Running and walking are important skills to be learned yet for most of us we have never been taught proper form. Using proper form when running can help to keep you exercising longer, more efficiently and injury free.
Eric Heyl, with the Lincoln Running Company is here today to help you better understand the importance of running right.
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Best Tips for Proper Running Technique
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Eric Heyl, Lincoln Running Company
Eric Heyl works for Lincoln Running Company. Transcription:
Best Tips for Proper Running Technique
Melanie Cole (Host): Bryan Health hosts a community run every October to further their commitment to wellness and mental health. For more information about this event, you can go to bryanhealth.org/run. This special podcast series is brought to you by Bryan Health and the Kim Foundation. Running and walking are important skills to be learned. Yet, for most of us, we’ve never been taught proper form. Using proper form when running can help to keep you exercising longer, more efficiently and injury free. My guest today is Eric Heyl with the Lincoln Running Company. Welcome to the show, Eric. So, let’s start with some equipment, if we are going to use proper form when we run. When we’re looking at shoes, there are so many on the market. They’re so technological now. What do you want people to look for in a shoe?
Eric Heyl (Guest): Absolutely. That’s correct. One of the biggest things that we encourage is you get your form and fit checked out with a specially run shop or a person who knows what they’re looking for as far as your gait analysis and what goes into it. Here at our store, we do a full gait analysis, and we’ll look at your gait cycles to make sure that we are fitting you for the proper shoe. And, it comes down to more of a fit over function for us. So, we look at what your arch type there is. We look at your ankles, heels, knees--all that goes into so that we’re fitting you for the right shoe and not ultimately into vanity like many of us do. The other thing to look for would definitely be a proper insert, whether it be more arch support, cushion--whatever really helps cater to your foot’s right need.
Melanie: So, you mentioned inserts. Is it possible, with some of the technology of these shoes, to overcorrect by adding an insert when one maybe isn’t needed?
Eric: Correct. That’s 100 percent true. And that’s where, again, seeking out someone who can do those type of gait analysis’ to help you really pinpoint what your needs are. If you get a shoe that, say, is corrective for someone with extreme pronation which is a flatfoot rotation inward of the foot, and you have a high arch, that’s going to overcorrect it. It’s going to rotate that foot to the lateral side and that can lead to problems with knees, hips, lower back. It all becomes an inefficiency thing.
Melanie: So, if you were teaching somebody to run, is their natural gait changeable? Do you want to change somebody’s natural gait to make them run more efficiently; or, do you like to leave the gait as it is and just teach them better strike position or better posture?
Eric: Yes. I mean, there are lots of studies saying we don’t want to drastically overhaul our current form or change your cadence or anything like that. But, what we like to do with our class is we talk about good form running. It’s not perfect form. I don’t believe in anything such as perfect form. There’s always pretty runners out there but you have your form that works for you. What we try to do is encourage you to think about ways to improve your running to become a more well-rounded runner. Everyone wants to constantly improve themselves and we just give you the tools to help think about that.
Melanie: Okay. So, you don’t want to drastically change somebody’s running technique. So then, let’s get into some of the form information now. So, posture and arms. As you said, not everybody’s a real pretty runner, but you certainly don’t want to be hunched over when you’re running because that’s going to restrict your airflow. How do you maintain good posture but all the while keeping your eyes on the ground so you don’t trip.
Eric: Yes. There are a few key things that we talk about. For me, when I was learning this process of how to talk about good form running, the parts that people take away from me, it was posture. And it hit for me because I was a collegiate runner and I had success in the past, but I would look at pictures of myself when I was running, and I’d look at it and I’m like--I was not that ugly. I don’t think I was that floppy of a runner. I was fast, but there was a lot of inefficiencies and I had trouble staying healthy. And, it wasn’t until we started looking at my form and clearing those kind of things out. But, for posture, it was something that it came down to doing what I like to call “posture reset”. Many yoga instructors do it where you take your hands and you just put them in cross your fingers motion and you stretch high up into the sky and let those arms stretch out completely. Not only that feel really good, it helps reset all the vertebrae and it pulls you out of what we call that bucket seat, where you get lazy and fall down and sit more into your butt.
Melanie: So, your arms--do you want to let them swing as you go?
