Correcting running form.
I've been wondering about this for a while, so thought I"d ask here. When I run, my feet are toed out, landing on the outside corners,then rolling in to the big toe side. I am trying to land mid foot. I'd love to be able to run with my feet landing straight inline. I walk a little toed out, and that is how my bike shoe/pedal is set up too. Is there a way to correct this, through stretching, strenghtening, etc.,or is it just me, an individual trait. Chrissie runs a little toed out too, but well, she is Chrissie!
Thanks
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Hi Kurt, I'm no expert in biomechanics, but my take would be if you're not injured, don't mess with it. I understand if you said something like you're concerned about how you carry your arms or is your knee lift high enough, things like that, but how you land on your feet is difficult. Your body self selects these things and its usually right. It will select the best form for the most efficient way to move from point a to point b. If you were constantly injured from it, I would get it, but I don't think you will get any free speed from a more aligned foot strike. Others may chime in and totally disagree, but I tend to go with what your body tells you MOST of the time. Hope that helps.
Dan
I walk a lot toed out, and even think I ran a little toed out a few years ago. But eventually I made a specific effort to focus on cadence. Like every run...counting foot strikes and all that jazz. My stride ended up becoming shorter and I became a better runner. Somewhere along the way my toes straightened out. I don't know if it was due to the faster cadence and shorter stride length or something else, but it was an observation I made nonetheless.
@Adam: that's what I think is a good change. You found a more efficient way to move faster, and your body adapted to it without problems, but what I think what was good with your situation is that you started with the big picture of something simple like improving cadence, and then your body adapted from "big to small" so to speak ending with proper footstrike for YOU. Good stuff. I've had the same thing happen, once I had my second knee surgery, my gait changed completely. Its not as good as when I was sound, but it did correct itself for what I was left with. It took a lot of patience and time, but nothing else hurts but my knee occasionally so I think I've worked out most of the kinks. Yea, I limp a bit, but its much better than a year ago!
In last Saturday's NBC IM broadcast, close-up slo-mo shots of Mirinda Carfrae's feet showed her landing quite emphatically on the outside edge of her feet, more so on the right, and then rolling onto her mid-foot. She did run a 2:53 or something for a then-fastest women's IM marathon ever.
Point being, as Dan has pointed out, every body is different and no one is perfectly symmetrical in the length and placement of their bones and ligaments. So as the leg bone is connected to the ankle bone, etc, your feet will adjust to save you from trauma, to make up for your own skeleton's idiosyncracies.
I try to think "floating" and "light footfalls", with minimal vertical motion, rather than worrying about exactly where that foot falls.
In the beginning I was a big supinator because I was trying to land a certain way. After a stress frac, I went to the PT who put me on a mill and after about 10 seconds asked "what the heck are you doing with your feet and that outside landing?" "I'm trying to....." "Just stop it" she said and land midfoot in a way that feels right. The "feels right" part was the advice that worked for me. Carfrae's different maybe. Your mileage may very, but just thought I relay my experience. Good luck with it!