I pretty much agree with all that you write here. Well said.

If you look at the shock that the body absorbs going from forefoot to heal striking, you can see that when you’re doing a forefoot strike your calf muscle absorbs a lot of the shock. When you straighten your leg, which is more typical of a heel striker, your knee takes a lot of the shock. It’s simple mechanics.

Now the advantage of heel striking is, since less calf muscle is involved as much, the body can go further without fatigue and use less oxygen per foot strike.

IMO for longevity a forefoot/midfoot strike is better on the knee and will usually make for a longer lifespan of running.

From my own observations, I believe my 40 years of running with minimal injury or downtime is due to my forefoot type running style. I also believe that I would probably be a better marathoner if I had adopted a heal strike running pattern.

Cheers
Tom
EndTheTrendNow.com

The big issue is that the forces at impact are not nearly as big as the forces at id stance, and that is where a lot of the debate lies. There are some who think impact forces play very little role in injury, and they have only been linked to stress fracture. What happens at mid-stance when the weight of your body is bearing down on your leg is when the high forces occur and likely the source of a lot of the troubles we have.

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Sometimes trail and error makes the whole process more fun :)

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But if you do heel strike and have injuries/pains …cannot run every day …then its time to think about a real rootcause.

in my case it was runing technique and the change from heal to forefoot was the 1st step to “injury free” technique

I was noticing that in the race I just ran – some really bouncy runners out there. I’m definitely a glider.
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heel striking, and heel contact

heel contact being initial contact with the heel, but the runner’s foot still lands underneath them
most runner’s do this when fatigued, more of a natural thing

heel striking…well…don’t really need to describe it, but it looks pretty uncomfortable

I would agree, but again that’s my point. People with locked knee, extreme heel strikes might indeed benefit from form work or a shoe change. There is good evidence that over striding can increase load on the knee and hip. But, a mild heel strike with a landing closer to the body is probably no big deal. The point if the article is that these groups are all to often lumped together because they are all “heel strikers,” but they are probably experiencing very different force application. Focusing only on foot strike is misguided.
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Thanks! Actually wound up wearing zero drop Saucony Virratas, so maybe more midfoot based on the wear pattern :)