Running gait

I have covered thousands of miles over the years including running up and down mountains and to date I have managed to avoid injury. I believe that this relates to a number of key factors including consistently leading a healthy and active lifestyle with good nutrition and a good balance of work and life stresses, but also through proper training and correct running technique.

Ben Coffey

Posture and forward lean

Look straight ahead as you run focusing on the ground about 2-3 metres in front of you. Maintain an upright and relaxed posture with a slight forward lean from the ankles and not from the waist. Ensure your core muscles are engaged to maintain stability of your posture and your pelvis whilst running.

Foot strike

Land with the foot beneath the flexing knee aiming for a mid foot strike. This is efficient for long distance running. Landing with your foot ahead of the knee is basically over striding. This is less efficient because it increases the time in contact with the ground and the heel impact force; you will actually be braking to a certain degree until your knee and pelvis catches up with where you landed. This will put more stress on your lower limb joints, the foot (plantar fascia) and Achilles as well as your pelvis and lower back. Often runners over stride to try to run faster. This is inefficient and can cause repetitive strain injuries over time.
NB: sprinters tend to land more towards the forefoot on the spikes because they are running much faster and driving hard for pace. But this would not be sustainable for long distances without causing some overstrain of the foot and Achilles for example.

How to run faster without overstriding

To run faster without over striding it is essential to increase the stride angle which is the difference between the runner’s maximum hip flexion of the leading leg and maximum hip extension of the trailing leg. This will enable the runner to land with the foot beneath the flexing knee and effectively fall forwards over the ankle. This is extremely efficient for two reasons. There is very little time in contact with the ground which would otherwise cause resistance or braking, and it enables the soft tissue structures of the foot and lower leg to absorb the energy on landing and very quickly spring back through elastic recoil to propel the runner forwards on that leg. This reduces the effort needed by the calf muscles to achieve forward momentum.

How can I improve the stride angle?

When running, driving the leading leg forwards with good hip flexion takes advantage of something called the ‘crossed extensor reflex’. This primal reflex very simply causes the gluteal and hamstring muscles or hip extensors on one side to contract as a stability reflex when the opposite leg is suddenly lifted off the ground through hip flexion due to a painful stimulus such as standing on a sharp object. In running achieving a high enough knee drive with perfect hip flexion on the leading leg will take advantage of this reflex and ensure excellent extensor muscle contraction on the opposing side pushing you forwards. The amount of knee drive will be lower at slower speeds and higher at faster speeds. Be careful not to lose this technique at slower speeds as it will make your running gait more heavier (plodding) and therefore less efficient.