With regards our own individual experimentation, I feel that after warming-up (say, by running at your intended marathon pace on a treadmill), that by holding that speed constant, but varying your foot-strike method (& closely associated running cadence) that you can make some inference to your comparative exertion level, and thus your relative efficiency via your heart rate, respiration, and your subjective feeling. Of course, miracles don’t happen overnight, and as is true with any change there’s initially a shaking-out period which ensues with any major change, and this may be discouraging in the short-term; nevertheless, I’m encouraged, and as you noted it’s certainly fun to try out a new approach.

As a medical scientist just like you, I tend to think evolutionary variation over many generation would prevent a proportion of the population from successfully adopting “natural/barefoot running” as the most optimal way to run. The challenge in my opinion is to find/define this segment of the population and figure out what would work best for THEM.

I’m planning to expand on this thought (and propose a possible solution) on my own blog (with reference to yours obviously) over the next day or two.

Thanks again for your contribution to this controversial debate!

I agree totally – there are some things that should be universal,
variation is largely by degree. Even still, you will find some outliers.

I can probably measure stride timing from landing to landing, but not
sure how well that will translate since I only have 1-2 for each.

Pete

Sent from my iPod

I just looked at frame-by-frame on some video from Sammy Chalenga running 10k at 27:08. He has a more upright posture than most, but there is still slight forward lean, say 4 degrees or something, similar to what sprinters often have.

My current view on this posture thing is that you can gain some on hip position by having a more upright posture, and you lose some on breaking forces due to moving the center of mass further back. However, as long as the lower leg is perpendicular to the ground at touchdown, the “breaking force” could just be seen as a force to load the stretch-shortening-cycle.

I don’t have high speed video on chalenga so it is difficult to see, but it could actually be the case that he succeeds even to get a bit negative angle on the lower leg before touchdown, that is he sets the foot further back than many others, thus compensating for his more upright posture.

That upright postures can be very successful for even for long distance running makes me think that POSE and Chi are too much focused on their “gravity drags you forward” concept.

Amby,

Hard to say since I wasn’t there, but I had emphasized the importance of a
flat stretch to them in earlier research. It’s possible that the camera was
just tilted a bit. I have a bunch of real time video and some wider angle
shots, so I may be able to tell from those – I’ve barely looked at most of
what I have at this point. I also sent an email to my student (now alumnus)
to see if I can get a pinpointed location. The whole thing kind of happened
on a whim, but regardless of the grade I find the variation to be really
interesting.

Pete

In the years that followed, Hall stopped playing other sports and focused solely on running. He trained throughout high school, coached by his father, who managed to build on Hall’s neutral gait and endow him with an unusual but efficient running style.

Mickey Hall’s methods were unorthodox yet strangely effective. One time, he resorted to tying Hall’s upper arms to his body in order to curb his tendency to let his elbows loosen out too far, which was wasting energy. The result is a running style worth watching. He runs with his head straight, steady and erect, and the arms have minimal movement, hugging the body in a way reminiscent of some of his Kenyan competitors.
TAKEN FROM
http://www.asics.co.uk/running…
Pete running biomechanics has interested me for a long long time, back in about 2000! I saw a documentary on channel 4[ British TV]about a guy who worked for the Nike R and D department, he studied the running movement of the fastest two legged animals and birds [Kangaroos and Ostriches [which can run at 40 mph] as well as studying man.
his conclusions were very interesting, the human foot {arch]and leg muscles, tendons act like springs and and forefoot running was the most efficient!
I think but I might be wrong this guy went on to work for SPIRA, but i might be wrong, I do know he invented some prototype shoes which had springs in the forefoot.

Amby –

I pinpointed the location of the video after emailing my student (along with
some help from Google Street View) – it’s on Washington St. in Newton, just
before the turn onto Commonwealth. According to MapMyRun’s elevation profile
for that block on Washington, it’s very flat, with a total loss of only 3 ft
from the previous cross-street to Commonwealth Ave. Her recollection was
also that it was pretty flat.

Pete

Lower speed -> perfect technique gets less important
Longer distance -> muscle fatigue gets a larger factor

Thus, at the marathon distance you will see larger technique variations, and you will see compensations for muscle fatigue.

Heel-striking offloads the calves and puts more work on the hamstrings. Many forefoot runners change to heel-strike later in the race.

Probably more runners would benefit to run for a longer time on the forefoot, but they don’t have the endurance in the calves to do so. This does not mean that heel-striking is more efficient, but merely that many can run for a longer time that way.

However, even in sprinting, were technique is of extreme importance, there are variations, and coaches acknowledge the need to adapt the basic model of perfect technique to individual anatomy. There are very small deviations made though.

The question here would be if heel-striking (with some slight overstriding) actually could be more optimal for a specific individual due to body composition. I don’t know. I tend to think that heel-striking is more of an muscle fatigue issue than actually a better way to run for anyone, but I don’t know.

Is this what you are referring to – does look almost like he’s leaning back
a bit. Haven’t seen him run before, but seems the style works for him. Once again, variability is the norm!

Pete