Whether your running style more closely resembles the tortoise or the hare, an efficient stride is a goal we all share. It is very difficult and sometimes counterproductive to completely overhaul your natural form. However, here are a few tips you can try out on your next run to help you get to the finish line with less fatigue and a few less ticks on the clock.
Avoid taking long, bounding strides
When attempting to speed up, many runners try to take big long strides. Sure, when traveling quickly, the space between each footfall will increase due to that speed generated by a more powerful push off. However, purposely increasing the length of each individual stride often results in a harder more abrupt footfall, greater forces landing on the heel as it extends out in front of you, and a longer time spent on the ground (slowing down) before transitioning to the push off phase of each stride.
Instead of decreasing the frequency of your strides when attempting to give it some gas, quicken your cadence. Taking more frequent strides results in smaller landing forces and less time on the ground absorbing them. A quicker rhythm also allows your body to stay aligned over your feet, which helps you line up all the power producing muscles (glute, hamstring, quad, calf) for more production out of each stride, without straining the stabilization capabilities of those muscles and ligaments.
Keep your hands loose
It is not uncommon to feel tense, tired shoulders after a long run, but that tension and the mid-run fatigue it may cause can be reduced by keeping your hands loose. Rather than a tight fist or fingers fanned rigidly straight out from the palm, loosely curve the fingers back toward the thumb on each hand, as if lightly holding a very thick rope. With your thumb, pretend to hold a saltine or a potato chip to your loosely curved fingers. Squeeze too hard and it breaks, too open and it drops. Tight hands reverberate tension through the arms, up to the shoulders and the neck. Loose hands help dissipate that tension and helps runners avoid draining needed energy from the hard working lower body.
Swing your arms north and south, not east to west
If running forward, avoid movements that deter your progress. When your arms are swinging backwards and forward, they are helping propel you along the desired direction. When they swing across your body, they are acting at cross purposes with your goal. Although arms naturally may have a slight angle inward that causes the elbow to stick out slightly, neither hand should cross the imaginary line down the center of your torso. Let them hang down from your un-hunched shoulders with an elbow bent at about 90 degrees, and keep them swinging “north and south”.
