Happy Monday!
I hope you all had a great weekend! I definitely did, especially since I got to spend an evening hanging out with some good friends, and then spent Saturday morning cheering on several other friends at the F^3 Half Marathon. I was signed up for the race, but clearly wasn’t capable of running the half. I’m glad that rather than wallowing in my apartment, my friends inspired me to join them cheering on some of our fellow Chicago Bloggers. Plus, Molly came with us, so it was a good time for all.
After I talked about my plan for returning to running, I got a couple questions about running form. I mentioned in the post that my legs are disproportionately long compared to my torso (aka my legs take up a lot of my height).
Feel like you’re an anatomy class? I sure do.
Aaaaaanyway, my physical therapist game me some things to work on that would make running easier for body. Because my legs are so long, my hips have to work harder to move them. Now we’re in physics class: the longer the lever arm, the more force that’s required to move it:
Gotta love paint.
Now, before I tell you about my running form, I want to emphasize a few things: this is MY running form, recommended to ME by my PHYSCIAL THERAPIST. I am not a doctor, physical therapist, or running expert. I didn’t even take physiology in college. Therefore, before messing with your running form, I highly recommend that you meet with someone who can give you tips on the best way to run for YOU.
Got it? Good.
First, here are some general running tips:
1. Have good posture. Shoulders back, chest out, stomach in. Stand up straight and pretend you’re in the army, how would you stand? You should try and keep this form when you’re running and not hunch over.
2. Lean Forward. We got the posture down, but now tilt your body ever so slightly forward so that you’re upper body isn’t straight up and down, but at an angle.
3. Hit mid-foot. Be sure that your feet are hitting the ground directly below your body, and that you’re not heel-striking. Heel striking occurs when your foot hits the ground slightly in front on your body and you end up slamming your heel into the ground. If you’re landing mid foot, it should feel lighter.
Now, here are the things that my physical therapist asked me to work on:
1. Arm Swing. Unrelated to my legs, he noticed my arms tend to swing across my body, rather that straight forward (see above picture). I’d had this mentioned to me before by another person, so it’s clearly something that needs work. I’m using way too much energy swinging my arms, and it’s twisting my torso and giving my shoulders some pain (which I notice mostly during long runs).
You can swing your arms, just try and focus on having them pump forward and backward, as opposed to across your body. Also, avoid the t-rex arm, where your hand is way up near your shoulders. I like to drop my arms and shake them out occasionally while running to remember not to tense them up!
2. Knees forward and kick feet up. Here’s the main issue: I need to shorten my lever arm (legs). I’d been running with pretty small steps and not bending my legs too much. My physical therapist told me to thrust my knees forward with each step, which will naturally make my feet kick upwards behind me. It feels super awkward at first, and feels like I’m putting in much more effort. After doing short spurts of practicing, it’s started to feel much more natural.
3. Run Faster. My physical therapist watched me using this form at speeds from 6.0 – 8.5 mph and told me that when I run between 7.0 and 7.5 mph, my form is best. Since I’m starting off at short distances, I’m planning to run at this speed and hopefully I’ll be able to keep up as the distances get longer.
So there you have it, typical running form tips, and the specific tips my physical therapist asked me to work on. Haha, have I emphasized that enough? If you’re serious about running and/or have had some chronic injuries, I highly recommend seeing a physical therapist to get your running form evaluated. It was SO helpful!
Have you ever had your running form evaluated?
Anyone else have weird body proportions?
I made a complete change in form/shoes two years ago and my body has never been happier. A few things to add to what you mentioned: When you talk about leaning forward, make sure that lean comes from the ankles and not the waist. Also, with arm swing, you want to focus on the back swing as the effort and the front swing as the recovery (opposite of what we all do naturally). In terms of speed–more focus on cadence, shooting for 180 or above, as opposed to “going fast.” If you’re just coming back from injury, you don’t want to even think about speed right now but rather just building an aerobic base.
Good luck with it!
Thank you for the tips! I’ll definitely focus on my arms’ back swing, that’s a great tip!
this is fascinating! i want to go see a physical therapist now, lol. seriously though those tips are great – i’m definitely an arm swinger as well. hard to stop myself. in my head i think i look like i’m going straight up and down but then when i see pictures of myself i clearly am not doing it right. oh well. good luck with the new form!
It’s so hard not to swing your arms! And the forward lean is only slight, so you might not notice it in pictures? Also, as someone commented, it’s not from the waist but the ankles
I always get back pain after running and just assumed it wasnt for me.
