Ie heard that doing his may help take some of the pain off my knee. But for the life of me I can't figure out how to. Does anyone more knowledgable have some good advice?
It's just like walking, only exaggerated a bit due to the swing of the leg. Unless you walk on your toes of course. When you say 'running' do you mean jogging, or running?
I mean both. We had some "expert" come to PT one morning and all he did was try to get us all running toe to heel. Said it was the proper way to do it.
Expert as in personal trainer, or expert as in track coach? I practiced a lot with the track team at my high school in florida (track and field is huge in florida) and the guy who taught me how to run had records in track and played collegiate football. Running heel to toe was not a thing we were taught. Good running form is more like pulling the ground with your feet than pushing off the ground with your feet (unless you're coming out of the hole for a sprint). I'm not particularly well versed in resources about this though so I'm a little shaky about saying too much about it without giving you legitimate resources. I am interested in knowing the qualifications of this expert though : P.
First thing he mentions that is significant is not running heel to toe [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XiwtiDTlYU"]How To Run: DOs & DON'Ts - YouTube[/ame]
Ero, you are both saying "toe to heel" but for some reason you're reading his the other way round and posting as if you were arguing with him...
I noticed that to. We're both saying running heel to toe is bad. But it doesn't seem like it. I don't want to argue, I just want to run the right way darn it.
Just run and land on the ball of your foot. There's no trick to it. People tend to naturally run like that when they run barefoot, so take off your shoes to get a feel for it. If you want to investigate an 'optimal' running technique, look up POSE running.
I second Pose running. Nicholas Romanov has a channel on youtube called PoseTV--there are quite a few videos there that demonstrate drills for learning to land on the ball/midfoot.
I've looked at running technique too, but more from the point of avoiding shin splints in inner city runs. I'm not sure if this is Pose method... Stand and fall forward so you are forced to take a step to regain balance. The extended foot should be in extension, with contact through the ball of the foot to mid foot and finally heel as the knee bends and the motion of falling forward continues with the other foot, and repeat...
I dislocated both my knees. Couldn't take a jog without knee braces. Then I discovered barefoot running. Basically it supposes that human kind has been running without shoes as endurance persistance hunters for 200 millenia. Tha jist is that it is a controled fall. Like how 3 to 7 year olds run. You land with the ball of your feet (forefoot striking) rather than the way Nike said we should run (heel striking). You keep your spine straight. You land under your hips. Your arms are swinging front to back (more to the back, like giving an elbow to someone behind you). The knee goes up like you would when you knee someone to the nuts. Relax your shoulders. The strides should be short yet smooth and not choppy. Suggested reading references and search references would be "born to run" "barefoot running" "chi running" "christopher mcdougall" "barefoot ted" "scott jurek"
Watch: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIT7t2jtdP0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIT7t2jtdP0[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_aqCiziTaw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_aqCiziTaw[/ame] [ame="http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dbYPqWpt0Nw&feature=related"]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dbYPqWpt0Nw&feature=related[/ame] http://www.nytimes.com/video/2011/11/02/magazine/100000001149415/the-lost-secret-of-running.html Read: http://barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/ http://barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/Nature2004_EnduranceRunningandtheEvolutionofHomo.pdf http://barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/Nature2010_FootStrikePatternsandCollisionForces.pdf
The main things to do are get your weight forward, and take smaller steps. You really cant extend out like you do when running heel-toe. You want your foot to land pretty much under your body.
