It’s ironic that much of the often-controversial conversation around running technique surrounds the “strike”, or when the foot hits the ground after flight. This, of course, is at the heart of the conversation about heal strikes versus landing in the toes and the more contemporary compromise: the mid-foot strike. A strong case can be made that focusing on the strike at all could be misguided and redundant.
While it sounds like a bad joke, consider that you won’t forget to put your foot back on the ground. Stay with me. The single environmental force acting on us all in all scenarios is gravity.You foot will come down, unless you can levitate, of course. All joking aside, this is a critical point because the actionable move of a runner then isn’t striking. That will happen regardless. The actionable choice of the running is when and how to pull the foot from the ground.
In fact, this is at the heart of Dr. Romanov’s work. He’s the Russian sport scientist who observed and named humans’ interaction with gravity as Pose Method. Known causes of injury and running inefficiencies including but not limited to time on support (foot) and heel striking can be resolved by better understanding how and when to pull the support foot from the ground. Picking the foot from the ground faster and more often decreases time on support, which is how and when running injuries happen, for example. Less time on support, puts the foot contact point closer to underneath the body’s center of mass, which means less breaking with contact out front and less heel striking.
Unless you can levitate, don’t worry about your striking, runners. If you’ve got good posture, focus on the more empowered part of running (the pull) and get your foot off the ground. Your times and your injuries will thank you.
Logan Gelbrich
@functionalcoach
1/15/20 WOD
FLOW 8
5 Strict Pull Ups
5 Toes-to-Bar
5 Kipping Pull Ups
Then, complete 3 rounds for quality:
10 Renegade Rows
10 Barbell AB Rollouts
Then, complete 4 rounds for time:
10 OHS (95/65)
10 Pull Ups