Why Running Form Matters

And how you can improve it.

When Bill Rodgers was the best marathoner in the world in the late 1970s, a biomechanist named Peter Cavanagh tested him in his lab at Penn State. As part of the test, Cavanagh had Rodgers "fix" his trademark across-the-body right arm swing. The result? Running with more textbook form, Rodgers' running economy, or oxygen cost at the same pace, was higher. That is, changing Rodgers' form to something thought to be better made it harder for him to run a given pace.

In the more than three decades since that lab experiment, a take-home message from it has been endlessly repeated: Don't mess with your running form. Over time, your body will find its best way of running. The more you run, the more your body will find its natural form. Just run, baby. Why, then, do almost all top coaches have their runners spend time working on their form? Why do most elites, already blessed with enviable technique, think that working on their form will make them faster, either directly or by allowing them to train more by avoiding injury? And why should you? For starters, let's go back to the Rodgers experiment. No reputable source claims that, at any one instant, significantly altering your form from what your body is used to will make you faster. Coaching legend and longtime lab rat Jack Daniels has tested thousands of runners over the last 40 years. "I have tested runners' economy of running with their hands in their pockets, on their hips, folded on top of their heads, etc., and it always costs more than when using a normal arm swing," he says. But that doesn't mean the logical conclusion is that the form your body naturally gravitates toward is what will make you fastest. "We all run as children and assume that we are doing it correctly," says coach and two-time Olympic marathoner Pete Pfitzinger. "That is usually not a bad assumption, but there is a difference between doing something reasonably well and maximizing performance." Pfitzinger says that many runners can improve their running economy--their oxygen cost at a given pace--by 2-4 percent through improved form. "If you have been training hard for several years it can be an easier way to improve than doing more repeat miles." Nor does it mean that your "natural" form is in your best long-term interest. "When we go out and run we have a pattern of form that follows our skeleton and is dictated by our muscles and range of motion," says veteran coach Roy Benson, who has worked with high schoolers, Olympians, beginners and everyone in between. "Over the course of lots of running, it's like an electrical current--your body follows the path of least resistance." Sounds great, huh? Not necessarily. Pete Magill, who holds three American age-group records and has coached runners for more than two decades, says, "This belief system that just doing it over and over is somehow going to make us better is really crazy. Longtime runners actually suffer from the body's ability to become efficient. You become so efficient that you start recruiting fewer muscle fibers to do the same exercise, and as you begin using less muscle fibers you start to get a little bit weaker. Over time, that can become significant. Once you've stopped recruiting as many fibers you start exerting too much pressure on the fibers you are recruiting to perform the same action. And then you start getting muscle imbalance injuries --calf strains, little hamstring pulls, things like that." Magill adds, with more than a little frustration in his voice, "Running is the one sport where people think, 'I don't have to worry about my technique. I'm not carrying a ball, I'm not swinging a bat, I'm not on skates, so my form doesn't matter.' We also have a sport where people don't always listen to what the top people are doing. They're far more interested in what the local Pose guru might be telling them than in what Ryan Hall is doing. I would say all top runners work to improve their form." Certainly that's been my observation. I can't think of one top runner in the last two decades I've spent more than a little time around who hasn't worked on form, either directly through technique drills, indirectly through strengthening work or simply by being mindful of it while running. It's important when discussing running form to remember that there's no "perfect" form that we should all aspire to. And, adds Pfitzinger, "No one can look at you and say whether your running economy is good or bad. We would all try to 'fix' Paula Radcliffe if classic running technique was synonymous with good running economy." In one experiment, Daniels tested a group's running economy, then showed footage of the runners to coaches and had them rank who, based on running form, had the best running economy. The coaches' answers were no more accurate than if they had guessed randomly. So how to know if you should bother? And again, why do elites spend time on it? University of Illinois coach Jeremy Rasmussen puts it this way: "I bet that if I went out and said we're going to do functional testing on a sample of people, you're going to find weaknesses in every single one of them. The body has adapted to who you are, but has the body adapted to the best possible thing you can offer it? No, because you have inefficiencies somewhere, so if you can change those inefficiencies and make them strengths, then your body will start to change naturally for the better." Rasmussen works with all of his