This is a picture of me (1055) coming out of t2 yesterday at MIM. I have always heard about how you want to avoid a lot of lateral movement in your hips but I never thought I had that problem. As I was going through pictures from yesterday I saw this one and it got me thinking that maybe I do have too much lateral hip movement. What do the run experts have to say about it? I know it is tough to tell from this picture alone but what would you say?
Your visor doesn’t match your Onesie. 
David, I can see right away what you are talking about. It’s a type of gait I have seen often. In fact, through highschool our star runner had that type of gait.
If I were to try to describe what is happening it’s that when your leg plants and supports your weight (in this case left leg) your pelvis tilts laterally so that your right pelvic joint drops. I believe that this probably absorbs energy from your forward movement and it comes from either a weakness or simply an inadvertent relaxation of the stabilizing muscles around the pelvis and lower back.
It may act as an increased shock absorber, but it does so at the risk of creating hip/low back problems.
Imagine a rod inserted through your hips sideways entering at one hip bone and exiting at the opposite. As you stand there the bar (imagine it hanging out a foot on either side) is level. As you run, that bar would tilt horizontally down, then up. Ideally you would want to keep the bar level as you ran…some forward/backward movement is going to happen especially at higher speeds, but preferably not up/down.
We can work on this on a treadmill if you’d like.
I think it looks great! Good posture, relaxed jaw, footfall looks fine from the pic, no significant crossover. The hips definitely don’t look like a problem from the picture!
Requisite off-topic comment: Getting chicked by compression socks, perhaps?
You know much more about the biomechanics than I do. Piriformis tightness maybe? Does the OP ever have low back problems?
Yes, lower back pain typically after several days of hard training
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This photo isn’t very conclusive, as you said. Try to get some other evidence. Run on a treadmill in front of a mirror (or in front of a window at night, at the gym), or something like that. …Or run past a camcorder.
Tightness may or may not exist, but I think this can be fixed by a combination of strengthening and technique work.
Not that it’s something that HAS to be ‘fixed’ either. I would work on it, but like I said earlier my high school’s star runner did it. He did not do it when running fast (51 second 400, or 1:50 800), but in XC races he did and it didn’t seem to slow him or hurt him.
I vote for glute strength + oblique strength.
your shorts look, like, puffy. L leg especially. ?
your shorts look, like, puffy. L leg especially. ?
You’re right! Are those pockets or something?
must be puppy fat.
(I’m kidding!!!)
post a video – not possible to offer any advise from a still photo
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you have some hip drop (right hip lower than your left) which as others have mentioned can sap momentum and put stress on your lower back. Improved core strength will help this.
It’s very common…in one of the recent issues of Inside Triathlon, Torborn Sindballe did an article on biomechanics and talks about it.
not true. you can tell a lot from photos. what the person’s footstrike is, pronation or supination, hip drop in this case, overstriding…
Not much can be gleaned from a static running photo. However, typical issues I see in static running photos of injured runners (past photos from races) are absent with you.
So, your static photo looks GREAT - really!
Okay, more core work for me. Girlfriend might actually like that.
Those are pockets on each leg. I had my gel flask in there. Very convenient. Thanks
Looks like you have some hip drop. More than one picture would be helpful, but… At any rate, in that one pic, that’s what it looks like. Not super severe, but present. Work on your core (and by core, I mean everything below the nips and above the knees).
Another one - good for glutes:
stand on a stair, you’re doing single leg squats with the other leg going down to touch the next stair. Use right glute (if left foot dangling) to get left hip to rotate down (like a single leg squat), then up.
Google “hip hike” if that didn’t make sense.
Dude, that is mild hip drop, if any at all, and that is assuming your bib belt represents your pelvis.