioned shoes with built up heels are also a factor. A recent study by Lieberman et al (2010) demonstrated variances in groups of runners brought up in shoe wearing and non-shoe wearing cultures. The differences were startling.
Coordination: the running muscles, buttocks and hamstrings in particular, require strength but also good coordination to work effectively; this is one explanation for the difference between very good runners and just good runners. The reason the hamstrings are so difficult to coordinate well is that they cross both the hip and knee joints. They also work in close coordination with the buttock muscles therefore this team needs to work together with precision to get the best results. Minor changes in hip and knee posture can greatly improve your running technique, but will only be possible with sufficient strength in and coordination of the buttocks and hamstrings.
What if I’m basically a decent runner? Many runners I have observed use the correct muscle activation pattern, but lack the coordination, strength and awareness to activate that pattern with sufficient speed and strength to optimize their running. This book also addresses how to fine-tune your technique no matter where you are in the continuum between technically flawed and elite. I’m not concerned by differences in running style, but demonstrable variations in technique. Style is an allowable idiosyncrasy, like Haile Gebrselassie’s crooked arm or Paula Radcliffe’s bobbing head - but their base techniques are very good indeed.
Variations in technique occur by activation of
different muscles groups and results in visible difference in
movement patterns in running. If your technique is seriously flawed
the only way you will realize the maximum capabilities of your body
is to make conscious changes to the way you run. This book will
help identify whether this is the case and give you the tools and
information you need to make the necessary adjustments over time.
Here are some indicators that you may need
improvement:
- you run extreme heel-toe;
- you lean forward excessively at the waist;
- your quadriceps are stiff and sore after runs;
- your hip flexors are sore and tight;
- your feet land under the centre line of your body, not under each
hip;
- you have sore knees and shins;
- you struggle to run downhill without feeling like your body is
breaking;
- you’ve been observed landing with your knee straight and foot
well ahead of your body;
- you have weak, ill defined hamstrings; and
- you don’t have much butt to fill your jeans.
This list almost encapsulates everything that was going wrong around my technique and describes obvious weaknesses in my body. I’ve started from a low base, but crawling my way out of that dark hole has allowed me to learn exactly what is needed physically and mentally to correct running technique. You are most likely not this bad! Depending on how you run and your running goals a major overhaul of your technique may not be warranted or necessary. In this case you may be able to focus on smaller areas of improvement. I provide more detail on making this choice in Chapter 3.
A final word of introduction: this book is the most practical, easy to understand guide to how you should be running. In addition to demystifying running technique, it will show you step-by-step how to strengthen your body to allow your mind to move your body in the same biomechanical pattern as a talented runner does. There are no easy answers, you will need to work hard and it will take time, but it is possible to improve.
Write to me with feedback and suggestions and I’ll incorporate them as quickly as I can into the supporting online resources for this book (with acknowledgement to contributors). You’ll get an idea as you read this work of the level of passion and personal commitment I have for running. I want this and associated websites to be a living document and a way to exchange information between members of the running community.
Warning: I can’t guarantee you won’t get sore or injured if you decide to make changes to your running technique, the best I can do is give you as much information as possible about how to avoid these pitfalls. My attitude to this was that I was getting injured and constantly sore using my existing technique, so it was worth some risk to make changes that would give me a better chance of a longer, more enjoyable running career. That said, you need to acknowledge that you accept the risks of undertaking running and any of the measures discussed in this book. It is your choice; I am not making the decisions for you. This book is not personal advice so common sense should prevail, be cautious and take things very gradually. Don’t ignore the warning signs of injury, pain that increases during running and after running is never good and definitely a sign things are going wrong. If this happens to you, back off the intensity or stop running and seek help to identify the problem.
Please consult with your doctor and physical therapist and obtain a medical clearance before commencing running or any exercises detailed in this book. Your doctor will be able to decide with you if there are any medical reasons why you should not run or perform an exercise program. Your doctor will also advise you of any specific types of exercise you should avoid based on your personal medical history and current health and fitness.
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