If you nose around social media for a while, you’ll hear a lot of people advocating that runners should focus on landing midfoot or forefoot, rather than landing on their heels – the latter is commonly referred to as “heel striking”. This running myth is a massive red herring and could even lead to some runners being more at risk of injury. It doesn’t matter if endurance runners land slightly forefoot, midfoot or slightly heel first. It’s at best an indicator that other aspects of running might need looking at.
Look at the image below. At the moment the foot touches down, it’s the heel that touches first. This is because the foot is landing in front of the knee. Notice the angle of the calf – the calf is leaning back towards the knee. It’s commonly referred to as overstriding:
This is a very common way to run. In a study I did of a local parkrun, approximately 50% of people were running like this, although of the thirty fastest runners, only two ran like this.
Now imagine what might happen if I were to coach this runner with the following mythical, false forefoot advice. “Don’t land on your heel. Instead land midfoot or forefoot first!” – the easiest way to achieve that guidance would be to extend the foot downwards to meet the angle of the floor. It would look like the image below:
So instead of the ankle being in a stable, springy state of “dorsiflexion” (foot / calf at approximately 90° like in the first image), their ankle would have to go into “plantarflexion” (foot / calf at for example 120° like in the second image), which is unstable and the springiness is lost.
In motion, it would look like they are reaching out with their toes as far as they can. I don’t see people running like this as often, but I do see it on a fairly regular basis while assessing runners and they admit “I thought I was supposed to land on my midfoot [or forefoot]?”
The other thing that goes awry when people hear “Land on your forefoot” is taking it literally as a requirement to prance along on the forefoot, with the heel never touching down. For some reason many people misinterpret the ideas in the Born To Run book like this, and end up bouncing along on their toes. However, this increased pressure on the metatarsals can lead to increased risk of stress fracture. The only runners that end up running like this are 100m sprinters, where the fastest tend to land in slight plantarflexion, with very slight calf lean / overstride and may not put their heels down, especially in the first 70m of the race. In the picture below, you can see how Usain Bolt lands:
His heel does lower down a bit further, later on in the stride, but it never quite touches the ground.
So what should runners focus on instead?
So earlier, I said it doesn’t matter if endurance runners land slightly forefoot, midfoot or slight heel first. Why is this?
The part of the foot that touches down first depends on how close to you the foot is landing and the angle of the ankle to the calf. As part of good running form, endurance runners should be focusing on actively pulling the thigh backwards early and powerfully, so that when the foot reaches the ground, the calf is approximately straight down underneath the knee. Below you can see the first point of ground contact for Kipchoge:
You’ll note that the ankle is in dorsiflexion (foot / calf approximately 90°) and since the calf is almost straight down underneath the knee, the foot will naturally land close to flat, be it forefoot first, midfoot or heel first, but the exact nature of the foot strike doesn’t matter. It’s just an end result of getting the other things right.
Good runners aren’t good because they land close to midfoot. They land close to midfoot because they are good runners.
Here’s a picture of a slower runner, with good form, at first point of contact. They have the same “calf under knee” shape as Kipchoge, but slightly more dorsiflexion at the ankle than Kipchoge:
At best, foot strike type is an indicator
If you see someone running and they are landing with on their heel with their toes up in the air, like in the first image on this page, it might be a good indicator that other aspects of their running might need to be addressed. But telling them to stop landing on their heels like that is not way to achieve improvements. In some cases it might accidentally help if they figure out how to do it via calf angle. But for those that achieve it by drastically changing their ankle angle / dorsiflexion, it will make things worse.
Why is landing with calf under knee useful?
When overstriding, where the calf is leaning back from foot to knee, the knee cannot immediately fall past the ankle. Instead the knee has to wait for a moment, while the calf pivots up and over the ankle. This induces a backwards braking vector, slowing the runner and a jolt up the leg and into the hip. Once the calf has reached straight up, the knee can then start falling forwards again.
If a runner lands with calf under the knee, the knee can immediately fall past the ankle, continuing uninterrupted on to the next step. I go into this in more detail in one of my running courses.
