Balancing Foot-Contact Time and Leg Muscles

Trust me on this, ignore it and move on. If you make adjustments you are going to get hurt. Go look at videos of top end Aftricans some of them even have strides where they are more powerful on the right side of their body than the left but it works because when they running it's smooth. No one ever said that you need perfect symmetry when running.

Agree - ignore. We are talking about a very small percentage of a very small number that I have never heard anyone else ever measure in the first place.

It could be something as simple as pronating a touch more with one foot than the other, resulting in more ground contact time with one foot than the other.

No disrespect, but this is one of the odder things I've seen on these boards lately.

one of my heroes in the world of sports physiology is a guy called Peter Weyand at the University of Texas. he is one of the world's leading experts on foot contact times, factors affecting, consequences of, and so forth. it was his work that got Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorious into the Olympic games.

he uses a top-of-the range professionally calibrated treadmill with high-speed video cameras and publishes his figures with an accuracy of plus or minus 0.5%. so whatever it is you think that toy on your wrist is measuring it certainly isn't foot contact to an accuracy of 0.5%, and all you are doing is playing at statistics like a little girl playing in her mummy's make up box.

enjoy. numbers can be fun to play with, but don't take anything Garmin tells you seriously.

and, unless you are racing distances of 200m or less, and you are already an elite competitor, foot contact time is the least important factor affecting your running. it's an interesting thing to think about, (it was thinking about it that led me to Peter Weyand in the first place) but you are not going to be able to adapt your training in any way that permits you to benefit from anything you might learn.

the only thing of any benefit I learned from reading several of Professor Weyand's papers is that squats are good for runners, and the longer your race the better they are, and like most runners, I aready knew that anyway.

cheers.

A little info and a lot of sass. Thanks.

In the OP’s defense, it’s refreshing to see a runner with enough foresight to address any muscular imbalances that could lead to injury. The foot contact time may be a non-issue in this case but it’s a good idea nonetheless to supplement your training with regular prehab.