Running on your toes, fater? More efficient?

Are you stupid or just retarded boy??

How we as humans land during running has changed significantly with the introduction of shoes. Shoes absorb a lot of the shock of landing especially when one lands heal first. Our ancestors who chased antelope across the Sahara were for a long time bare-footed. If you want to run more naturally try running bare foot for a while and see if you don't find yourself gradually changing to landing on the balls of your feet. It's simply natural.

Most elite distance runners land on their heels.

Tommy2Nutts wrote:

Most elite distance runners land on their heels.

wrong!

do any of these elite runners ring a bell? Bekele, Haile, Morceli, LAGAT, El g, Webb, Hall, ritz, Wanjiru, Shorter.

Try and name some elites that heel strike. You wont be able to name too many.

Those are some...I said most. I stand by my statement.

now i know your kidding. I thought you were being serious

sarcasm is hard to see through a computer screen

if you say so. And I am being serious.

Heel toe or ball of the foot isn't nearly as important as

A)does your foot land under your center of mass?

B) how much force do you impart to the running surface with each stride and at what energy cost

C) how much energy do you waste/not waste with your heel recovery.

You need to look at the entire stride cycle to see where the improvements need to be made but the ball of the foot usually works best for distances less than 5k.

FWIW, I notice that Ritz was a notorious heel out front of the knee and COM at the trials last year and he seems to not be quite as bad. when the heel lands so far out front it acts as a brake and you can usually bank on shin, knee, heel or some other type of ortho issue arising.

Simple biomechanics here folks

haha so this bronco guy broke the world record for the mile by over 30 seconds. what an effing joke

You're f***ing stupid, man

Also Tergat heel strikes IIRC

Your 800m time is rubbish, you should be ashamed!

I spent three years in Tibet learning a relatively obscure method of landing.

I land on my Big Toe and my Pinky Toe only. The other toes dont touch the ground at all. My times improved dramatically too. Give it a shot.

does this "running on toes" have anything to do with dorsi-flexing?

Toe running is a common misnomer. Landing is actually on the forefoot or midfoot followed by the heel touching down lightly. It took me about 6 months to transition from severe heel striker to forefoot. Prior to the switch, I had severe knee problems. It's been 8 years and the knee problems have never returned. If you world class runners from the 800m to the marathon in slow motion, you'll see that most land on the forefoot. Not all, but maybe 4 out of 5. It can be deceiving with some runners who appear to land on their heels, but in slow motion, it's more of a midfoot strike.

In my case, all my training is done on the forefoot. I think it gives me more speed at the finish of a race because my sprint form (no heel contact at all) is very similar to my racing form whereas the heel striker has to change form to sprint.

try this on for size,

stand in place, jump up and down quickly and continuously,

try landing on the balls of your feet each time and then try landing on your heels each time,

now tell me how you should run

I have been running for a while now (about 2 years) and when I started trying to get in shape, I would come back from my run hurting. I had back surgery to take out a ruptured disk. In working with kids i found that when we played outside barefoot i could run and not have the same pain. I tried first running on my toes but the shoes I had kept messing me up because of all the padding on the heels. I ditched those shoes for a pair of shoes with very little heel padding and tried again. I was amazed at the amount of shock i took out of my run and the impact it took off of my back by landing on the balls of my feet. I had to do this gradually but I love it. I also had an unexpected result. I was never able to touch a basket ball net and now i can jump and touch the rim. To me toe running is wonderful but you have to slowly go into it. I do know you can have Achilles tendon problems if you try to do it too fast. Being a weight lifter as well, it is just like any other muscle in the body, you have to work it for a while before you can push it too hard. Thanks for the post.

Curious wrote:

I'm a heal striker..big time. I've run some pretty fast times running the way I run.

I do think that running on your toes can allow one to "sprint" faster, but does it also help for entire races?

What I fear about changing my running form, is creating injury.

In some runners I've heard that landing on your toes can lead to significiant compartment syndrome (in the calves).

Is it better to run how you naturally land?

You're committing the naturalistic fallacy here - the fallacy of equating natural with correct. What's natural for someone isn't always the best for them. Go to any road race and really watch and pay attention to the 20-25+ minute people go by and try to honestly say that they're running as efficiently as possible.

Simply put, some ways of running are more efficient and less injury prone than others. What any individual person "naturally" does is largely irrelevant to what's most efficient for them (from the core downwards at least, the upper body has much more wiggle room as far as form is concerned). The ideas that simply running more will correct any and all inefficiencies, or that you can't change your form and should just leave it alone are both absurd and outdated.

The body is designed to run with a midfoot/forefoot strike, with the heel dropping down to the ground, and then lifting off again. I'll re-emphasize the dude who said to jump up and down landing on your forefoot, then on your heels, and tell me which absorbs more shock. If you want I'll save you the head-rattling experiment and tell you it's the forefoot. Even if the forefoot strikes just slightly before the heel it still allows the arch of the foot to flex and absorb some shock and the calf to lower the heel in a gentle, controlled manner. That Harvard barefoot running site had a great graph showing the impact of landing on the heel as compared to landing on the forefoot, it fits exactly with what one feels when jumping up in the air and landing on the forefoot or heel. I'll try to find it.

Three graphs at the bottom of the page. Barefoot heelstrike, shod heelstrike, barefoot forefoot strike. They speak for themselves.