Running is a sport that can be picked up by almost anyone with some practice, but it can take time to learn how to run with good form consistently. Poor form can cause a range of issues, pains, and injuries that could keep you from running.
Here are some tips that can help you cultivate excellent running form:
- Keep Your Shoulders Down: Focus on keeping your shoulders down and away from your ears by pulling them back as though you were squeezing a pen between your shoulder blades. This will also help maintain your endurance.
- Get Your Head Straight: Set your gaze straight ahead of you. Don’t look at your feet as this can cause tension in your neck and shoulders, and your ears should be in line with your shoulders.
- Relax Your Hands: Some people naturally run with their hands in fists, which can create tension in their shoulders and back, so it’s crucial to relax your hands during running.
- Focus on a Mid-Foot Strike: Every runner has a natural strike, but a mid-foot strike is the best way to land. This will help avoid heel and forefoot strikes and focus on landing on the middle of your foot.
- Control Your Knee Lift: Keep your knee lift low, lift your knees forward, and run with a slight bend in your knee to limit the impact of training on hard surfaces.
- Lean Forward Slightly: Lean forward slightly, hinged at the hips, and avoid leaning back or running completely upright.
Learning how to run correctly requires focusing on several elements such as running nice and tall, proper hip rotation and extension, strong core strength, and stability.
Our bodies tend to suffer from poor form when we begin to fatigue during a run. A five-minute form fix can teach us how to dial in our rotation and increase stability to prevent our bodies from overcompensating when we start to tire.
If you are interested in learning more about running posture and how it affects your health and performance:
Running and posture: It explains how running posture affects the body’s balance, stability, efficiency and performance. It also warns that incorrect posture can increase the risk of injury. This paper provides some suggestions to improve running posture
The bio-mechanics of running: It analyzes the bio-mechanical variables in each phase of running, such as stance, swing, and transition. It also introduces some application cases for injury prevention and performance improvement, such as footwear design, gait modification, and training methods.
