Whether you’re lacing up your shoes for a 5K or gearing up for a longer endurance race, if you want to get faster, you have to do both longer runs and speedwork sessions to train your aerobic and anaerobic systems. But for the biggest speed gains, you should also look beyond your cardiovascular fitness and work your… posture? While you probably can’t (and shouldn’t) transform your running form into the stride of, say, Olympians on the podium, you can incorporate tweaks to make your mechanics more ideal for you.
And that can help you improve performance, get faster, and lower your risk of getting hurt. It’s easier to maintain good posture on a short jog versus a long training run when your body starts to drag. But focusing on staying tall and keeping your shoulders from slumping is an important part of efficient running form—not to mention makes it easier to breathe.
Standing up straight as you run with a slight forward lean helps pull you forward, says Ellen Foster, D.P.T., a doctor of physical therapy, movement quality expert, and running coach in Cincinnati. Just try pumping your arms harder next time you’re huffing up a hill and see how much it helps. Here’s why: The motion of your arms and legs are linked.
Cadence, or the number of steps you take per minute, often changes depending on the speed you’re running, but experts suggest a quicker cadence can limit overstriding and help with forward momentum. Sprinters tend to drive their knees up aggressively, about 90 degrees from the ground. That’s not sustainable over longer distances, says Bui, who says distance runners should ideally maintain more like 45 degrees of knee drive.
Why does the position of your knees matter? That can slow you down and increases ground reaction forces—or forces exerted by the ground onto the body, Bui says—and ups your chances of injury. When considering how your feet play into your form and your pace, a lot of it is about those ground reaction forces.
If you reduce the time your feet come in contact with the ground, you can potentially lower the force on your body—and lessen your risk of injuries like shin splints, says Foster. By contrast, heel striking has a longer ground contact time, leading to a higher peak force and greater load on the body. This is because your ankle dorsiflexors (when you pull toes toward shins) can’t efficiently absorb the impact of your foot strike, and therefore, your knee joint takes on extra force, she adds.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
