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

Grivalja, off the top of my head. Weird arm carriage. He used to be more of a shuffler, but the most recent race footage I saw of him looked like a more pronounced turnover. I only watched a few minutes and he wasn't in the lead pack so who knows. The arms are busted for sure though.

I tend to assume obsession over running form is a load of nonsense. There seems to be a huge variation in running form of elite athletes, many of whom are within fractions of a % of each other in terms of performance. Therefore, it feels like it can’t be a significant factor.

It is funny that Jakob runs with a forward lean. That was the first thing our college coach tried to "fix" in his runners.

And I'll never forget when I was doing my masters thesis. We measured metabolic running economy in 25 local competitive runners with PRs of 30 to 34 minutes for a 10 K. One of the local running gurus was commenting about how one of the runners in my study had "great form". The guy was one of the sub 31 10K guys... Funny thing was that out of the 25 runners... He was number 25 (last) in terms of running economy. So the guy with the best "form" also had the worst running economy.

OTOH, this guy was #1 in the study with the highest V02 max and was one of the top three or four guys in the study in regards to his 10K PR.

I realize you think you are asking a non-stupid question and I’m not here to debate you on it, only asking you if in fact you are are asking a stupid question, just how stupid is it.

so the person with "great form" was one of the top 3 or 4 fastest in the group despite his running economy being sub-par and people want to use that to show form doesn't matter

i think a big issue that causes people to think that form doesn't matter is they have a coach who doesn't know what they are doing act as if they've got it all figured out. salazar turning cain into a robot is a typical example of how things can quickly go off the rails when a coach doesn't understand how humans are designed to move

There is natural running form and effective running form. A few are blessed with their natural running form being their effective running form. You have to find your effective running form. When you are clicking along, irregardless of fitness, you know you have found your effective running form.

You KNOW when it is working; you know when it is not.

do you get a burning in the bosom or something like that?

You just know. You just feel.

You know that once in a while day you are just flying along? Studs know that feeling often.

oh ok i get you now

Cole Hocker. He gave loudmouthed Kerr a savage - and deserved - beating in Paris but imagine how much worse that whipping would have been if he tilt backward and have such awful arm carriage.

The amount of gold medalists that people swear have bad form is something I’ve long found amusing

Yep. Look at Zatopek. Horrible form. Ngugi also. And of course, Hocker. But winners all. And they likely would have been a bit faster with better form.

Zatopek was really in a different league. Actually kinda reminds me of Drew Hunter come to think of it 🫡

Start with data points that are beyond dispute, such as Kenenisa Bekele's consensus perfect form and matching dominance at all distances 5000 to marathon.

He just ran another 2:12 and he's like 55 years old

sweet lower leg action no doubt, no arguments here

based on the exalted ones supreme form, who do you think could make a meaningful jump in their performance if their nervous system was firing similarly?

i think parker valby could potentially benefit significantly if she learned to move in a way that led to a flying-200 time of about 1 second faster. same could be said for anyone, of course

Nuguse, Sifan, Obiri, Mcsweyn.

Odd form, but I have no idea if it should be fixed.

Obiri is the only one that boggles my mind that her form can be sustained over a marathon.

Rather than should it be fixed, it’s can it be fixed, and I don’t believe much can be done to change a runner’s form.

Sage

from experience i can say that a lot can be done to change someone's form, but rewiring the nervous system takes a long time (years) and the biggest mistake i see is that coaches, despite having good intentions, don't understand that running form is downstream of and thus informed by walking, which in turn could be argued is downstream of standing upright.

they start with a sub-par model of movement to begin with and then only try to change it while running not realizing they aren't impacting the foundational movement pattern, which leads most to believe that not much can be done to change one's running form.