No More Heel Strike

Runners are often injured.  Runners also often heel strike.  Unfortunately, most people don’t really think about the mechanics of running; they buy some shoes, put them on and off they go.  There is a certain freedom to this, but there is good and bad running.

Heel striking has a jarring effect on your body from foot to ankle, ankle to knee, and knee to hip and back.  Heel striking is associated with heel pain, shin splints, Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, various knee injuries, ITB, stress fractures and lower back pain. This type of striking can really wear out the body; many running enthusiasts find that as they age they just cannot take the pain of running.  This is a shame as there are solutions to this problem.

Where your foot strikes is not the only mechanic of running worth thinking about, but it is an excellent diagnostic tool.  If you are heel striking you have many errors upstream.  Pose running is great at fixing the heel striking problem.  Instead of telling you, “Okay, strike with your forefoot not your heel”, pose running gives you body positions to move through so that it is actually impossible to heel strike if done properly.

When we have running clinics, I am always amazed at how 4 hours of drills can dramatically change the foot strike of the participants.  Of course, this has to be practiced and drilled, but Pose running is a powerful tool for correcting poor running technique and reducing the impact of running on the body so that you can keep going and going and going.

Check out the video of some of the before and afters from the latest running clinic: