It took me years of occasional running before it all clicked, despite more experienced friends having shared youtube videos on the subject. I'd always been running in a fashion more like a slowed down sprint when trying to pace myself. But that's not the efficient way, the efficient way is to logically run with your knees and let your lower legs/feet come along for the ride. Lean forward enough to prevent heel striking, and this also naturally imparts forward thrust when your foot leaves the ground in response to the knee driving forward. Your calves become more like springs storing and releasing energy, without being explicitly activated.
I was quite astonished that my stride was quite low energy. That is, I already knew approximately how many calories my watch reported if I walked (in my running shoes) the dog on a given route vs running that route. Apparently I had learned a much more efficient stride in the boot over the years, so I was able to walk the route in the usual time but by burning 20% fewer calories and at lower heart rate. I do a lot of backpacking so am used to long distance walking in those boots, but didn't know I used a different stride to do so.
This is all per my Apple Watch so take the measurements with a grain of salt. But at least it was like:like.
Also, as well as the shock to your body of absorbing the impact energy this way, it is less efficient: if your more springy bits absorb the energy instead of your solid structure, then they can release some of it back in a useful direction as you push off again with that foot making it easier for you to maintain the same pace. On top of that, because the “stop” of each stride is less abrupt less energy is lost to entropy through your flesh jiggling because of inertia.
I'm pretty sure this is all different for a walking pace though, which would explain you seeing a benefit from the opposite advice. With a walking gait your forward momentum is provided & maintained by the foot rolling over the floor and pushing sideways against it, rather than striking and pushing away from it like in a sprint, with running being somewhere between (running and springing are different as much as running and walking are: a sprint is a period of acceleration or maintaining top speed, a running posture is for efficiently maintaining a cruising speed or more slowly accelerating - the mechanics, while similar, have key differences).
I've been running about 10 years now, done marathons and ultra-marathons and I've have had my fair share of injuries. Not one was down to how my foot strikes the ground. Most of my problems were weak glutes and other muscles caused by sitting too much (developer lifestyle..) and incorrect footwear (in my case, too narrow).
Also, you'll find your run differently depending on how fast you run. On my fast runs, I do run on my mid/forefoot and on my easy runs, I'll be on my heel a little more.
I will say though, that once you reach a certain point focusing a little on running form will help. Things like leaning slight forward and trying to work on your cadence.
If you have strong earmuffs, consider trying them while running, and you'll hear the shock if it travels up to your neck. Switching rapidly will probably cause injury, but I haven't heard about any sizable subset of the population being unable to adapt.
Another helpful effect is that you don't need shoes to run if you're toe-striking on a clean&smooth surface.
I think it's about foot under your body not in front. You may land slightly in front but the moment there is weight on the foot it should be under your body. The other way of phrasing it is make your stride longer behind you, not in front of you. Apparently some people still heel strike just a bit when doing that but when you watch slow motion footage of them it's not immediately obvious which part of the foot hits the ground first.
For me personally heel striking is very unnatural. I needed to learn to run again after my knee surgery and anything but forefoot strike hurt a lot. Today it just feels very natural to me. I am not afraid of hurting my knees anymore, if anything Achilles tendon and muscles around ankles are things I sometimes worry about. Fortunately no serious injuries yet!
I'm not sure if I have unusual TV habits or if the author is overestimating the amount of watch time and coverage race walking gets.
Back in the day - before the internet - there wasn’t much choice of what to watch. I saw a lot of walking races on TV in my youth (in the UK) but haven’t seen one in the last 10-15 years.
PS: also, I bought a smartwatch that shows the stats etc which is kind of a fun target to meet/improve upon - not sure if this "gamification" is a good idea or how long until the novelty wears off but its fun for now.
https://medium.com/runners-life/how-to-start-running-using-j...
I've had good success with this strategy - it breaks up the monotony of long runs, and overall pacing is accomplished by changing interval duration instead of trying to maintain a precise fixed speed over the entire run.
Unfortunately, I've had no success convincing other beginners to try this method, as the predominant wisdom is that you have to run over the entire duration, and beginners almost always go far faster than they should.
https://twitter.com/nicgiovanelli/status/1488411562515869696
https://twitter.com/nicgiovanelli/status/1490374195326464007
> First, even if you happen to hit exactly the minima of the walking cost of transport curve, you’ll be consuming nearly 80% of the energy per traveled distance as compared to running
It's the same reason you shouldn't blindly believe the marketing words on the back of a box of cereal.
I’m guessing this content is true. The listed author has a PhD in sport science.
