The Perfect Running Stride

For all you runners out there getting blistered feet, twisted knees and a painful body in general...

Here's my quick and easy go-to guide for developing the perfect stride:

1) The Tripod Foot

Every movement throughout the body functions like a wave. An efficient running posture must acknowledge this and utilise the wave to it's advantage. The foot has 3 key areas of contact with the ground - the heel, the area of the little toe, and the big toe. Pay attention to your step and you'll notice this pretty quickly...

Proper running form includes an awareness of these 3 points against the ground. Paying attention to it is all that's required, as it's happening already by itself. And trust me, your muscles, the skin on your foot, and your whole body when you wake up in the morning will notice the difference!

2) The Swing

Every stride requires a cross lateral swing between each arm and its corresponding leg. Again, it sounds obvious but this is easily forgotten about when too hooked up on our end destination as apposed to the momentary journey of HOW to get there. Proper running technique is about using the swing as well as possible, enabling momentum to take you most of the way and saving energy for later on in the day. 

The muscles needn't work hard when your swing is successfully moving you efficiently across the ground. The athlete significantly reduces his or her injury risk also, because this natural technique ensures the body is balanced on both sides as much as possible. 

3) The Core Strength Myth

The core is talked about a lot these days! The general assumption is that we should be tensing the belly muscles when we run and building thick muscles in that area in order to be fit and healthy. Well, economical running technique, let me tell you, is much more about posture and alignment than having big muscles.

The role of the body in motion is to position itself as effectively as possible between gravity and the ground. Physical therapists don't like to tell you this because they deal with static bodies, not moving ones. Elite runners, therefore, have the harder task of using greater forces than themselves in order to travel the distance; something most health professionals know little about. 

So let go of any ideas you might have about the necessity for weight training or building a strong core, because an economical running technique will build all the strength your body needs and then some!

4) Ground contact

Similar to point 1 but also different... our ground reaction must be strong and bouncy. When the foot lands it should powerfully push off the floor, not softly and cautiously rub against it. Conventional running shoes, naturally, weaken our ability to do this because of all the cushioning involved. We think we're bouncy, elastic and strong but take the shoes away and the foot is as weak as a kitten. 

The task should be to build an actually strong and elastic ground reaction, without the necessity for shoes to do it for us. This is arguably the MOST important principle for correct running form, as ALL movement begins from the ground actually.

5) Relaxed Posture

A poor running form looks tense, and every person's running style is largely dependent on how 'at peace' they are with themselves when both running and relaxing. Experienced runners are efficient runners because they have learned to relax themselves as much as possible; or at least as much as they can get away with. 

A relaxed posture will mean a shorter stride, in general, also which is crucial for long distance runners to keep going for hours or even days on end. Equally, once the shoulder muscles and other key muscles areas are relaxed then the gluteal muscles are more activated... meaning the biggest and strongest areas of the body are doing the most work.

The entire body can totally be in harmony when running. Pain is not some inevitable part of the process. Biomechanical studies show this and current evidence suggests that our efficient forward propulsion as running beings is better than any other animal in the animal kingdom.

6) The Breath!

The body has a strong relationship with the breath. Our centre of mass is testament to this. For when we breathe correctly we move from our centre and run well. The largest determinant of running injuries is running for too long out of breathe. Our stride frequency goes down, our preferred stride pattern goes out the window and the metabolic costs on the body are huge!

A more synergistic approach to running, as well as lightweight shoes (or ideally barefoot ones) helps to ensure our stride frequency is high and our breathe is fluid and consistent.

For all those novice runners reading this: take time to walk mid way through running, or stop completely to catch your breathe even when needed! Your body mechanics will be more efficient and your training, long term, will be much more effective. 

So there you have it... 6 principles to help you achieve a perfect proper running form and to look after your knees, ankles and gait in the mean time. Remember at least as couple of these roles each time you train and you're economical running technique will vastly improve.

I recommend even adjusting your training programs to bring extra awareness to certain components, especially if you're experiencing a lot of leg stiffness, muscle pain or poor posture the rest of the time. 

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