What’s The Proper Running Footstrike? Heel vs. Midfoot vs Forefoot Strike

Download the Transcript

Find this podcast on:

(Or search 'Trees Dlake' in your favourite player)

If you run a marathon in 5 hour or more, your foot hits the ground 50-60,000 times during a marathon. And a lot of crazy things happen when each of those foot strikes is slightly off. Think of it as a tiny paper cut—harmless once, but do it 60,000 times? Now you get it.

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand the pretty dope science of how these micro-impacts add up, and more importantly, how to make each one of those 60,000 steps work for you, not against you.

What You’ll Learn

How to find your ideal foot strike for better running form
Why there’s no “perfect” running form – and why even elite runners land differently.
Heel striking: The misunderstood villain—what it helps, what it hurts, and when to fix it.
Forefoot striking: Why it works for sprinters but can wreck distance runners.
Midfoot striking: The sweet spot for efficiency—and how to transition safely.
The real enemy—overstriding – and how it silently sabotages your stride.
Cadence: A simple shift that instantly changes how your foot lands.

And if you want to fine-tune all of this without overthinking, grab my free foot strike and cadence guide in the description—it’ll save you from a ton of trial and error.

Heel Strike – The Misunderstood Villain

What’s happening: Heel striking is like stretching before a workout—some people swear by it, others think it’s outdated and harmful. The truth? It depends. Heel striking means your heel makes first contact with the ground. It’s how most people naturally run, especially at slower speeds. But the controversy isn’t about the heel strike itself—it’s about how you do it.
Pros:
- Natural at slower speeds (most people walk heel-to-toe).
- Most modern running shoes are literally designed for it.
- Can be totally fine if you’re landing under your hips.
Cons:
- Overstriding is the real problem—it turns your heel strike into a braking mechanism.
- Increases stress on knees and hips.
- Less efficient at higher speeds.
Deep Science Moment #1: The Overstriding Trap Overstriding is when your foot lands way out in front of your body, creating a braking force that slows you down with every step. Imagine you’re riding a bike and tapping the brakes every few seconds—that’s what overstriding does to your momentum. And here’s the wild part: even elite heel strikers don’t overstride. They still land underneath their center of mass, making their form efficient.

So if heel striking isn’t automatically bad, then what about forefoot striking? You’ve probably heard that landing on your toes makes you faster. But is that actually true? Let’s talk about it.”

Forefoot Strike – The Try-Hard of Foot Strikes

What’s happening: Forefoot striking is when you land on the balls of your feet, with your heel barely touching the ground. This is what sprinters do, and yeah—it looks fast. But it also loads your lower legs like crazy.
Pros:
- Great for short bursts of speed.
- Reduces impact on knees (loads the calves instead).
- Uses the Achilles tendon like a spring.
Cons:
- High strain on calves and Achilles (which means increased injury risk).
- Tough to sustain for long-distance running.
- Not always more efficient—depends on the runner.
Deep Science Moment #2: The Achilles Load Factor Your Achilles tendon is basically a rubber band. When you forefoot strike, you stretch that rubber band with every step, loading it with energy that then propels you forward. Sounds great, right? Here’s the catch—if that rubber band isn’t conditioned for that kind of load, it starts fraying, which is why forefoot strikers often end up with Achilles tendinopathy or calf strains. If you’re not used to it, making a sudden switch to forefoot striking is like taking a Honda Civic and trying to drive it like a Formula 1 car—it’s not built for it.

So if heel striking isn’t always bad and forefoot striking isn’t always good, what’s the best middle ground? Enter midfoot striking—the balance between impact, efficiency, and injury prevention. Let’s break it down.”