Eric: You want to have a relaxed arm swing. Too many times, I see people hunched over with their shoulders close to their ears. By doing that, you’re creating a very tight motion in there, and that’s when we get that soreness in the shoulders. You really want to relax and let your shoulders almost get as far away from your ears as possible. And letting that happen, that will help that your arms come down. You want to maintain a nice, consistent arm swing. You want to hold those arms in about a 90 degree angle. One of the funny things that I was taught growing up that I thought was just silly but now makes more sense to me as I teach these classes, is holding my arm swing at a 90 degree angle but not clamping my hands. My dad would tell me, “Act like you’re holding ice cream,” and I was like, “Why?” He’s like, “Well, you don’t want your ice cream to fall over. You don’t want your arms to turn in because you’re going to lose your ice cream, same with turning it out.” So, as I was running, it was simple as just one hand is chocolate and one hand is vanilla. So, it was just chocolate, vanilla, chocolate, vanilla. It was a very easy way to hold that posture as an arm swing.
Melanie: That’s really interesting. What a great tip. Now, what about cadence? People don’t really realize what that is, but when we’re looking at speed and stride length. I’m a very short person, Eric, so of course, my stride length is going to be less but my legs move faster. When somebody is trying to decide how long of a length to step and when they’re hitting the ground, the speed and the toughness of hitting that ground, what do you tell them about whether they should or not try and change that?
Eric: That’s one of the most important key components of good form running is going to be your cadence. Without cadence, none of the other components really run a fluid motion. The ideal number that you want to hit is going to be different for everybody but it’s going to be somewhere between 160 and 180 strikes per minute. So, that’s 90 strikes on your left foot, 90 strikes on your right foot. A great way to test that is if we take a cadence counter or a metronome in our classes and we just set it to 180 beats per minute, and we march in place. And that right there, you’re going zero miles an hour. You’re not moving forward but you can hit that regardless of your height, weight, splay, leg length or anything like that. And, we start moving you around the room, and we march in place and we slightly move forward into a light jog and just leave that metronome going so we can hear what that sounds like. And, we’ll adjust it accordingly so you can know what 160 feels like, and we’ll even go up to 200, which feels incredibly uncomfortable. The only people who should be hitting 200 strikes per minute have been Olympic caliber athletes. So, cadence really dictates a lot of what goes into good form. And, not everybody can hit that 180. For example, I ran a very successful half-marathon earlier this year, but I was only at 174 strikes per minute. So, there’s a lot that goes into it. No one’s going to be perfect, but that’s kind of the range you want to shoot for.
Melanie: So, what about lean? People think lean means that you’re leaning forward whether it’s from your hips or usually people would do it from their shoulders but if you’re really letting your feet push off the ground, explain about lean and mid-foot for us.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. Lean is probably the one of more difficult ones to achieve because people think you, like you said, have to learn from your hips when, in all reality, you’re doing more of a lean from your ankles. We help people find that lean and we tell them to stand up straight, do that posture reset, and we just rock back and forth ever so slightly. That moment where you lean forward and you’re just about to fall where your toes almost have to grasp, that’s about that ideal range. I’ll actually to do that with the start of many of my runs or if I get stuck at an intersection and I have to wait, I’ll just rock just slightly once or twice, and as I go, I’ll find that lean. It’s only about one percent lean. It’s very, very subtle but that’s what’s going to help you find that mid-foot strike. If you’re standing straight up, it’s not going to allow you to come through and find that mid-foot, you’re going to come down more on to your heel. And heel creates a checkmark motion. You can always have someone film yourself running, and if you slow it down, you’ll see where your foot’s angled up, it creates this checkmark motion. That creates a lot of shock on to your knees. So, we want to help find that mid-foot or whole foot to take as less energy in return on your body as we can.
Melanie: What great advice. And what do you tell people when they ask you if running can help with mental health? Are endorphins real?
Eric: Endorphins are absolutely a thing. I mean, runners high is one of the greatest feelings in the world, whether it’s completing your first 5K or your first marathon. Everyone has their own goals for running. For me, and what I explain to a lot of people and when they ask me, “Why do you write about running? Why do you promote running?” Running is free therapy. It’s an escape from the world. I mean, why do we run? It’s to get away from problems or to, as my boss says, solve every world problem while we’re out there. It’s just the greatest feeling in the world, whether it’s just going out for 10 minutes or getting that 20 mile run. It’s just that release of endorphins is so satisfying.
Melanie: And wrap it up for us with your best advice on good, proper running form, and why that’s so important.
