Take Your Foot Off the Brake
1:00:00 – 6.25 miles
Last night in the book ChiRunning I read about how your foot should hit the ground when running. For years I had been trying to figure out whether to hit your heel first, flat foot, or more on your toes. Last night it all made sense.
If you hit the ground with your heel first, your in essence slowing yourself down. While your backfoot is pushing you forward, your front foot is doing a Flinstone’s-style brake motion. This creates more effort from your leg muscles and has you working against gravity. Leveling out your feet to be parallel to the ground creates a smoother gliding motion.
A big focus of ChiRunning is form. It goes back to biomechanics and running like we did when we were kids playing tag on the playground. Lean forward and run. Amazing how many running lessons transfer to life.
And from what I've read an understand, heel first footstrikes are responsible for the majority of knee/hip injuries as the force gets transferred through you body.