runners on form, including three-time NCAA champion Angela Bizzarri, who won those championships and overcame a history of injury only after she and Rasmussen worked to improve how she covers the ground. Magill agrees, especially for the many masters he works with. "I assume that any runner who's been away from youthful activities like basketball, Frisbee, football, tennis--been away from a wide variety of activities that actually work on muscle balance--I assume that they haven't been trained for a full range of motion and that they've developed muscle imbalances." And while there is no perfect form, there are basic elements of good form, including landing over your center of gravity, a light, rapid cadence, minimal lateral rotation and, easier to spot than quantify, relaxed body position. What deviations from this basic model do experts most often see? Daniels says that in young and old runners alike he's worked with, "The most common form problem was stride rate --bounding over the ground too slowly, with long strides. Runners are often told to work on a long stride, but that is more a function of getting fitter rather than just doing it. I never had a runner perform worse when I felt they needed a faster rhythm and they actually did learn to use a faster cadence." Benson and Pfitzinger also see more overstriding than they would like. Says Pfitzinger, "My observation of runners in road races is that hardly any of the elite runners overstride, but up to 20 percent of the runners slower than 40:00 for 10K overstride. It is very likely that if these runners would increase their stride rate and not reach out in front of their center of gravity that they would be more economical. It is a subtle change but increasing stride rate by a few percent and decreasing stride length by a few percent can improve running economy in most overstriders." Pfitzinger says other common form problems worth fixing include: Leaning forward at the waist, which causes the quads to work harder to keep you from falling forward. Holding the shoulders up or holding the arms tensely or holding the arms out to the side. Obviously not using the glute muscles. Says Pfitzinger, "It looks like the runner is running just with the quads and hamstrings. Often the calves also don't do much because they are the last push at the back of the stride. There is very little push behind the body and the stride is relatively short. When the glutes aren't working the leg typically does not straighten behind the body so the stride is more in front and under the body than behind the body." Holding the head forward of the center of gravity, which makes the neck and upper back muscles fire to hold the head from falling forward. Magill says that, for longtime runners, "I assume you're not getting the same knee lift you used to get. Even for people who do tempo runs and reps, they rarely run faster than the race pace they're expecting to go. Let's say your shortest distance is 5K and you almost never regularly run faster than 5K race pace. Well, if that's 100 percent of what you're training your body to do, then it's a 100 percent effort for your body to lift your knees to the level you have to at 5K race pace. Your body's going to find it's easier to hit 90 percent of that max effort, and you're not going to get the knee lift you need to run as fast as you want, and that's just going to compound over time." There are three key approaches to improving running form. First is to deal with specific issues that might be inhibiting your progress. See "Help in Filling Out Your Form" for exercises that can address some common problems. Second is to simply become an overall better athlete through drills, regular running at faster than race pace, core strengthening, short hill sprints and other work that might not look impressive in your log book but should be considered an integral part of any ambitious runner's program. Says Magill, "If you can strengthen your muscles so that you can move strongly through a fuller range of motion, you can take the fitness you already have and run faster." Benson agrees, saying, "As you get general strength, you get better form." If you're thinking, "That's all well and good for college runners and pros, who have all day for their running, but I have only an hour a day total for my running, so I'm better off spending that time just getting in the miles," Magill has an answer for you. "That would be a great argument," he says, "if it were true. But if you have only an hour a day to devote to your running, the first thing you've got to do is learn to run. If you bring bad form into your running all you're going to be doing for that hour a day is reinforcing bad form. If you spent even one of those days per week, or just a bit of time in those sessions, now you would be spending time actually training with good form, so instead of throwing away that hour every day you would actually be using it to train with the form that's going to apply to your race speed and to your efficiency when running. "A lot of people waste far more time being injured from running with muscle imbalances and poorly developed form than they do spending time doing drills or exercises or short hills or setting aside a short period each week to work on form itself." Third, you can work on improving specific parts of your form while running. Rasmussen does much of his form improvement work by giving runners cues ("fast feet," "shoulders low," etc.) while they do strides