Eric: Without proper form, you can lead to injuries, and you want to have a successful, healthy running career whether you are having your first 5K come up or you’re joining your friends to be in a running program. Take the time to get the right tools, get yourself checked out at a specialty store, and look into those form things. There’s a great website out there at New Balance with Good Form Running that talks on a lot of points that I brought up today so you can research, and it’s a great way to get your program started to stay healthy and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Eric, for being with us today. You’re listening to Bryan Health Radio. And if you’d like to learn more about healthy living, you can go to bryanhealth.org. That’s bryanhealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Best Tips for Proper Running Technique
Melanie Cole (Host): Bryan Health hosts a community run every October to further their commitment to wellness and mental health. For more information about this event, you can go to bryanhealth.org/run. This special podcast series is brought to you by Bryan Health and the Kim Foundation. Running and walking are important skills to be learned. Yet, for most of us, we’ve never been taught proper form. Using proper form when running can help to keep you exercising longer, more efficiently and injury free. My guest today is Eric Heyl with the Lincoln Running Company. Welcome to the show, Eric. So, let’s start with some equipment, if we are going to use proper form when we run. When we’re looking at shoes, there are so many on the market. They’re so technological now. What do you want people to look for in a shoe?
Eric Heyl (Guest): Absolutely. That’s correct. One of the biggest things that we encourage is you get your form and fit checked out with a specially run shop or a person who knows what they’re looking for as far as your gait analysis and what goes into it. Here at our store, we do a full gait analysis, and we’ll look at your gait cycles to make sure that we are fitting you for the proper shoe. And, it comes down to more of a fit over function for us. So, we look at what your arch type there is. We look at your ankles, heels, knees--all that goes into so that we’re fitting you for the right shoe and not ultimately into vanity like many of us do. The other thing to look for would definitely be a proper insert, whether it be more arch support, cushion--whatever really helps cater to your foot’s right need.
Melanie: So, you mentioned inserts. Is it possible, with some of the technology of these shoes, to overcorrect by adding an insert when one maybe isn’t needed?
Eric: Correct. That’s 100 percent true. And that’s where, again, seeking out someone who can do those type of gait analysis’ to help you really pinpoint what your needs are. If you get a shoe that, say, is corrective for someone with extreme pronation which is a flatfoot rotation inward of the foot, and you have a high arch, that’s going to overcorrect it. It’s going to rotate that foot to the lateral side and that can lead to problems with knees, hips, lower back. It all becomes an inefficiency thing.
Melanie: So, if you were teaching somebody to run, is their natural gait changeable? Do you want to change somebody’s natural gait to make them run more efficiently; or, do you like to leave the gait as it is and just teach them better strike position or better posture?
Eric: Yes. I mean, there are lots of studies saying we don’t want to drastically overhaul our current form or change your cadence or anything like that. But, what we like to do with our class is we talk about good form running. It’s not perfect form. I don’t believe in anything such as perfect form. There’s always pretty runners out there but you have your form that works for you. What we try to do is encourage you to think about ways to improve your running to become a more well-rounded runner. Everyone wants to constantly improve themselves and we just give you the tools to help think about that.
Melanie: Okay. So, you don’t want to drastically change somebody’s running technique. So then, let’s get into some of the form information now. So, posture and arms. As you said, not everybody’s a real pretty runner, but you certainly don’t want to be hunched over when you’re running because that’s going to restrict your airflow. How do you maintain good posture but all the while keeping your eyes on the ground so you don’t trip.
Eric: Yes. There are a few key things that we talk about. For me, when I was learning this process of how to talk about good form running, the parts that people take away from me, it was posture. And it hit for me because I was a collegiate runner and I had success in the past, but I would look at pictures of myself when I was running, and I’d look at it and I’m like--I was not that ugly. I don’t think I was that floppy of a runner. I was fast, but there was a lot of inefficiencies and I had trouble staying healthy. And, it wasn’t until we started looking at my form and clearing those kind of things out. But, for posture, it was something that it came down to doing what I like to call “posture reset”. Many yoga instructors do it where you take your hands and you just put them in cross your fingers motion and you stretch high up into the sky and let those arms stretch out completely. Not only that feel really good, it helps reset all the vertebrae and it pulls you out of what we call that bucket seat, where you get lazy and fall down and sit more into your butt.
Melanie: So, your arms--do you want to let them swing as you go?
Eric: You want to have a relaxed arm swing. Too many times, I see people hunched over with their shoulders close to their ears. By doing that, you’re creating a very tight motion in there, and that’s when we get that soreness in the shoulders. You really want to relax and let your shoulders almost get as far away from your ears as possible. And letting that happen, that will help that your arms come down. You want to maintain a nice, consistent arm swing. You want to hold those arms in about a 90 degree angle. One of the funny things that I was taught growing up that I thought was just silly but now makes more sense to me as I teach these classes, is holding my arm swing at a 90 degree angle but not clamping my hands. My dad would tell me, “Act like you’re holding ice cream,” and I was like, “Why?” He’s like, “Well, you don’t want your ice cream to fall over. You don’t want your arms to turn in because you’re going to lose your ice cream, same with turning it out.” So, as I was running, it was simple as just one hand is chocolate and one hand is vanilla. So, it was just chocolate, vanilla, chocolate, vanilla. It was a very easy way to hold that posture as an arm swing.
