if you think running form matters, who would say stands to benefit most?

Might be a little off topic but Im amazed at the power to weight ratio out there. You ever look at Sifan standing next to these other gals at the start? She has 2 tooth picks for legs that somehow generate amazing power and speed next these other girls with ripped quads.

Harris?

i very specifically stated in my original post i was not talking about nor wanted to discuss "running efficiency", though i didn't say why admittedly

1. of course efficiency is going to be highest with whatever form the nervous system has been accustomed to; your average 90 year old walking hunched over is moving around at their peak efficiency as well because that's what their body has gotten used to, but that doesn't mean their form/posture is ideal right?

2. a prius may have greater efficiency than a porsche, but if the goal is to get from point A to point B as fast as possible you choose the porsche

Nijel Amos at 5'10", yeah QW's form will be just fine if he grows another 4"

Isaiah Harris is a great example of someone who just seems to muscle through their bad form. It's particularly impressive for the 800 because most guys around him are pretty smooth looking.

I think the one person I'd throw in for it being worth it to change/work on form is Natalie Cook. She's had wonky form and injury issues for a while and I can't imagine those two are unrelated. Nico Young has actually improved his form quite a bit this year and it's resulted in some great results so it would be cool for another phenom like Cook to follow him.

Ches has a beautiful stride, other than that Paul Chelimo tic of wiping his nose

He ran a 3:49 mile at age 24, right in line with when we expect peak bone mass and corresponding peak speed of most international class runners, and he ran a 59:11! half marathon (American Record is 59:43) in September of 2023 so i'd say his "issue" is more likely to be some mixture of motivation/discipline/vision combined with the fact making global championship teams as a Kenyan citizen is exceptionally difficult

Could he improve his form? Maybe a little bit, sure, but he's definitely not one of the first that comes to mind and I really don't think it's high up on the list for him

If he had gotten American citizenship I'd guess his career arc would be wildly different

looked into the half times a little deeper

kinda crazy ryan hall's AR 59:43 barely cracks the top-500 performances of all time, the dividing line being those who have run 59:47 or faster

Ches' 59:11 is tied for 132nd best all-time, but there are prob at least 20 other Kenyans ahead of him

ok i'll stop spamming this thread for the next 7-8 hours after this (time to go work on my form and feed the chickens at the beach)

Matthew Boling is definitely someone i could see with room for significant improvement

kipchoge was a heel striker in paris 2003 but now his running form is so smooth. It's not a huge change tho...

There's a video of Michael Johnson criticizing Bolt's form

we've all been left in the dust by that guy who looks like he is working so hard but never slows down. they just have a higher vo2 max and their blood can get the oxygen to their muscles quicker. in 5ks and 10ks running economy is less important - vo2 max much more important. when you get to the marathon and up running economy is much more important and vo2 max less so.

Paula Radcliffe could've run sub2.

I recently listened to an interview with Iain Hunter, a exercise science professor at BYU who does a lot of form analysis for the different track events. He told a story, which I have not verified elsewhere, about how Bill Rodgers had a weird lateral movement in his arm swing and worked with a few people to try and make it more "efficient". They later found out that one of his legs was significantly shorter than the other, so the arm swing was likely a natural compensation that he actually needed.

On the other hand, bad form can be a sign of a muscular weakness or even an adaptation to an old injury that was never properly addressed. In that case, training running form is also not the best solution because it doesn't solve the problems mentioned above.

Connor Mantz

For ages I thought it was a kind of "knee varus" thing going on, but it's actually his feet sharply turning in at the last moment before he strikes the ground. There's a lot of leverage available to him (through his feet) that he just isn't using.

His body has obviously found a way to make it work though, and work very well it does. Can't argue with his results.

Irregardless?

Eric Holt has such a painfully wide arm carry. Corey McGee always appears rigid and short with strides

I think this is a good point because it's not something you can tell from just watching someone. I always thought German Fernandez had some of the best, most fluid running mechanics I've ever seen but his forefoot strike probably didn't help the Achilles issues he had throughout his career.

Also I think you address another good point which is the idea of "training running form" as a solution. So someone has "improper" mechanics that cause issues in races and don't let them train full without issue? Now what? Do a bunch of A and B skips until they become robotic? Usually the answer to addressing a "running form" issue is to just get stronger in particular area but this goal has nothing to do with trying to get someone to run like David Rudisha, it's just about general strengthening. That's my longwinded way of saying that training to have "good form" isn't really something you take time out of a training schedule for. You do drills and workouts to practice running fast and make that feel more comfortable but you don't do that with the idea of "I need to hit this split with a specifc stride angle, forefoot strike, and cadence."

which one are you referring to?

i found one about 6 minutes long on YT where him and his team are analysing Bolt's form and while they say "it's scary" how much faster he could be if they did what they thought he ought to, but they only pointed out one thing specifically, which naturally they were way off base on unsurprisingly (talking about his legs not aiming/driving forwards during first few steps, which is a misunderstanding on their part)

have to remember one can have "ideal form" and still get injured of course

german probably would have been well served to use the seated calf machine 2x a week. the soleus routinely sees the highest peak muscular forces during the vast majority of running paces that distance runners train and race at. generally we only see well-trained sprinters achieving higher peak forces in other areas when at very high speed. anyway, the tissue where the soleus and achilles become one (it's sort of a continuum/spectrum turning from muscle into tendon) is under tremendous load so no surprise calf/soleus strains and achilles issues are so common