Interesting factoid in this paper: When you run relatively slower using a heel strike pattern, you spare the gastrocnemius, since the heel striking relies more on the high endurance soleus muscle. Then, when you want to jack up the speed, and run stronger, revert to forefoot running to activate the gastrocnemius. So, when doing intervals, maybe running with a heel strike pattern during the active recoveries might save the gastrocnemius.
Seems like a strategy to try out.
I don’t know if I’d intentionally heel strike that seems like a good way to get injured. But if you naturally heel strike I don’t see why not .
Cool man, thanks for sharing this paper and providing your own summary. I really appreciate it.
Anecdotally, landing closer to the rear part of my foot has helped me alleviate some Achilles pain.
Jack Daniels talks about this in his book. By landing further back the load is distributed from calf to your larger thigh muscles.
I don’t really pay attention to my foot strike anymore; just cadence and hip mechanics mostly.
RunningNoob420 wrote:
Anecdotally, landing closer to the rear part of my foot has helped me alleviate some Achilles pain.
Makes sense, since the paper I cited described the Achilles as composed of 3 tendons, one from the soleus, and two from the gastrocnemius.
Jack Daniels talks about this in his book. By landing further back the load is distributed from calf to your larger thigh muscles.
I think that's like driving a car with bad shocks! Too much give. But the load is distributed over a longer impact time. And any downslope running would be a recipe for eccentric quad damage if you are mid to rear foot landing.
I don’t really pay attention to my foot strike anymore; just cadence and hip mechanics mostly.
Me too. The sound of my foot fall lets me know if I land too far back, might be an artifact of the types of shoes I run in - Saucony ride 9. I get a lot more spring when landing more forward, so I mainly try to keep the feel of that going. Hip rotation really comes into play when running faster than 5:30 pace, where higher cadence starts to have diminishing returns (due to shorter stance time muscle reaction time), hip mobility extension fore and aft has to be there, and to enable glute activation.
Sorry for stepping in your quote, Runningnoob
I run on the forefoot, an artefact of my boyhood living with a father who did shiftwork. You literally tiptoed around the house, unconsciously and in the end quite quickly. The movement patterns persist.
I got into the forefoot/heel debate some years ago, motivated by what I now see was a need to feel a bit superior. It's a harmless urge, but in that context was a bit silly. People run how they run. But I did a lot of reading at the time, and it is still notable now the debate seems over how the two styles are quite different biomechanically. This is especially so with the eccentric loading of the calf complex.
I myself, when I give heel striking a go (and I heel strike when running in heavy shoes, for example in work shoes running for the bus) am acutely aware upon footstrike of there being nothing between my knees and the ground but a column of bone.
It follows if I ran heel first I would compensate elsewhere in the kinetic chain to smooth the ride. But as it is, my teeth rattle and I'm not sure how you 80 per cent of other runners, most much faster than me, possibly do it.
But then, the movement patterns came from trying to move silently over floorboards as a kid, where heavy heels bought a heavy penalty
Or you could just fall into your natural stride pattern and not obsess over this crap.
Trying to adjust your natural stride to not get injured is a great way to get injured.
you wrote:
I don’t know if I’d intentionally heel strike that seems like a good way to get injured. But if you naturally heel strike I don’t see why not .
Well, tried it out today. Didn't work out very well. I'm a mid to forefoot runner, and can't comfortably force myself to heel strike.
If it doesn't come naturally, it doesn't seem to help my motivation. Running differently, in order to spare my calf muscles, seems to be too much perceived work. Maybe running midfooted could do the trick during the active recovery. Next time I do a serious workout I'll try that out.
I'm not sure if I agree completely with this. I do agree that forcing foot strike is not inherently good.
I had some issues with my stride including right leg cross over and right hip drop in left stance. The hip drop I don't try to fix, I just did a ton of glute / core exercises.
However, the crossover problem didn't really get better with strengthening. I looked up some running cues online and actively tried to fix it. I feel better running this way.