My 6 year-old son and I spent part of the afternoon today running barefoot laps up and down the driveway in front of a camera. I was trying to get some higher quality stills of my barefoot foostrike by using the motion triggering feature on the Casio EX-F1, and he decided he wanted to join in.
Toward the end of our little experiment, I suggested we try running “fast” by the camera, one behind the other. His reply went something along the lines of “When I go fast I like to get up on my toes!” Smart kid. Anyway, the picture below is of our footstrikes, shot one after the other, less than a few seconds apart. Like father, like son on the barefoot forefoot strike I’d say!
I was happy to see that I landed on my forefoot in almost every pass, with a few midfoot strikes mixed in (my son actually seems to transition frequently between midfoot and forefoot landings when running barefoot). No heel-striking whatsoever, which is certainly not always the case when I’m wearing shoes! Below is a video fused together from a series of about 30 high-resolution still images, as well as a few more high res pictures of my barefoot footstrike.
Same video as above in higher quality from Vimeo.
Barefoot Running: Forefoot Strike in Slow Motion from Runblogger on Vimeo.
Frame by frame view of my forefoot strike while running barefoot on an asphalt driveway. Filmed at 60 fps on a Casio Exilim EX-F1 digital camera.
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About Peter Larson
Very cool. Much better form than your Vibram heel-strike from a while ago. :)
Note you and your son are landing on the outside of the foot and rolling in.
Tuck – yeah, quite an improvement from last September :) The lateral
forefoot landing followed by inward role is almost always how I have seen it
done – this made me happy.
Pete
Pete, this also shows the difference in the forefoot vs. mid-foot strike. The shock absorbers are in the forefoot area so even a mid-foot strike decreases the natural shock absorbers and reduces the energy return from the uncoiling of the plantar muscles and achilles tendon.
Harry
Harry,
Pretty amazing isn’t it! I did some similar shots in my Mach 12 flats,
and was seeing heel strikes – looks like a bit more bare footing is in
order for me. I need to figure out how to keep my son out of
marshmallow shoes!
Pete
That is GREAT video footage. Just brilliant. Our feet are certainly designed to be shock absorbers. How many rubber bands (ligaments) do we have in our feet? I don’t know the number but it’s gotta be alot.
Great video! Proof positive that our feet are designed to run, they’re great shock absorbers. How many rubber bands (ligaments) do we have in our feet?
Pete, that rocks!!!!!
I think your form is fine quite frankly.
In terms of foot position landing, this is exactly how I land in
shods. When I posted a pic of my landing (and a pic of my soles) a
while back, Tuck immediately told me to check out Anton K. and it was
right on. This is the exact wear and tear zone on my shoes.
Your son has a bright future :). Think of all you will teach him that
we didn’t know.
I’ve tried really hard this week to move to a mid-foot strike (don’t
ask me why) and I gave up yesterday and returned to my forefoot strike
today and I’m back to feeling great. I guess I’m in that 1% – 2% of
runners with a pure forefoot strike and I’ll leave it alone and never
try to switch again. The mid-foot strike caused a very minor PF tweak
as well as tension in the AT so that was my sign to quit and today no
pain at all as I returned to my forefoot strike. Hence, why I must
zero drop shoes because any heel build up interferes with my forefoot
strike and pushes me to a mid-foot strike.
Harry