Midfoot Strike – The Sweet Spot

What’s happening: Midfoot striking is when your foot lands more evenly, with your heel and the ball of your foot hitting the ground at almost the same time. This tends to be the most efficient way to run for most people because it spreads out impact forces evenly.
- Pros:
  - Balanced impact distribution.
  - Encourages landing under your center of mass.
  - Often improves running economy for distance runners.
- Cons:
  - Can take time to adjust if you’re a natural heel striker.
  - Requires stronger foot and calf muscles.
Deep Science Moment #3: The Midfoot Advantage—Why It Works (For Most Runners) Every time your foot hits the ground, the ground hits back with an equal force. That’s called ground reaction force (GRF)—basic physics. Heel striking sends more of that force up to your knees and hips. Forefoot striking overloads your calves. But midfoot striking? It distributes the impact across your entire leg, reducing stress in any one area. Think of it like a trampoline vs. concrete. A midfoot strike lets your body spread out the impact, like a trampoline absorbing force, instead of all the stress hitting one spot.

So we’ve seen how your foot strike affects the way forces travel through your body. But what if you could get some help from the tools on your feet? Let’s explore how the right shoes can work with—not against—your natural running style.

Shoe Choices To Help with Footstriking

Let’s talk about shoes and this thing called ‘heel drop’ – it’s basically how much higher your heel sits compared to your toes. Think of it like a slide at a playground – the steeper the slide, the faster you go down. Same with shoes – the bigger the drop, the more they push you toward heel striking.

Here’s the science bit: for every millimeter of heel drop, you’re changing the angle of your ankle by about 1 degree, which affects how forces travel up your entire leg. Pretty wild, right?

High heel drop (10-14mm):
- Perfect for heel strikers – lots of cushion back there
- Great if you’re just getting into running
- Your calves will thank you if they’re tight
Medium drop (4-8mm):
- The goldilocks zone – not too high, not too flat
- Helps you land more naturally
- Good for mixing up your training
Zero/low drop (0-4mm):
- Almost like running barefoot
- Your calves need to be ready for this!
- Speed demons love these

Don’t go jumping between different drops too quickly – your body needs time to adjust. Even a small change can make a big difference.

The Finish Line: The Real Enemy is Overstriding

At the end of the day, there’s no perfect foot strike. It’s about what works for your body. But the real enemy? Overstriding. No matter how your foot lands, if it’s too far in front of you, you’re fighting against yourself. That’s what I’ll be breaking down in an upcoming video, so if you want that, drop a comment and let me know. Or tell me what other run form questions you’ve got—I read all of them.”

And again if you to run with a better foot strike and transition to mid foot striking – check out my free improve cadence over 6 months download, quick start guide and cheat sheet. you’ll also sign up for my newsletter with deep dives like this about vo2 max, tempo runs, and mental fitness.

[00:00:00] Daren: This is speed. This is endurance, and in this episode I’m gonna break down how running faster, even just for a few seconds, can make you a better distance runner. But here’s the catch. Most runners know they should run fast and they don’t. Today. We’re changing all that. I’ll show you exactly how to add strides, sprints, wind ups.

[00:00:19] Daren: Run throughs and a secret little thing that is something you’ve done since you were a kid. Alter. Alter your training so you can become a stronger, faster, and more efficient runner without getting injured. I’ll be going over what these terms mean, why they matter, how to actually do each one step by step, when to use them in your training.

[00:00:37] Daren: Why you should skip more like kids. Yes, skipping. Why running fast is a game changer for distance runners and a bunch more. And make sure you stick around to the middle because I’ve got a fix that you need to get you sprinting, striding, and skipping ASAP with a free training plan, download. Make sure stick around for that.

[00:00:55] Daren: I’m Darren D. Lake Running and nutrition coach sub three hour marathoner and 10 hour Ironman finisher since 1996. I’ve been helping other self-coach runners researching and experimenting on how to better myself 1% each day, and the 1% runner doesn’t do three week quick hacks. Instead, we give you lifelong tools to run better for the next three decades.

[00:01:12] Daren: Let’s get into it. Here’s how this episode will work. I’ll give you definitions, show you exactly how to perform each technique and explain why it matters so you can use these fast running methods. Into your routine and confidence and clarity. These four methods, windups run through strides and sprints often get tangled together, but each serves a different purpose.

