Run Guide

You’ve heard it before, we were all “born to run”. That may be true, but being mindful of proper running form can mean the difference between building a lifelong healthy habit and battling recurring injury. This guide cuts to the chase and lays out the latest sports science on proper running form from head to toe.

Head

You’d be excused for thinking that good running form is all about the lower half of your body, but good form starts with your head and spine, which set the default positioning for the rest of your body. Start by looking straight ahead, with your gaze somewhere in front of your path. Don’t tilt your head up above the horizon or down to stare down at your feet. Pay attention as you get tired; head position is one of the first things to go as you get tired and a tilted neck makes fatigue worse by restricting your breath and setting the rest of your body up to work harder. A level head keeps your whole spine aligned and the rest of your body set up for success. Imagine a line extending straight up from the crown of your head to keep your spine tall, with the rest of your body falling into vertical alignment below.

Shoulders

Relax and open your shoulders. Our 21st century bodies are conditioned to hunching over our digital devices and so it can be difficult to open up. As you fatigue, your shoulders will likely tense up. Be mindful they don’t creep up towards your ears; relax and draw them down and back, opening your chest and allowing for more breath by keeping your body from caving in. As each leg moves forward in your stride, your shoulders naturally follow an opposite movement forward and back.

Arms

Your arms help set the pace for your legs and how you move them can actually affect your speed. Focus on moving in a natural pendulum forward and back and not dragging your elbows side to side in front of you. Any movement across the middle of your body will check your forward momentum and slow you down. Keep your elbows tucked in towards the side of your body, rather than chicken-winging out. Your arms play a surprisingly large role in your running speed. Try pumping your arms faster forward and backward next time your running and see how it propels you forward.

Hands

Your hands have comparatively little to do while running. Keep them relaxed but not flopping around. Don’t ball them up in clenched fists, but don’t flatten them out to karate chop the air in front of you. Relaxed, natural hands save energy for the rest of your movement.

Torso

Your core is your power center. Keep it engaged, but not immobile through every stride. A strong core will keep your body from caving in or bending back. Allowing natural torso movement that follows the flow of your body weight to the left and right will generate power through your core and into your legs with each stride. Ensure that your breath is not restricted to your chest, but flows fully and deeply through your abdomen. An engaged but not over-flexed core will allow breath to continue flowing.

Hips

Your running movement should start with a slight flex forward at the hips. Keeping your torso leaning slightly in front of your hips engages your glutes - the biggest and most powerful muscles in your body. Strong, mobile hips are critical to injury-free running. If hip muscles are weak or imbalanced, ‘hip drop’ may occur, in which the weight-bearing hip drops lower than the opposite hip during each stride, causing the glutes to fire late and undue strain to be put on other areas, like the infamous IT band, potentially causing injury over time.

Knees

Look for your knees to be aligned with the middle of your foot. When your foot strikes the ground, it should be directly below your knee. When moving uphill, lift your knees a bit higher than you would on a flat road. Don’t waste energy in driving your knees too high on a flat, but conversely, don’t just shuffle along with your feet barely leaving the ground. Be mindful of running for too long on uneven surfaces where your knees or hips remain out of vertical alignment for extended periods, as this may cause strain and potentially injury.

Legs

Leg lengths and gait varies wildly with individual anatomy, so it stands to reason that there is no universally appropriate stride length or cadence. The key is to set a stride that will not force your foot down at unnatural angles on your toes or heel. When running uphill, strides should get shorter with your foot having less distance to travel before it makes contact with the ground.

Feet

Try to hit the ground with the ball of your foot. This will help you push off the surface below you and propel your body forward more efficiently. That said, not everyone’s foot strike is the same. If a heal strike or toe strike is how your foot naturally makes contact with the ground, work on finding shoes that will help to absorb the impact. For most though, hitting the ground with the balls of your feet is recognized to minimize the chance of injury and maximize your body’s ability to efficiently propel itself forward.

Breath

A steady supply of oxygen gives all the aforementioned body parts the fuel they need to keep moving. Try to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. A number of factors, from a deviated septum to a bout of the common cold may make this difficult or impossible for you, but the goal is to keep a controlled and efficient breath throughout your run. As you fatigue, your breath will increase in tempo and your body will likely automatically replace efficient breathing with fast breathing. Do your best to fight this urge and maintain full and deep breaths even as you get tired. The battle is mostly mental. Some runners find that it is helpful to tie the cadence of your breath and your legs together, for example, with each count as a foot strike: in, 2, 3, 4, out, 2, 3, 4.