There are two main reasons to pay attention to your running form: to avoid injury and to increase efficiency or speed. If you’re finding yourself getting injured or with constantly nagging pain; your form may be letting you down. Depending on the duration and intensity of the injury; obviously I recommend going to a sports medicine doctor or a physical therapist.

Increase Efficiency & Speed

In general, I recommend running however feels most natural to you! Relax. That said, you may have a lot of wasted motion in your stride or have developed habits which can lead to injury. You may be making running more difficult than it needs to be! For example, I have an old back injury which causes my left arm to swing across my body and I tend to overpronate late in my stride. So, I have to fight this by working on swinging my arms by my sides. Also, I have changed to moderately supportive shoes or neutral shoes with moderate support. It is still a work in process for me, but I find it useful to know these things when training.

We’ll work on some specifics on our workouts, but here are some quick tips and a few great videos to get you started:

Read: http://dailyburn.com/life/fitness/tips-running-form/

Watch:

Are you running in the right shoes?

If your find yourself with nagging pains, just be aware of that a different running shoe may help. There are three Basic Running Shoe Types. Also, I recommend going to your local running store for a quick gait analysis. The expertise of the staff varies, but it can provide valuable information. I worked at a running store for about a year and I know I helped a lot of people out. That said, trust yourself! If you’ve been running injury free already, then I generally don’t recommend changing shoe categories at all.

For the record, I think stability shoes are recommended a bit too often overall. As a former run store employee, I know that many customers come in looking for a quick fix or solution. It is easy to become convinced that a more supportive shoe is the answer, but sometimes this is done for the incorrect reasons. I’m certainly not bashing local run store employees, but I would say that the gait analysis is only one aspect of finding the right shoe. Injuries are very frequently caused by overuse, muscle imbalances, or a lack of strength as well.

The Running Injury Clinic in Calgary’s research indicates that 85% of people need a neutral shoe. The current offerings from shoe companies reflects a very different picture. I state this informally from my experience and observations (maybe I’ll find some formal data later :)). No, please don’t go throwing away your stability shoes now. Your stability shoes (which I too wear sometimes) might well be a perfect match for you. I have no agenda with this post other than to make sure you are getting stability shoes for the right reason.

Check out the video below which addresses some common myths regarding running shoes.