[00:01:30] Daren: Understanding what sets them apart can change how you train, helping you avoid confusion and wasted effort and wasted time. ’cause ain’t nobody got time for that. Why skipping? Yes. Skipping matters. So before we dive into strides, sprints, windups, and run throughs, there’s one movement people tend to overlook.

[00:01:47] Daren: Skipping. I just found out about this. I’ve been doing it for a while. I’ll talk about how I’ve been doing it for a while and it’s so amazing because I found out about it from listening to Huberman Labs. So Andrew Huberman, he had on Sprint Coach Stuart McMillan, arguably one of the best sprint coaches in the world.

[00:02:01] Alright, first of all, we’re not gonna go for Jock sprinters. Are not joggers. It’s a very, very different gait pattern. We don’t jog at all. The way in which we warm up typically is we skip and stride, so we sprint, but really, really slowly. And skipping is a gait pattern that is very, very similar to sprinting.

[00:02:19] So if you think about what happens when you skip, there’s stiffness. At the ankle, at the knee and the hip, and there’s a systemic stiffness and the coordinate together to keep you tall and bouncy, where you jog, you kinda roll through your ankle, you roll through your knee, and you just kind of push away around the track or push your way around the grass.

[00:02:36] So we’re gonna skip instead.

[00:02:38] Daren: And I’m

[00:02:38] gonna

[00:02:38] Daren: say this a couple more times. It trains that same pop and posture required for fast running, but in a safe, lower impact format. It gets your tendons, ligaments, soft tissue, connective tissue already to start moving fast because most likely you haven’t moved fast in a while.

[00:02:52] Daren: So I wanna make sure that you do it. Safely skipping, warms up your joints, ligaments, and muscles in almost the same way that strides do, just a more comfortable intensity. It’s also a lot of fun and it helps you loosen up. So when it’s time to start sprinting, you’re prepared and less likely to get injured.

[00:03:08] Daren: And as I was preparing for this, I actually started thinking way back and I was like, I’ve been skipping ever since. I ran track in college and even before that, I was skipping back in high school doing a couple of drills. When I ran very short period of time, I didn’t think much of it. For the last 20 years, but.

[00:03:26] Daren: It felt good. I love actual skipping, which is plyometrics. He actually defines it as plyometrics in the episode because skipping doesn’t really seem like what an adult runner would do. ’cause we’re serious. You know, skipping is for kids and he renamed it plyometrics, which makes sense. But now looking back.

[00:03:41] Daren: I think it’s like the same reason that I’ve stayed bouncing, elastic all these years and I will continue because once you stop, it’s so much harder to get back, especially as we get older. Why skipping is your new best friend. So again, re-hash it. If the, the idea of jumping into. Strides and sprints. It’s like, whoa, you’ve been away from it for a while.

[00:04:01] Daren: You haven’t done it. Most adults and runners have not done it. Let’s use skipping as the secret weapon, as the bridge, as the glue, and there’s actual science behind it. ’cause skipping activates, get ready for it. The ankle stiffness and triple extension patterns. So all that is is the ankle knee hip coordination.

[00:04:17] Daren: That you need to Sprint, Huberman and McMillan talk about this as the kind of dynamic movement that primes your nervous system. It wakes up the motor units you don’t hit when you do most of your running that easy jogging where you’re rolling over your ankles. McMillan puts this in an even simpler idea.

[00:04:32] Daren: I love the way his brain, he’s like the Phil Jackson and Rick Rubin of sprinting. He says that skipping gives you that. Pop that pop, pop, pop. It cues your posture and it’s scalable. So he used scalable with sprinting and running. I was like, what? What is this crazy? Whether you’re warming up for an all out sprint or just doing sprint at 60% effort, skipping, it resets your whole system.

[00:04:53] Daren: So instead of just thinking about strides as fast finishes or Sprint says, go hard, all out and possibly hurt yourself, here’s a better way to think of it. Here’s my. Three part framework. We have sprints all the way over here as the most extreme dynamic all out. And he says, actually, McGillan says a lot of people can’t sprint.

