I thought I ought to elaborate on my previous post. In trying to get over my normal tendency to over do it and get hurt I have spent quite a while on trying to improve my running form.
As I said before you don't need to take your shoes off to take advantage of "barefoot" running form. There are three main points to take on board to improve your form:
1. increase your cadence and shorten your stride (cadence = number of step per minute).
2. Mid foot rather than heel strike - basically the front/middle of your foot should hit the ground before your heel rather than after.
3. Stop over-striding. If your foot is landing on the ground in front of your hips then you are over-striding.
The good news is that if you take care of point 1 then the other two sort of fall into place.
Cadence should be somewhere close to 180 steps per minute (or 90 per foot). If you were into hardcore techno in the 90's then you are in luck since your average hardcore mixtape will give you exactly the tempo you need - otherwise download a metronome app and work on speeding up your cadence.
Let your feet land fairly flat so that your heel is the last part to hit the ground and the first part to lift off. The whole foot starts to acts as a spring, rather than the heel bashing into the ground with every step.
Finally concentrate on ensuring your feet hit the round below your hips. Don't stretch out. If, looking ahead of you as you run, you can see your feet and lower legs in your periphery, you are over striding.
Again, if you can achieve point 1 the other two fall into place. If you find this is all new and unusual then take it steady; try a few hundred yards of this in your next run and take it from there. Don't over do it. That's my job!
No comments:
Post a Comment