How Do You Change Someone's Form?

If she's a distance runner, leave her alone.

That's basically what I did this year. She is already an excellent runner (5:04 for the mile), I just feel like her form is going to hold her back a bit from reaching her potential.

If you try to change her form, you'll be the one holding her back. It ain't broke.

Well, ok, I understand that point of view. That's why I haven't done anything to change it to this point, other than emphasizing it during drills/strides, etc. My question is how I would go about changing it, if I wanted to.

Jilkor wrote:

If you try to change her form, you'll be the one holding her back. It ain't broke.

This is the type of thinking that is wrong with american distance running

You don't.

Find somebody knowledgeable to do a complete strength/flexibility assessment of her (specific for runners), and develop a strength & flexibility program to address her deficiencies.

It is likely her bad form is compensation for the deficiencies. Trying to fix the form alone will probably be completely ineffective, and likely cause other problems.

Fix the root cause(s) first, and the form will often fix itself. If, after fixing the strength/flexibility issues, the form hasn't fixed itself, then the drills & practice will be much more likely to be successful.

Something is causing her to run that way, a weakness, old injury, or that my end up being the best way for her to run. But I feel the best thing to do is give her a good strength program, drills, concentrate on having a nice relax form when doing strides...but you don't want to force things too much. If her getting overall stronger means her form improving, good, if it doesnt change her form then leave it alone.

Don't ever f##ck with her form. do not abuse your power as coach. This is definitely what is wrong with a specific Kiwi coach who ruined many a talented runner.

Jilkor wrote:

If you try to change her form, you'll be the one holding her back. It ain't broke.

FutureSub4 wrote:

This is the type of thinking that is wrong with american distance running

I suppose you think changing Paula Radcliffe's form would have made her a better runner.

I think the strength and flexibility assessment is a great call, I just am not sure who to go to for this type of thing.

Flexibility is overrated.

for me... wrote:

Find somebody knowledgeable to do a complete strength/flexibility assessment of her (specific for runners), and develop a strength & flexibility program to address her deficiencies.

It is likely her bad form is compensation for the deficiencies. Trying to fix the form alone will probably be completely ineffective, and likely cause other problems.

Fix the root cause(s) first, and the form will often fix itself. If, after fixing the strength/flexibility issues, the form hasn't fixed itself, then the drills & practice will be much more likely to be successful.

This is right.

The only kind of conscious form manipulation that you should do is to prevent overstriding. Everything else is too subtle and individualistic for conscious manipulation. Each runner will develop a more efficient stride over many years of running, so long as they're not held back by strength and flexibility issues.

Well you start off by getting then into sub 13 and 60:00 half shape... Then you have them focus on the form til injury...

SlipperyPete1340 wrote:

Coaches,

Anyone have success with changing an athlete's form? If so, how have you gone about doing this? Is it just constant repetition in drills? Should the athlete be making a conscious effort to do things differently when running?

I'd appreciate any insight into this, as I'm coaching a girl who lands on the outside of her foot and it's causing a lot of injury issues.

I don't have a lot of experience with changing someone's foot strike. I have a great rising sophomore boy who heel strikes that I'm going to have start on a drills program this summer to try and correct it. I would look into finding a drill program that might address her issue. I'd also get her into a podiatrist for orthodics that should with the injury problems.

Upper body form is the area I usually try to address. I had a boy a few years ago with an utterly terrible arm carry. His form would fall completely apart at the end of races and it was painful to watch. I had him use light aerobics arm weights and work on "fast arms" with proper form and it made a huge difference. He went from 440/1000 as a junior to 4:19/9:30 as a senior.