Why is the form of most high school runners atrocious?

Most people just run how they naturally feel they should unless a coach corrects them.

Tight/weak hip flexors and glutes from YEARS of sitting in school classes for 8 hours a day.

Think about how kids are supposed to sit at their desk with minimal movement through the day. Even PE may be as little as 2 days a week. This is from ages 5-18!! Crazy!

I am a high school runner (technically an incoming freshman but I was still on Varsity for 2 years in 7th and 8th grade) so I think I am qualified to answer this question. Most high school coaches don't even coach form, and a lot of the ones that do aren't very good at it. Secondly, most high schoolers run their easy runs WAY too fast. There are guys on my team who are minutes slower than me in the 5k but run their easy runs over a minute faster per mile than me. Since they are not truly running relaxed, their form might look wonky. Lastly, and probably the most likely answer, is that with college and elite or sub-elite runners you are looking at a very small sample size of some very talented and dedicated athletes. Most high school teams (in my very short amount of experience at least) are around 50% people just trying to "get in shape" for another sport. Someone who doesn't really care about the sport has no real incentive to try to fix their form.

I think form irons itself out over time.

I was wondering the other day if you can get faster if you're leading every workout or if you need to be behind someone occasionally, just to know how to optimize your form a little bit as you struggle to keep up.

I notice the same thing with cyclists too, after enough bike racing I can pick out who rides in which category just by watching them pedal easily down the street.

Highschool wrote:

Most high school coaches don't even coach form, and a lot of the ones that do aren't very good at it.

with college and elite or sub-elite runners you are looking at a very small sample size of some very talented and dedicated athletes.

Someone who doesn't really care about the sport has no real incentive to try to fix their form.

Okay, I am calling your bluff. I do not believe you are a high school student and certainly not an upcoming freshman.

If you are, your intuition and observations are far beyond your years. That is a VERY acute analysis you posted.

I have been involved with the sport since I was 15, am 57 now, and believe your view is spot on.

I work on form with my teams relentlessly by working and correcting it on runs/workouts, individualized analysis and corresponding strength programs in response to the analysis, and before/after video among other things. I have found that form can improve without attention but typically does not. We have had some success with individuals and teams but my greatest compliment was overhearing another coach who did not know I was there exclaim, "Those damn XXXXXXX runners all look alike with the same quick off the ground form and patient tactics."

Form can be corrected and can play a very big part in development but most coaches don't know how and/or do not have or will not find the time to try.

Because they barely run.

In the case that you are not a troll, your age and experience would indicate that, NO, you are not qualified to answer tis question.

Makes the fact the OP graduated from an ivy league school even more glaring.

Form matters very little. Don't look so hard.

1. They don’t run very much.

2. They sit too much.

3. Thick, wedged shoes mess with their bodys’ alignment and proprioception.

I AM a high school student. I literally have no reason to lie. I would probably have more credibility if I said I was older or faster, but I don't.

Highschool wrote:

I AM a high school student. I literally have no reason to lie. I would probably have more credibility if I said I was older or faster, but I don't.

My reply to you was intended to be a compliment regardless of your age or speed. I think your view is insightful.

just the facts nails it. Most coaches don't understand form and/or don't know how to coach it. A depressingly significant percentage of LetsRunners believe, "Forget about form. Just run more miles."

Good form is critical to avoid injuries and to tweak out that last little bit of performance. Figuring out what to change in an athlete and how to coach them to make the change is as much art as it is science.

I worked with a world ranked 200-400 masters runner. Some of his flaws were easy to fix, but he still would "sit" when he got tired. I tried all sorts of commands: Run tall. Knees up. Push off. Elbows back. Nothing seemed to connect. Then, I tried, "Knees forward!" and immediately he was running tall. That wasn't really what I wanted him to do, but somehow it worked.

If you are trained in form, you can often see what the runner is doing wrong, but communicating that to the athlete can be a real challenge. It's even harder with high school boys who have the attention span of a puppy.

It could be a selection bias where only people with naturally good form will end up fast and continue running past high school.

So you start out at the HS level with a bunch of mediocre runners mostly with poor form, and only those with superior form keep running as adults.

I've ranted on this general topic before. As someone pointed out above, most kids get to high school without having had a background of general vigorous physical activity. As a result they're not "athletes"--no matter how talented they may be aerobically, they simply haven't learned how to move their bodies in an efficient, "graceful," athletic way. If I were a high school coach I'd do whatever I could to have daily, vigorous PE instituted in the junior highs/middle schools that feed into the high school. Failing that, I'd get the kids on a general conditioning routine (maybe similar to the old 5BX/XBX regimen that the RCAF had, years ago--I see that it's still available online).

Something else I was thinking of lately. Would *any* swim coach tell her/his athletes, "just swim, baby"--and expect the development of optimal form? We would expect the coach to work very specifically on developing the swimmers' techniques. Why should it be any different with runners?

They need to run up more sand dunes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luqz7bBmooA

lease,

I think it's up to the runner.

As a rule of thumb, if you can run with a book balanced

on your head, you got the form down. Not easy to do,

but it can be done provided the runner has a good shadow

to watch.

Many top runners come from exactly the same background as the guys with terrible form. They are not necessarily athletically active either. Nor are athletically active kids very likely to have good form just because they move around a lot.

I was at a NCAA Div. 1 XC regionals, and from afar all women had identical form, while men had forms all over the place. I think it depends on how suggestible one is.