Form improvement. Is it worth it?

when it comes to form, most metrics are not very useful and form is something u really work together with a coach on. but i think most importantly if ure not doing some running specific strengthwork right now u can supplement that into your training and doing stuff like drills and strides PROPERLY also helps w your form.

Lydiard and others have running "form" exercises. I did them once a week. Look those up and think about form while running.

i would not f*ck with my form whatsoever, run naturally

however i did find that it helped to reduce tension and be more relaxed

if you want to work on "turnover," do some pure sprinter work trying to explode, that'll get your feet moving faster and maybe that follows you back to distance work

Just run baby

Form isn't really that important if you're not getting injured. Air resistance is minimal at any speed you're doing. Put it this way, if it wasn't sprinters would be a bald and not wear necklaces and baggy singlets.

Even with pro swimmers where form/technique matters 100% in the water, hand movement above water is largely irrelevant.

This is not your typical reply when it comes to discussions around running form, but what helped my form tremendously was 1) watching a lot of professional races (track, cross country, road) and 2) 3-5 minutes worth of resistance band glute/hip activation exercises before EVERY (and I mean every) run.

Every other sport and discipline: constantly work on your technique over time to become as efficient as possible.

Running: forget about technique.

I get that tweaking technique can cause the impact load to be redistributed differently in the short term and that might cause issues, which won't make you hit your short term goals.

However, anything you can do to become more efficient is a good thing. When has anyone ever said that becoming more efficient is a bad thing. Oh wait, that's the social herd mentality of the running community because nobody wants to give up a year of running to relearn how to move.

You probably need to work on mobility, flexibility, and strength while doing form work, especially after a run. People always leave that part out, which is like going to a chiropractor only to have your lousy muscle tension pull your joints back into place. Do the work and keep the long term goal in mind, which is to run faster for as long and as healthy as possible.

I don't know the answer, and perhaps there is new research since what I read. Please point us to newer research if you know of it, but I recall that running economy, which is genuinely important, is not closely tied to what we think of as "beautiful" or "efficient-looking" form as one would expect; and that correlation is convincing (top distance runners at 90+ cadence) but not causation - is there any well designed study of runners working to raise their cadences that showed that this caused them to run more economically? Also striking in this discussion is that it is my understanding that all or nearly all top sprinters spend a *lot* of time working on form -- so, unless all their coaches are wrong (I guess that is possible...), it is only with distance runners where the value of working on form improvement is questioned. To provide a good answer to your question, I think we would need to know 1) can form be improved to a) improve economy and b) decrease rate of injuries; and 2) if the answer to #1 is "yes," can an individual's attempts to improve metrics as shown, for example, on a garmin forerunner, lead to these form improvements, or are other kinds of drills needed to make these improvements?

Running is not a jury sport.

If you have bad form due to specific muscle weakness, that should be fixed. But if not, just let it be.

There was this study where coaches tried to estimate athletes’ running economy based on form. They couldn’t.