June 2nd, 2010
Taking that gait video was super helpful for me, I suggest everyone make a video of themselves running. It’s easy enough to do and will show you so much. Mine was totally last minute after my run, didn’t plan it and I used a normal camera that has a video setting.
As mentioned in the comments of that post, I have a list of things to work on, but also, there were a couple things I was happy to see, beyond overstriding repair.
My arms, while not in exactly the place I want them on the Y-axis (up/down) were pretty fab on the X-axis. They don’t cross my body, pretty much stay to the side, so this is something you want to watch for if you do a video. Some crossing is fine but you never want your arms to cross your midline.
Also, my cadence is spot on. This is the stride rate and something I worked on a couple years ago but barely think about anymore. If you do a video of yourself, you can check your stride rate by going to this cool site. Just listen to your footfall or count as you watch your video and then tap along at this website with your spacebar. In this video, mine is around 190bpm…a little faster than it needs to be, actually.
There were a couple comments about whether I was heel-striking and I have to say this: At this point in time, heelstriking doesn’t concern me, though I was pleased as hell to see that when I took it frame-by-frame (and I made about 10 passes for each view, btw) my feet, while dorsiflexed to the max, were landing predominantly midfoot. That was a bonus! Heelstriking is last on my list. The things I want to fix are in this order:
Overstriding
Posture
Arms (which are intertwined with posture)
Heels
Shins, check! Now For The Knees and Hips
I’ve made a great start in fixing the overstriding problem and yesterday, my running mentor, A Muse, mentioned that I’ve been focused below the knee, and that now I should move my attention to the hips and knee drive. So last night I practiced some easy butt-kicks and knee-lifts in my tiny apartment to get the feeling started. Was good!
Today I did 13, should have left earlier, it was 85 degrees when it was over, but I concentrated on driving my knee forward and also, how the whole lever works as far hip, knee and where your foot goes in relation to your butt and energy spent, etc. Also, a comment from Ewen about my hips possibly tilting back in the video was a great cue, by bringing them forward and trying to engage them as Adam (A Muse) suggested, that put the top of my body more in alignment.
The hardest part of all this for me is absorbing the kinesthetics of it, the “feeling” of how everything is coordinated. It’s one thing to say, “get your foot up closer to your butt”, and you can work on that, but like I’ve said, nothing is isolated, so that foot comes up to your butt because your knee is lifting, etc.
One thing’s for sure…I love working on this stuff! Sorry for those of you who find all this form talk boring, I know it’s not for everyone, but if it interests you, maybe you can apply bits and pieces to your own running.
A GREAT book for dissecting the elements of form is Explosive Running by Michael Yessis, he breaks down each part and there are tons of frame-by-frame photos of men and women running with commentary of what they’re doing right and wrong. If you’re into this stuff, definitely get this book. OMG, just realized that it’s out of print and that they’re charging $169 for a new one and $50 for used? YIKES!! Try to find a copy somewhere, it’s worth it.
Posted in 
Tags: 
Great stuff, Flo. It will be interesting to see what all this does for your speed. Shame about the book. Not sure if I’m going to shell out that much.
Very good, mam! I would love to video myself running. Did you set up camera at the local Y while you ran on the TM? How did that work exactly? I am pretty sure the people from the Y would be beyond weirded out if I set up video shop there. LOL. I’m really wanting to do this, though… Thanks so much for the input!
Um…what? Color me confused, I’m not a Y member or ever use a treadmill. See my last post, the video’s there, you just do it outside in front of your house. Treadmill won’t be as useful.
I’m stupid. I didn’t read the last post- my bad! Haha. Going to look/read now…
love reading these posts! you are a better person than i because i keep saying i’m going to change my gait/posture etc but never do! i had a video taken on my running when i was in PT and it totally opened my eyes to how much more energy efficient i could be
Flo, I don’t find “all this form talk” boring at all. It’s second only to your “fights with the upstairs neighbours” posts
Steve Magness makes a good point in a comment to his post about learning how to run. He says that “knee lift and heel recovery should not be actively done. They’re a result of other things, mainly what goes on while you are applying force [to the ground].” So, this would seem to simplify having to “feel” too many things at once. Hips and arms would be two things to think about.
190 is good for cadence. Shorter runners generally have a higher cadence – Haile Gebrselassie was around 194 in his 5k races.
That made me laugh, the neighbor reference.
I read Magness’ take on knees last week, so I’m conflicted about it, but in rereading Yessis’ book (the one I mention above) he mentions forward knee drive, not lift, so not about how high, but how much force forward so I’m cheating by thinking of that.
Honestly, I’m pretty dense when it comes to internalizing some of this, like “engaging the hips” or even applying “force to the ground”…I have to read it 3 different ways and try it 10 ways until the lightbulb goes off, so I’m not quite there yet, gotta manufacture it a bit till I go “Aha!”
You’re not dense — that’s normal. The difficult thing with form adjustments is that when you get it right, it often feels wrong (sometimes for many weeks). That’s a nervous system thing — the nerves are used to doing a movement the same way a million times and changing it feels unnatural. It’s the same with any movement skill — swimming for instance. That’s why swimming coaches get paid so much compared to running coaches
My thoughts about knees are that the running movement starts with the push off the ground, and the opposite-leg hip/knee drive (and recovery of the leg that pushes off the ground) starts as a reflex action to that push off the ground.