I SHOULD get an eval!
Definitely do, I used to get a lot of lower back pain.
Those are some great tips! I am actually going I get my gait analysis done this week because when I ran the half marathon people kept telling me that i looked like a duck! I shrug my shoulders. My torso is longer than my legs. I’m glad you got to understand your form better!
lol like a duck??
I love this post! After my knee/hip injury last I learned that my hips were really weak and the way I was running caused extra stress on the hips. I haven’t really played around with form at speeds.
My hips are too weak too, definitely something I’m working on!
during the runner’s world half festival, i learned that most women do swing their arms across their body (which is incorrect) and that we really have to think about pumping them back and forth – luckily, i find that itz an easy change to make!
Haha it hasn’t been easy for me, I need to focus on it more!
I’ve had to change my running form too due to knee issues, and most of what you said is the same for me! Silly long legs. I think it’s funny that running faster can be helpful, but it’s the easiest way to get a shorter, faster stride!
Good to hear I’m not the only long-legged one!
gr8 post KT! See if I put KT it can be either you OR me. TWINZIES!!!
If I could run, I would totes try and implement these but I can’t…teheheheehe!
haha, it can be either of us!
I’m definitely an arm swinger when I run. My track coach would get all up in my case in high school for swinging my arms across my body when I ran since it made me so much less efficient. Honestly, my form in general could use a lot of work. I tend to just go out and run to run without putting a lot of thought into what I’m doing with my body, but I imagine could get a lot more out of my running if I actually worked at doing it well rather than just doing it.
I used to not care much about my form, but after all these injuries I’ve realized it’s important for me!
I’ve had a gait analysis done and they told me a lot of the same things about heel striking. Also that I don’t extend my left leg far enough behind me. But that’s my injured leg so of course it’s all busted 🙂 But they said my cadence is good so I’m proud of that at least!
Well at least you have a good cadence! I definitely need to work on that, I used to focus on it but haven’t recently
I would love to have my form evaluated. Just looking at embarrassing race pics, I KNOW I could probably use some advice 😉
Haha I think when I get tired in a race my form falls apart!
I find gait so interesting so thanks for sharing. I know being injured is terrible but it’s kind of cool your doctor told you that you should/could be running faster. You can do it!
Good luck with changing all of this, I hope it helps!
Thanks, Linds! And I’m glad he told me I should run faster, it’s put a fire under my butt to work on speed!
That’s so awesome that you have it all recommended just for YOU! ANd yes, long legs…..aren’t we lucky?! THose levers, baby 🙂
Haha just wish I had a long torso to match!
I have one leg, or entire side of the body for that matter, that is significantly larger than the other. Thus, one leg is longer and really throws off my hips. If I run more than 3-4 miles, my hips start to bother me with pressure and pain after the run. It helps if I get a chiropractic adjustment every once in a while but maybe my form is just off! I may look into an eval!
My right leg is a little bit longer than my left! It definitely causes me some issues
Any tips on how to avoid heel-striking? I try to be more conscious of it but wind up feeling so awkward!
All I can think of is to focus on it, I’m sure leaning a bit forward would help a bit too. And make sure you’re hitting a high cadence, around 180, which is 3 steps per second. That might help you keep from having the longer stride. You really have to focus on taking smaller steps and keeping your feet below you when you’re running downhill though.
these are great tips, I still remember my track coaches always telling me I had good form which they said was rare. I think ballet helped me a lot with that
Those are so many great tips…I would love to have my form evaluated too! Sometimes if I have to start pulling tricks out of my bag (for those “I’m getting bored” running moments) are pay close attention to form. It always ends up with me thinking how weird running really is 🙂
Haha I like that. I’ll do the same with my cadence, and count 3 steps per second. Helps distract me for a bit!
I wear Newons shoes and they have a band near the ball of your foot that encourages mid foot striking! You should check them out!
I actually don’t have a problem with mid-foot striking, but thank you for the suggestion!
The first season I coached a Girls on the Run team, one of the other coaches told the girls to pretend like they were pulling a string from each hip. I always think about that when I can feel my form getting sloppy and my arms start flopping around.
Okay….this is SO interesting to me because I too have the long leg and short torso thing happening and my hips are all wonky. Very intriguing…
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Thank you for sharing this! It’s so interesting! Someone recommended me to me that I should trying running faster too, so maybe it does help my form? How tall are you? That has nothing to do with anything, I’m just nosy :). I’m about 5’7″ and my legs are as long as my sister’s, who’s almost 5’10,” so my body has weird proportions!
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