Last night I went to a Good Form Running Clinic at the new local running store. The store was awesome, I’m obsessed. However let’s jump right into the clinic.
There were 9 of us there (8 women, 1 older guy) plus the owner of the store, John. John’s been running for 30+ years completely injury free. He’s run EVERYDAY of those 30 years. He said good form is key.
After some brief intros we immediately went outside to have John take video of us jogging. We lined up and John was a few yards down from where we were so by the time we passed him we were in stride. First we jogged in our sneakers, then he asked us to take off our sneakers and jog barefoot. We went back inside and John said he’d show the video at the end. John had us run first before he told us how we SHOULD be running, which was clever. He also was not pushing a barefoot running approach, but instead pointed out how as humans were were BUILT TO RUN. He said how many shoe companies have created shoes that give us bad habits (landing on your heels for example). He said we need to go against some of our developed tendencies and pay attention to our natural tendencies which are best noticed barefoot (even if it’s just warming up).
John asked us who was taught to drive, bike, swim (we all said yes), then he asked if we were taught to run – none of us were formally taught which is the norm. He then proceeded to talk through Good Form Running via handout. However it was not just a lecture. He had up get up and do what he was talking about while critiquing us. He also had some AWESOME visuals. I could have read all this info (like I hope you will), but hearing it and doing it in person was phenomenal.
I’ll share the biggest points I took away.
Overall: When running lift your legs, don’t push off your feet.
1. Posture
- to reset your posture stand up straight with your feet and shoulder forward and stretch your hands straight over your head to realign your posture – do this throughout your run (esp after a stop/break).
- keep your feet, hips, shoulders and head facing forward. Your hands should be thumbside up and thumbs straight ahead. (not a thumbs up)
2. Midfoot
- Keep your feet UNDER you.
- Running should be an accelerated march.
- Hitting midfoot is key. If you hit with your heel it leads to shin splits and knee problems.
3. Cadence
- Cadence should be 180 (3 steps a second) REGARDLESS of speed.
- Check your cadence under a variety of circumstances (trail, road, uphill, flat, etc.)
- You can buy a Metronome device that beeps to keep cadence or use jogtunes.com
4. Lean
- For good form before running lean from ankles until your heels lift – then start running (doing this barefoot is helpful).
- Think of your body as 11:26:30 (picture the second hand). This was a great visual for me.
RUNNING VIDEO
It was not as horrifying as I feared. Especially since not only was it projected on a wall, but he played it in SUPER SLOW MOTION. This part was fascinating. I loved observing other runners and hearing his analysis and I especially loved learning more about me. I have good Midfoot and Cadence, however my arms cross my body a bit (they should remain next to me facing straight ahead). I also bounce (aside from my boobs), we were running past a brick wall and you could see my head move between 3-4 bricks in height, it should only be able 1 (this is resulting from me pushing from my feet as opposed to lifting from my legs). John said your upper body and head should not bobble much at all – to think of yourself as an arrow or a bullet. That was quite an A-HA moment.
Many of the ladies in the video were landing on their heels, and most of us were over extending our legs out (some more than others) as opposed to keeping our legs under us.
It was interesting to see the other video of us running barefoot. Mine didn’t change much because I was landing midfoot with shoes, but for people who weren’t there was a big natural improvement. All of our leans were better barefoot.
Here’s another helpful site he shared with us – also with good visuals that you can adjust.
QUESTONS
I also asked a host of questions including:
Water: He recommends belts or flat sided bottles. Said one small bottle per hand may be better for me instead of my large Smart Water bottle.
Gels: YES, he’s tried a lot over the years, must replace what we are taking out of our body.
Stretching: He’s from the school of no stretching at all. Stretching after is okay, but he sees stretching before as possibly causing more harm than good. He thinks a warm up and cool down run are best.
Needless to say I really enjoyed the running clinic and I highly recommend you going to one if they are available near you!
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