Master Your Running Form: Expert Tips and Myths You Need to Know

What To Believe—and NOT—About Running Form

The New York Times just published a terrific piece about running form—what's good, what's poor, and what you don’t need to worry about. The narrative works because it comes from a qualified journalist, Christine Yu (author of Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes), who manages to obtain interviews with numerous renowned specialists.

Several of these authorities—Matt Fitzgerald, Bas Van Hooren, Isabel Moore, and Heather Vincent—will be known to veteran RLRH readers, since their names and studies have been featured regularly here.

What does Yu learn from them? That “running technique does matter to some extent, but certainly not as much as many people try to make you believe,” according to Van Hooren.

For example, runners are generally taught they should strive for 180 strides each minute. That’s mainly true for Olympians, but not feasible for many of us. Van Hooren argues that keeping over 160/minute is a more realistic recommendation. Listen to fast-tempo music to attain this aim.

Isabel Moore adds that many runners overthink their stride pace, foot positioning, knee lift, and more. Her findings reveal that we discover our ideal stride virtually automatically if we continue jogging for many months. “Just keep running,” she urges. “Let your body do its thing without thinking about it.”

Heather Vincent takes the cake with a wonderful running suggestion I had never heard before. It’s simple, memorable, and useful. She prefers runners to maintain a modest degree of tension in the abdomen “like you’re blowing out a candle.”

This will assist with your core alignment during the run. More at The NY Times.

I swear; you swear; we all swear...  To run faster,

Swearing has been demonstrated to boost physical performance across short time spans. However, it may not be a fantastic idea in social circumstances like a huge road event or triathlon. As a recent article highlights, “The taboo nature of swearing may limit its utility in real-world situations.”

On the other hand, examine the good side: “Swearing can be easily utilized, is cost-effective, and appears to be a potent ergogenic intervention.”

Swearing works its magic via 3 recognized pathways: physiological, psychological, and nociception (coping with pain). It heightens the first two and diminishes responsiveness to the third.

When it comes to endurance, we need further study “to better comprehend the ergogenic effects of swearing.” For example, it wouldn’t be a beneficial idea to begin cursing at the beginning of a marathon. After all, you don’t want to start too quickly.

However, it may work nicely in the last lap of a mile race. Or any moment late in a race when you need a little more push.

You’re undoubtedly wondering what curse words are most regularly used. Don’t feel awful. Everyone wonders about that.

Here’s the solution. The 4-letter “F” word shows up first around 51% of the time, followed by the 4-letter “Sh” at 38%. More at Frontiers in Psychology with free full text.

Injured? Stopped Training? A new study unveils how to bounce back.

Runners get wounded. It’s a reality of life. Fortunately, we normally bounce back fast from soft-tissue muscle and tendon issues.

Still, we have to anticipate such layoffs and know how to structure our training for a return to health. A comeback.

A recent case study has gone deep into that subject. It studied a 54-year-old triathlete who stopped training for 12 weeks and then began up again.

Before discontinuing, the subject had been competing in triathlons for 30 years and attained a top 5% rating on regular physiological tests. He trained 10 to 12 hours a week.

Researchers examined his fitness and body changes before he stopped exercising (i.e., at “baseline”), at the conclusion of his 12 weeks off, and when he returned to training over 12 weeks.

Results: The patient gained roughly 4.5 pounds during his time off. He also lost the same amount of muscle. As a consequence, his VO2 max declined by 9.1% in cycling and 10.9% in running.

Further results: After 12 weeks of retraining, the individual weighed 3 pounds lighter than at baseline. This elevated his VO2 max over his baseline point even though he had not restored all the lost muscle.

However, his running economy (RE) was lower than at baseline. This indicated that, “following a detraining period, the return to initial values is much slower for RE than for VO2 max.”

After commencing his recovery, the subject followed a careful, graded return to training. He needed 6 weeks before again attaining his typical training load of 10 to 12 hours per week.

Conclusion: “Well-trained endurance master athletes can regain their cardiorespiratory fitness in a period equivalent to the duration of the detraining. However, running economy appears to take longer. Additionally, since detraining leads to a large drop in muscle mass, master athletes should give special attention to recovering muscle mass and strength via proper training and nutrition throughout the retraining period.” More at Frontiers in Physiology with free full text.

How To Find The Best Midsole For Your Running Shoes

When we run, we contact the ground with a force that creates shock tissue vibrations (STV) in the legs. Prior study has revealed that we should attempt to maintain these STVs as low as feasible.

When they are low, we feel more comfortable on the run, may be less prone to suffering injuries, and may also increase endurance performance owing to reduced peripheral fatigue of the leg muscles.

