I often find myself telling clients that I work with in the clinic that changing running form is hard. The difficulty is not so much physical – tissues will adapt to a new movement pattern over time. Rather, the challenge is mainly neurological – it’s very hard to make the body move in a new […]

So far this week I have written about studies that have looked at foot strike patterns in in minimally shod or barefoot runners. A study of the Tarahumara in Mexico showed that even among individuals who habitually wear minimal footwear, foot strike patterns are variable during running. A study of the Hadza in Tanzania suggested […]

Yesterday I wrote a post about a study that examined foot strike patterns in Tarahumara Native Americans from Mexico. That study found that Tarahumara who habitually wear and run in minimal huarache sandals exhibit a mixture of foot strike types (40% midfoot, 30% forefoot, 30% heel), whereas Tarahumara who habitually wear and run in conventional […]

I’ve written a lot about foot strike variability over the years, but I still see people make claims that heel striking is bad, or that barefoot and minimally shod runners don’t land on their heels. Personally, I view foot strike as one aspect of running form that varies with a range of factors. These factors […]

Research has suggested that increasing running cadence (steps/minute) by 5-10% can reduce loading at the knee and hip joints, and this has spurred interest in the use of cadence training in clinical settings. In particular, Heiderscheit et al. (2011) found that increasing cadence reduced peak vertical ground reaction force, peak hip adduction, peak hip flexion, […]

I did a 5x400m track workout on Wednesday (was supposed to be 6×400, but lightning and torrential rain put an early end to the workout!). As usual I was wearing my Garmin 620, and one of the cool features of the watch is that it computes your cadence for you without any additional gadgets or […]