Admittedly I'm picking and choosing a bit here, and I've not read/purchased the entire study.

2-year study on 300 recreational runners. Injured vs. non-injured runners:

"CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicate the following: (1) among recreational runners, women sustain injuries at a higher rate than men; (2) greater knee stiffness, more common in runners with higher body weights (≥80 kg), significantly increases the odds of sustaining an overuse running injury; and (3) contrary to several long-held beliefs, flexibility, arch height, quadriceps angle, rearfoot motion, lower extremity strength, weekly mileage, footwear, and previous injury are not significant etiologic factors across all overuse running injuries."


Food for thought.

Edit to add link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29791183

Not saying working on some of what this thread has suggested won't help, but really 'just run' does work a lot of the times, we just don't have the patience for that a lot of the times. And run slower so that you can 'just run' does work, we just don't have the patience for that a lot of the time. You can pick almost any photo from a lead pack in any major marathon or other event and find form or mechanical commonalities with those in the mid and back of the pack. The n=1 of I worked on my glutes or lower leg strength and then could run eliminates any other possible changes that happened along the same time. We tend to have somewhat myopic views when considering what we think we did to fix things. When you throw the entire kitchen sink at a problem, it's difficult to know which part of the sink actually fixed the problem.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

You bet...

Running "Form" is gonna be variable and these variables are self selected. Elite runners, slow runners alike.

1) Cadence (for the most part). Most folks are gonna fall in that 160-200 range

2) heel, vs mid, vs forefoot strike.

Running biomechanics examples include (but not limited to...)

1) 25-30 degrees of hip extension that is achieved through passive and active means

2) 12-15 degrees and ankle dorsiflexion to allow the foot/ankle to provide a stable platform to "push" off

3) In general, adequate strength, stability and mobility in the lower extremities, spine, and shoulders to accept 2.5-3x our body weight with each stride.

if these areas are compromised, our ability to generate power and an efficient stride is compromised (in some runners ALOT, some runners a little)

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CB
Physical Therapist/Endurance Coach
http://www.cadencept.net

Thank you - that is a super helpful difference to understand. I appreciate you taking the time.

This tells me that I've been working on both my form and my biomechanics, but my biomechanics is the bigger limiter. And you've confirmed that I need to do my strength, stability and mobility work more frequently!

I disagree with the difference between form and biomechanics a bit... I do think there is a difference between form and style. Form I would consider a collection of biomechanical attributes... after all biomechanics literally translates to movements (mechanics) of life (bio), and if that is not what form is, then I don't know what it would be...

In terms of form, the first thing to be wary of is people trying to tell you to run a certain way... As with the golf swing, there is no such thing as the perfect stride... There are attributes of a stride that make it more or less ideal, but the perfect stride for me is not going to be the perfect stride for you. The perfect stride for you will be something that you can produce repeatedly with minimal breakdown over large numbers of repetitions, without injury... There are attributes of good form, such as having some degree of knee drive, using your arms, having a foot contact within your base of support, having a slight forward lean in the ankles (never at the waist), and having good posture and stability. Depending on terrain, wind, speed, etc. you need to adapt certain stride attributes and things like stride rate (cadence), stride length in order to find the optimal balance point. When you look at running simply, you can break it down to the formula: stride rate x stride length = distance/time... The optimal point on that equation is situation specific, but essentially amounts to the point where you are making the most of the accelerative movements of your stride (toe off, knee drive, arm drive), without decelerating... If you are turning over too fast, you are cutting a stride short before you maximize the benefit of those movements, if you are taking too long of a stride, you start to decelerate and then have to re-accelerate, rather than maintain the speed. you have to find that optimal point for the situation you are running in at a given moment. This is why I tend to cringe when athletes get really dialed into holding a specific cadence. Targeting a reasonable average is one thing, but trying to hold 160 spm might make sense on the flat, but would be too low for climbing and too high for descending (not to mention when you factor in different surface types...)...

In terms of improving your form, you need to look at what are your bad habits, and then working on drills that exaggerate those movements, functional mobility and strengthening work to improve those attributes of your stride.


Style on the other hand is just an aesthetic assessment of one's stride... you may or may not have a beautiful stride to look at, and that beautiful stride maybe consist of better or worse form... Many successful runners had terrible style, such as Emil Zatopek, Donovan Bailey (and because this is ST, let's throw Lionel into this group...)...

In terms of the just run suggestion. that's fair, and for a lot of people that works, but we can all improve on our form, we just need to work at it continuously and gradually...

On the shoe piece, you want a shoe that fits you, works with the way that you run, but that primarily stays out of your way, and lets your body dictate proper form.

I'll leave it there without going any further...

I have some more info to post, after last week's gym work following a 10K run last weekend.

The run was fun but afterward my quads were a mess. And I really felt this time, as the trainer said, I have no glute activation.

So went into the gym with primary goal to investigate and fix. With the help of the trainer I found that:

1. my hip flexors and quads, IT etc are v/short (of course)
2. On leg extension, this causes my pelvis to tilt, making it impossible for the glute to fire.
3. That destroys alignment and running efficiency

So there you have it. I'm running but because the skeletal system is not stacked I'm blowing up my upper thighs trying to stabilize the crooked chain.

I hope that makes sense because there are some pros that do not have this problem and they just won Kona!

I spent all week 2 hours/day drilling my upper legs etc with the hyperice roller, hypersphere and foam rolling. We also went through 1 hour/day of stretching and I stayed off the bike.

Really made some improvement. I hit the treadmill this weekend and wow what a difference! I was able, for the first time really to get my pelvis to sit forward over top of my hips and yes - activate the glutes. Yahoo!!

Kind of explains why I was such an energy challenged runner to begin with.
Edit PS: I found this on Youtube which does a great explanation of what is going on with my "run" action or inaction really:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOg3pxXrakM

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