of 60-100 meters. In addition, he says, "When you go out for your run, for part of your run, pick a light pole that's about 100 meters out. Focus on that one particular thing for that period of time, and then go back to just running, and then a few minutes later find another light pole and do it again, and bring it into your normal runs that way. Over time you can feel the difference." Finally, when this all starts to seem too much to worry about for what's a basic human motion, relax. Literally. Says Daniels, "While running, go over your body from head to toe and ask yourself: 'Am I relaxed in the eyes? Am I relaxed in the jaw? Am I relaxed in the neck and shoulders? Am I relaxed in the arms and hands? Am I relaxed in the hips, in the knees, in the ankles, in the feet?' You may find some tight areas that may lead to better economy if fixed." And then go out again tomorrow and see if you can be just a little better of a runner than the day before. Are You Overstriding? There's a difference between overstriding and having a long stride. Overstriding means that your feet land significantly in front of your center of gravity. When this happens, you're unable to make full use of your fitness, because you're braking with every step. And you might soon be breaking with every step, in that overstriding amplifies the already-strong impact forces of running and therefore can contribute to more strain on your bones, muscles and ligaments. Coach Roy Benson suggests these two methods of determining if you're overstriding: 1. Have a friend with a video camera stand 20 yards back from the side of a level surface. Run past your friend for 30-40 yards at an easy pace. Then run past at around 10K race pace. Finally, run past at a near sprint. Says Benson, "When you watch yourself, even though you might not be able to stop action and analyze it at that level, just by seeing your form you can recognize whether you're overstriding. As long as your knee is bent and your foot is coming down back underneath you or close to you there's probably not much inefficiency and not much risk." 2. Have a friend stand in front of you while you run toward her at the three effort levels in the above exercise. Says Benson, "The friend looks to see how much of the sole of your shoe is showing on impact. If there's 4, 5, 6 inches of daylight between your toe and the ground when your heel hits, you're overstriding." The three effort levels are important, Benson explains, because many runners, especially those without a background in scholastic running, become overstriders only when they try to go faster. To improve a tendency to overstride, practice running fast while landing over your center of gravity. This is often best done by going to a field or other safe, soft surface and shedding your shoes. Says Benson, "At first, jog in place. You'll be landing on the ball of your foot. That's what it feels like to be a midfoot striker. Now stay up there and jog in place and lean over and slowly accelerate over the next 50 yards or so and don't go so fast that you forget to stay up there and land on the ball of your foot. When you do them right, strides like these are fast enough to be a good way to teach midfoot strike." Then stay conscious of what that footstrike feels like when you do track workouts and other faster sessions. Modern Life and Running Form With age, many of us become increasingly removed from regularly moving through all planes of motion, as children tend to do while playing and participating in a wide variety of games and sports. At the same time, we tend to spend more and more time sitting, either in a car or at a desk. In the latter case, we're often slumped in front of a computer, perhaps with our head bent down and/or thrust forward. None of this is good for our running form. Former Olympic marathoner and current office worker Pete Pfitzinger says that sitting all day at a desk means "the hamstrings become short and weak and the core muscles do not have to work as you lean back in your chair." Pete Magill says, "It plays murder on our hips, and can also cause iliotibial band syndrome. Anything we do for a long time strains certain muscles, and they're going to go into spasm." Roy Benson adds, "As we spend less time being active and more time being passive, like sitting at a computer, even though we run, the less control we have of our skeleton by our muscular system, and that is a big problem." There are two modes of attack here--address the problems and prevent the problems. Addressing them includes strengthening key postural muscles and improving flexibility in posterior muscles and the front-of-the-leg hip flexors. In addition, if you run after work, undo some of the day's damage with a dynamic warm-up that will help you start the run with better form instead of the slumped-over shuffle. In addition to regular core work, much of prevention comes down to day-to-day habits. Set up your monitor or other work station so that it's at eye level. Move your monitor close enough so that you're not straining to see it (and therefore thrusting your head forward). Sit with your center of gravity over your hips and your feet flat on the floor. (As much as possible, try to achieve the same posture while driving.) And no matter how good your sitting posture is, get up and move around at least once an hour to undo some of the chronic low-level strain on your shoulders, neck and head.

Scott Douglas is a senior editor for Running Times.