That understanding still leaves a lot of questions to be addressed. Two significant ones: How do differing midsoles affect STVs? And what sorts of runners are most likely to benefit from what kinds of midsoles?

These were the questions a French study team recently set out to answer. They recruited a significant number of 20-mile/week recreational runners (133 in total, nearly half female) and invited their volunteers to run in the lab in similar shoes. Except the shoes had one significant distinction.

The shoes have midsoles categorized as firm, medium, or soft. How would different runners do in these three conditions?

Result (simplified): Rearfoot runners who had larger quantities of body fat obtained the highest STV decrease when they wore “soft” midsoles. Forefoot runners with short stride flight times fared best in rigid midsoles. Higher mileage runners with longer travel durations worked exceptionally in “medium” midsoles.

Conclusion: “Functional groups were different in terms of intrinsic characteristics such as running mileage, fat mass, and biomechanics.” Also: “These characteristics could be assessed with simple metrics in running shops, at home, or in the field.”

In other words: When buying your next pair of running shoes, consider your particular running style while you check out shoes with soft, medium, or firm midsoles. More at Scandinavian J of Medicine & Science in Sports.

Do You Need to Know Your Blood Lactate?

Many runners adore their heart rate monitors. Not satisfied to “feel” their exertion in training or racing, they depend on their monitors to measure whether they’re running at 80 percent, 90 percent, or even 99 percent of peak heart rate.

And if you do this regularly, you may begin to grasp the link between your heart rate and your performance. Including how the two fluctuate over various distances and different weather situations.

Other runners would want to know their true blood lactate levels, which offer a better insight on the status of your skeletal muscle (legs) efficiency and exhaustion. This goes to the core heart of the presently popular “Norwegian system” of training.

In this approach, endurance athletes conduct numerous pinprick blood samples throughout exercises to make sure they are not pushing too hard. The goal: to train up to a specific intensity level, but not beyond. Going over the lactate line might force you into overtraining, or at least an inadequate recovery condition.

The difficulty has long been that pinprick blood tests are, well, tedious and prickly uncomfortable. Who truly wants that?

Now Alex Hutchinson explains in this Sweat Science article that continuous lactate monitoring is ready to make a huge breakthrough in the next year or two. He examines numerous firms that employ different approaches to provide continuous monitoring, i.e., like your heart rate monitor.

At least one expert believes someone is going to get wealthy off this technology, as athletes will flock to acquire and utilize lactate monitors. That remains to be seen. Case in point: The same was anticipated of continuous glucose monitoring, but the prediction was inaccurate. More at Outside Run.

The Bean Counters Guide to Optimal Nutrition

A group of renowned nutritionists working together as the 2025 US Dietary Advisory Committee has advised that Americans should consume less meat for protein and more beans, peas, and lentils.

Why? Because the beans have less saturated fat and much more fiber. This makes the health outcomes “more compelling,” adds Stanford’s Christopher Gardner, a committee member.

Legumes are also better for the world, argues another committee member, David Katz, from Yale. They utilize far less water than cattle growing.

The more diverse varieties of beans you consume, the better. Each has specific benefits in addition to protein and fiber. For example, fava beans are filled with lutein, an antioxidant; black and red kidney beans rank high for potassium; and chickpeas have large quantities of magnesium.

The group was entrusted largely with helping Americans lower the country’s high prevalence of obesity, which is connected to other chronic ailments including heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Here’s some precise text from the Committee’s summary:

“What is the relationship between dietary patterns consumed and growth, body composition, and risk of obesity?”

“Dietary patterns consumed by adults and older adults that are characterized by higher intakes of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, and fish/seafood and lower intakes of meats (including red and processed meats), refined grains, and sugar-sweetened foods and beverages are associated with lower adiposity (body fat, body weight, BMI, and/or waist circumference) and lower risk of obesity. These dietary patterns also included increased intakes of unsaturated fats and decreased intakes of saturated fats and sodium.”

More at CNN and from the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines website.

5 Things You MUST Know About Running Injuries

This content is from a website for physical therapists and prominently pushes a video behind a paywall. But the fundamental knowledge is useful for runners looking to prevent injury. In other words, every one of us.

After all, there are numerous situations when we have to be our own diagnostician and physician. At least with small aches and pains.

I really loved the basic explanation of why elderly runners must be more aware of injury hazards and how to prevent them. This leads straight to crucial point #4: “Calf is king.”

Because: “The soleus is particularly important, generating forces up to 6–8x body weight during running.”

Therefore, runners need to “include high-load strength and plyometric training such as skipping and hopping for the calf and Achilles to prepare them adequately to perform their critical function in running.” More at Physio Network.