FITNESS Get running on the right foot

GOOD FORM?Make sure you’re running properly when your start an outdoor jogging programme.

Get running on the right foot


Personal Trainer
Paul O'Brien

Summer is here and the outdoors beckons once more. This is a great time of year to begin a jogging programme, or to get back to running outside after the colder weather drove us to indoor alternatives.
If you are getting back into your stride and jogging or running outdoors, take time to consider what you should be doing and how you should be doing it. The ‘how’ relates to your running form, something most people rarely think of. Your form can have a huge impact on how comfortable you feel while running, the energy you are expending, your chances of injury and, ultimately, whether or not you will stick with it. So here’s a quick guide to running form to get you back on the right foot.

Relax
Regularly scan your body to release tension from your muscles. In particular, check your shoulders, hands and facial muscles. Tensing your muscles diverts much-needed energy from your lower body. A trick I use is to mentally relax all my muscles at intervals while out running. I mentally scan my body for signs of tension and then direct my breath towards any area of tension until I feel relaxed. I then repeat this until I have scanned my whole body.

Run tall
Check your torso position to ensure you are not leaning forward from your hips on flat ground. Leaning forward constricts the flow of blood and oxygen around your mid-section, ultimately affecting your lower body movement. It’s also bad for your posture.

Foot strike
Try to hit the ground about mid-sole instead of heel-first. A mid-sole foot strike will more evenly absorb the impact of the ground forces, making injury less likely. This is particularly true if you are overweight.
However, if you notice that you are naturally striking the ground on your heel, you may not need to change this. The determining factor will be your injury history. If you’ve been running for a while and striking the ground heel-first, with no negative effects, why change it?  Changing your foot strike is a time-consuming process and requires slow build-up over a number of months.
That being said, if you are a heel striker and have been affected by regular lower-limb injury, altering your foot strike could make all the difference and it’s worth investigating.

Hands free
Keep your elbows bent at around 90 degrees. Your hands should brush along your hips as you run, moving from the shoulder.

How to start off
If you are new to jogging or running, start modestly, maybe with a mile or two. If you are unfit or carrying a lot of weight, start with a walk-jog combination, walking for five minutes and jogging for one to two minutes before returning to a walk. Repeat this pattern for your desired distance. After a few weeks, add about a half mile to your distance every week until you have reached five miles. Stay at this distance for a few weeks before progressing again.
If you do hit the ground running, start with a form of interval training known as ‘fartlek’. Jog slowly for about five minutes, then run a certain distance at a quicker pace. You can choose two landmarks to make it interesting or use a watch, starting with perhaps 30 seconds at a fast pace. Slow down again to jogging pace for as long as it takes for you to fully recover, and repeat four to six times.

Paul O’Brien is a personal trainer and life coach based in Westport.