What causes people to run with bad form?
There are so many variables to running already, distance, time, shoes and even the surface you run on. But what about your running form? Running with bad form can be the cause of no end of problems and injury's so it's important to take note of how you run.
So in this blog we will be exploring the causes of running with bad form and what that can lead to.
Where you sit and what you run in.
Over time we've become more and more sedentary, at home and at work. Your resting you legs when you sit down, cant be doing you any hard right? Wrong.
Spending so much time seated and hunched over a desk leads to your hip flexors tightening, and then causes dysfunction in your hip, spine, adductors... the list goes on.
When you run you use all of these joints and muscles and more, near enough every muscle in the body gets activated at some point. So it's important to take care of these when they are not in motion so when they are needed they are ready to go.
With this in mind having a weak hip can cause issues in all of these muscles.
Follow these tips to help you get back to sitting in a way thats better for your running.
- keeping feet flat or rest them on either the floor or a footrest
- avoiding crossing knees or ankles
- maintaining a small gap between the back of the knees and the chair
- positioning knees at the same height or slightly lower than the hips
- placing ankles in front of the knees
- relaxing the shoulders
- keeping the forearms and knees parallel to the floor where possible
- holding elbows at the sides creating an L-shape in the arms
- sitting up straight and looking forward without straining the neck
- keeping the back against the chair, or using a backrest or cushion if there are places where the back does not comfortably meet the chair, especially in the lower back region
- avoiding sitting for long periods at a time, ideally taking at least a 10-minute break for every hour of sitting
How your shoes are exaggerating bad form
Quick question, have you ever seen a barefoot runner heel striking? No? Thats because you wont
The reason being is because mid to forefoot striking is the more natural movement.
The shoes being created today have an exaggerated heel, this padding tips your whole posture forward.
Thin imbalance then causes further issues with your posture and you guessed it your hips.
Over millions and millions of foot strokes this is bound to cause injury. So it might be worth trying to move your self to shoe with a bigger drop but remember to go against the learned movement of bouncing off your heels into the floor.
This is also a more energy conscious way to run as when you heel strike your energy just gets absorbed by the floor. Whereas when your put onto your mid to forefoot some of that energy gets stored in your calfs and used when you spring off again.