Melanie: That’s really interesting. What a great tip. Now, what about cadence? People don’t really realize what that is, but when we’re looking at speed and stride length. I’m a very short person, Eric, so of course, my stride length is going to be less but my legs move faster. When somebody is trying to decide how long of a length to step and when they’re hitting the ground, the speed and the toughness of hitting that ground, what do you tell them about whether they should or not try and change that?
Eric: That’s one of the most important key components of good form running is going to be your cadence. Without cadence, none of the other components really run a fluid motion. The ideal number that you want to hit is going to be different for everybody but it’s going to be somewhere between 160 and 180 strikes per minute. So, that’s 90 strikes on your left foot, 90 strikes on your right foot. A great way to test that is if we take a cadence counter or a metronome in our classes and we just set it to 180 beats per minute, and we march in place. And that right there, you’re going zero miles an hour. You’re not moving forward but you can hit that regardless of your height, weight, splay, leg length or anything like that. And, we start moving you around the room, and we march in place and we slightly move forward into a light jog and just leave that metronome going so we can hear what that sounds like. And, we’ll adjust it accordingly so you can know what 160 feels like, and we’ll even go up to 200, which feels incredibly uncomfortable. The only people who should be hitting 200 strikes per minute have been Olympic caliber athletes. So, cadence really dictates a lot of what goes into good form. And, not everybody can hit that 180. For example, I ran a very successful half-marathon earlier this year, but I was only at 174 strikes per minute. So, there’s a lot that goes into it. No one’s going to be perfect, but that’s kind of the range you want to shoot for.
Melanie: So, what about lean? People think lean means that you’re leaning forward whether it’s from your hips or usually people would do it from their shoulders but if you’re really letting your feet push off the ground, explain about lean and mid-foot for us.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. Lean is probably the one of more difficult ones to achieve because people think you, like you said, have to learn from your hips when, in all reality, you’re doing more of a lean from your ankles. We help people find that lean and we tell them to stand up straight, do that posture reset, and we just rock back and forth ever so slightly. That moment where you lean forward and you’re just about to fall where your toes almost have to grasp, that’s about that ideal range. I’ll actually to do that with the start of many of my runs or if I get stuck at an intersection and I have to wait, I’ll just rock just slightly once or twice, and as I go, I’ll find that lean. It’s only about one percent lean. It’s very, very subtle but that’s what’s going to help you find that mid-foot strike. If you’re standing straight up, it’s not going to allow you to come through and find that mid-foot, you’re going to come down more on to your heel. And heel creates a checkmark motion. You can always have someone film yourself running, and if you slow it down, you’ll see where your foot’s angled up, it creates this checkmark motion. That creates a lot of shock on to your knees. So, we want to help find that mid-foot or whole foot to take as less energy in return on your body as we can.
Melanie: What great advice. And what do you tell people when they ask you if running can help with mental health? Are endorphins real?
Eric: Endorphins are absolutely a thing. I mean, runners high is one of the greatest feelings in the world, whether it’s completing your first 5K or your first marathon. Everyone has their own goals for running. For me, and what I explain to a lot of people and when they ask me, “Why do you write about running? Why do you promote running?” Running is free therapy. It’s an escape from the world. I mean, why do we run? It’s to get away from problems or to, as my boss says, solve every world problem while we’re out there. It’s just the greatest feeling in the world, whether it’s just going out for 10 minutes or getting that 20 mile run. It’s just that release of endorphins is so satisfying.
Melanie: And wrap it up for us with your best advice on good, proper running form, and why that’s so important.
Eric: Without proper form, you can lead to injuries, and you want to have a successful, healthy running career whether you are having your first 5K come up or you’re joining your friends to be in a running program. Take the time to get the right tools, get yourself checked out at a specialty store, and look into those form things. There’s a great website out there at New Balance with Good Form Running that talks on a lot of points that I brought up today so you can research, and it’s a great way to get your program started to stay healthy and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Eric, for being with us today. You’re listening to Bryan Health Radio. And if you’d like to learn more about healthy living, you can go to bryanhealth.org. That’s bryanhealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.