Slow motion of foot landing in marathon

In the discussion about running technique and whether you have to land on your heels (as most modern running shoes are designed for) or on your balls of your feet, there are people saying that elite marathon runners land on their heels as well. Well, you certainly would think so if you don't look carefully. This video shows that they are wrong and why this mistake is often made.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• running
• technique
• marathon
• BodyPost.com

[atj0409]

It is impossible to tell whether he is actually landing on the balls of his feet from the angle of the camera.

[tybash]

Either way the virginity of the foot is lost.

[anUHkins]

of course it looks like the heel is going to touch on the way down. it's called dorsal flexing. every good runner does it. Also stride is only important to an extent to how much it can personally better you. I have watched sate meets where there is heel strikers and non-heel strikers all placing in the top 5 at state, (& unclassed, so very competitive) it can also depend on your foot structure. this persons ankle is bending in on toe off, not everyone's does that.

[dainosor90]

too slow, is killing me.

[4daluv13]

Stop watching these videos and go out and run. Who cares how you strike the ground.

[CraigSimmons88]

He definitely didn't land on the balls of his feet.

[AngryOrthopod]

@LMaster1 Good and valid points about form in sports. Here is my point, running form is way more than the way your foot strikes the ground, but for the most part form is natural. Not to sound defeatist, but 95%+ runners will never break a 5:20 mile regardless of their form. Running in general is not a technique sport (as opposed to golf, tennis etc.), so changing form is at best incremental and really only useful for those competing and those who have a platform to work from, natural talent.

[piratesliveon]

@LMaster1 If yo'ure talking maximal load then everyone, regardless of which part of their foot hits the ground first, bears maximal load at pushoff on the ball of the foot. Take a look at the force curves of "heel strike" vs "midfoot" or "forefoot" strikes. The "heel strike" force curve does have an extra spike when the heel hits the ground, but maximum load is clearly at pushoff on the ball of the foot. Therefore, the only way to differentiate the two is which part hits first.

[LMaster1]

@AngryOrthopod my friends form for instances is horrific. Everything going everywhere. He cannot run 17 seconds for 100m and fails to break 75s in an all out 400m.

He will never even break 5:20 for the mile with his current speed. He can develop all the endurance in the world but it will never happen, his speed, and thus his running is drastically limited by his form.

[LMaster1]

@AngryOrthopod Not sure to what extent I agree with this. I'm generally not an advocate of massive changes to ones stride. But to say you should ignore form is too much in my opinion.

What other sport, including sprinting, ignores form? None that I can think of. Why would distance running be the one athletic activity that is the exception to the rule.

Some people, for instance, would absolutely benefit from better form as you DO see people with form so bad it limits their top end speed.

[LMaster1]

@piratesliveon No, its not. At least not the way the OP and I are thinking of footstrike. Footstrike is not the first point of contact with ground, buth rather the position of the foot when it is bearing maximal load.

In Wanjiru's case, by the former definition he is heelstriking because part of the heel is hitting the ground first. However, by the time the foot is bearing maximal load he is largely on his midfoot.

[piratesliveon]

In addition, the barefoot movement makes one critical logical error. It assumes that "natural" is always better. This is not necessarily the case. Barefoot running may work great for some people, may be a good training modality for others, and may be completely inadvisable for yet others. Any runner worth his salt knows that the mechanics of running are highly individual. There is no "one size fits all," and that goes for barefoot running just as much as it does shod running.