When most people take up running for general fitness or to train for a marathon, they don't think twice about how to do it. They buy a pair of running shoes, lace 'em up and start running.
While that simplicity is one of the things that makes running so desirable, if you start running without learning proper form, you could wind up being woefully inefficient, and, worse yet, set yourself up for a variety of debilitating injuries.
The tenants of good running form include running with short strides and a quick cadence, landing lightly on the ground on the middle portion of your foot, and quickly lifting your foot off the ground instead of using pushing off with excessive muscle force. A slight forward lean and a relaxed arm swing are also key components.
To run efficiently, you have to understand your body and how it moves across a surface. And probably the biggest aspect of good form is to avoid using too much muscle power to move forward.
Two of biggest mistakes distance runners can fall prey to are 1) excessive heel striking that causes abrupt braking of forward momentum or 2) using only propulsive muscles and running too far up on their toes like a sprinter and not using the body's natural cushioning system. Each of those form flaws puts too much vertical movement into every stride, and that leads to inefficiency and considerably more impact on the body.
To illustrate what Newton Running calls the "Land-Lever-Lift" technique, take the simple test of running barefoot across a smooth floor. More than likely, you're naturally going to land lightly at your midfoot and quickly pick up your foot to start a new stride. Your body doesn't allow you to land on your heels because it isn't engineered to accommodate the blunt force trauma of repeated heel striking.
If you're landing hard on your heels and excessively braking and then pushing off, you're going to strain your propulsive muscles and connective tissue, and that can lead to a variety of injuries. And if you're too far forward in a sprint position, you're overusing your calf and hamstring muscles and putting a lot of straining on your Achilles tendon.
You wouldn't enter into any other sport without learning proper form, so why do it in running? For example, if you bought a brand new pair of golf clubs and went out and hit 100 balls at the driving range without any instruction or idea about proper swing technique, you'd probably have inconsistent form and very mixed results, plus you'd wind up tired and very sore the next day.
The bottom line is that good running form leads to efficiency, which equals less impact and that equals injury prevention. The key is running relaxed and having the awareness to just touch the ground and lift quickly on every stride.
To view good running form in action click on the "Run Right" video.
Author Resource:-
Danny Abshire is the co-founder of Newton Running, a Boulder, Colo.-based company that makes shoes that promote an efficient midfoot running gait. For more than 20 years Abshire has been working closely with elite runners, cyclists and triathletes, Abshire developed unique, lightweight custom orthotics which have benefited Olympic marathon runners, 10 Iron Man World Champions and Olympic and Tour De France cyclists. For more information on Abshire or Newton Running, go to http://www.newtonrunning.com.
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