The Perfect Stride: A Runner?s Guide to Healthier Technique, Performance, and Speed
By Thomas Reckmann and Per Hanstorp
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About this ebook
It all comes down to running techniquethe stride that is efficient, time-saving, and easy on the body. Marathons and races become a delightful experience with these solutions:
How to train your technique
The running cycle
Shortcut to faster running
Energy-smart elasticity
Multiple training sessions
In running culture, books and blogs are full of tips on intervals, threshold workouts, and heart rate counters. On the other hand, perfect technique is rarely discussed. With The Perfect Stride as your personal trainer, you’ll discover how to get to the light and efficient stride that will make your daily runs a dream.
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The Perfect Stride - Thomas Reckmann
PART 1:
CHAPTER 1.
FASTER, SMOOTHER, MORE EFFICIENT!
1.
INTEREST IN RUNNING HAS NEVER BEEN AS GREAT AS RIGHT NOW. Millions of people run each week and in my home country of Sweden, participation in races has increased by more than 50 percent since 2004. We run because it’s healthy, to become better runners, or just to get out into nature.
Another aspect of the running boom that continues to grow is the gadget industry. Every year, Swedish runners spend around 150 million dollars on running gear. Nothing is left to chance: we buy custom shoes, functional and sweat-absorbent clothes, and compression clothing that is supposed to increase blood circulation and improve performance. Around our wrists, we strap pulse monitors and GPS watches. But maybe this is just the beginning of something even bigger . . .
For most people, running is still just cardio training, but this understanding is changing as more and more people discover what happens when they train to their entire running capacity. You don’t run faster if you simply put in more effort—faster running is the result of moving correctly. Everything starts with the running stride; with a better technique, you will not only run faster, but you will reduce the risk of injury and have a much nicer running experience.
Many runners would gain so much more if they would be as particular with their training schedules as they are with their products. Shoes and other running gear, which have little effect on how fast you run, can never compensate for an inefficient running style. If you want to become a better runner then it’s all about the workout, and yet there are very few runners who have embraced the available research. Therefore very few people train to their entire running capacity. Most runners practice just like they did 20–30 years ago. Or like your parents did in the 1970s—with too much emphasis on fitness.
Running is a skill that can be taught just like any other. Playing tennis is much more fun if you have first learned how to hit the ball properly. It’s the same with running—when you learn effective technique, the run gives you so much more. You get a completely different experience. Of course, fitness does play an important role in determining how good of a runner you are, but it only tells you about your oxygen uptake. Equally important to your capacity is how much oxygen you consume—your running economy. You cannot improve that ability by one-dimensional cardio.
Even among elite level runners the ability to run energy-smart is more decisive than oxygen uptake.
Among elite level runners, the ability to run energy-efficiently is actually more decisive than fitness. Numerous studies show that Kenyan runners do not have a higher oxygen uptake (VO2 max) than competitors from other parts of the world. They do, however, have a much better running economy, and that is where the difference lies for the East African runners—and especially those from Kenya—who have dominated long distance running since the 1980s.
Thanks to a more economical running stride, they run just as fast as other runners but with lower oxygen consumption, which is crucial for endurance. This means that Kenyan runners do not incur the same amount of lactic acid, and therefore they can maintain a higher pace for a longer time.
Running economy can vary up to 30 percent for runners with equally good fitness, and with that in mind, it is easy to understand the tremendous benefits it has for performance. This corresponds to a difference of at least 60–90 seconds in kilometer-time or 25–30 minutes in a half-marathon. At the elite level, the variation is lower, 10–15 percent. Why there is a lesser difference in that group is because everyone there already runs fairly energy-efficiently—otherwise they wouldn’t be elite runners.
Running technique paves the way to speed
You can improve your running economy just like you can your fitness levels. The reason why more people are not engaging in improving their running economy is probably because they don’t know just what a major role energy consumption plays and how easy it actually is to boost it. Research shows that good running economy is characterized by
» the body’s center of gravity moving up and down minimally
» the knee pointed forward when the leg swings forward
» landing on the ground on the front part of the foot
» the runner pushing forward instead of pulling forward
» good flexibility in the hips
» elastic muscles
» upright posture
» strong stabilizing muscles in the torso
What everything on this list has in common is that you can improve on it through practice. It is no more complicated than that. If you want to improve your running economy, then you need to practice your running technique. Your running technique is the stepping-stone, and better running economy is the goal.
The definition of technically good running is that it requires the lowest possible consumption of energy. Haile Gebrselassie, considered by many to be the best long distance runner of our time, is famous for his efficient technique and his running stride, which naturally meets all the above criteria. In this book we focus primarily on three factors: the hip work, posture, and the landing of the foot. If you learn those aspects, then you’ll get the others into the bargain, but it’s actually enough to improve only one of them—either the hips, posture, or the way the foot lands—to become a much better runner.
The perfect running stride is unattainable for most people, but the closer you get to Gebrselassie’s way of running, the more economic running you’ll be able to achieve. You lower the energy consumption and run faster.
Later, we’ll return to the African runners and look at what we can learn from them in order to run more efficiently. But we can already state that running economy combined with fitness determines how fast and how far you are able to run. Physical fitness helps you maximize oxygen intake from the air inhaled, and running economy allows you to get as much as possible from the oxygen you inhale.
Running training is all about becoming as good as you can. But if you opt out of technical running and instead train cardio alone, this is about as poorly planned as a race car built with a strong engine but with no thought for the design of the body.
A car is fast not just because it has a powerful engine, but because it has a streamlined design that reduces air resistance. Running works in a similar way; even though it’s gravity that has to be overcome rather than air resistance, the running stride is just as important as a strong engine (the