[00:05:11] Daren: So I’m gonna help you with this whole episode. And then in the middle we have strides. So we have sprints, we have strides, and then over here we’ll have skipping. Sprints are full body vertical, force driven expressions of speed. If you wanna get technical strides in the middle, controlled, rhythmic, expressive, running, and again skipping the neurological foundation that gets you ready to stride.

[00:05:29] Daren: Then sprint. And here’s a quick warmup. Very quick and easy. There’s a lot of ways you can do this, so you won’t look silly. You know, do this maybe on a grass field or a track so you look like you know what you’re doing and just tell someone’s plyometrics. So number one, start easy. We’re not doing an easy job.

[00:05:43] Daren: We’re actually gonna warm up by skipping. This is so simple. You just go up skipping however you want. Really low impact the first time. Walk back 30 seconds, boom. That’s round one. Second part, you wanna channel your inner gazelle, so stand tall, keep your arms chill and think light and bouncy. Again, pop, pop, pop, not stomaching through muds like we do on our easy runs.

[00:06:03] Daren: And then three, just build it up from there. Do three to five times. If you haven’t done this forever. Do it easy three to five times. If you have, maybe you can do six to eight again out 30 seconds, 15 to 30 seconds, 15. If you just started 30 seconds, if you’re used to it back, you don’t need to be a hero.

[00:06:16] Daren: You might be outta breath if you haven’t done it in a while. If you have been running, this might be easy and you have been doing strides or you know, you do ’em every now and then. It might feel easy and it’s supposed to feel easy. That’s the point. So once you can skip smoothly and confidently and you start actually expressing yourself, you can add more strides or even hill sprints, and I’ll get into an actual workout and what you can do and it’ll feel more natural and you’ll have.

[00:06:36] Daren: Way less aches and strains in the process, and hopefully you will not get injured because skipping will get you ready. What are strides, sprints, windups, and run throughs zoomed out. Let’s make this simple and quickly define all them before going deeper. Windups start at 50% effort and gradually build to 90% over five to 10 seconds.

[00:06:55] Daren: Think of it like revving a car engine at the beginning of any type of run. Run throughs. Skip that gradual buildup from the windups. Instead, you just jump straight into 85 to 95% effort, short, steady, and fast. Great. For the start of a fast session, about five to 10 seconds total strides. So now things are a bit similar.

[00:07:12] Daren: Imagine a pyramid with a flat type in geometry. It’s called a fum. Fum. Ramp it up to 90%, hold for a few seconds and then ramp back down. Ramping is very key so you don’t injure yourself. Usually 10 to 30 seconds at the end of most runs is where I like to do them Sprints. Fallout efforts, 95% of your max held for 10 to 25 seconds.

[00:07:35] Daren: They’re longer than run throughs, but exponentially harder on your body. So build up gradually. Strides windups and run throughs are a great way to build up to them. Oh, while we’re here, they’re called strides. A lot of people get their underwear in a bunch and they get mad when people call ’em Striders.

[00:07:50] Daren: So it’s strides is the running industry word. You can call ’em Striders. I, I really don’t care. How to do them. So step by step, and we’ll start with Windups. Start at 50% effort and build up to 90% over five to 10 seconds. Focus on form, relax shoulders, smooth arm swing. Do two to three reps with 20 seconds of easy jogging in between.

[00:08:13] Daren: The jog is crucial, especially ’cause you’re starting out. It’s early in the set when you should do windups. When I like to do windups, you can do them anytime. Why are they so important? I think of them like a caffeine shop for your legs. It’s perfect for waking up your body before harder efforts or during sluggish warmups.

[00:08:26] Daren: Sometimes I just don’t feel great in the warmup after I do these a minute or two after I do ’em, I feel great. Run throughs. So just quick, three quick steps on how to do it. Start at 80% effort and push to 95%. Hold the effort steady. There’s no ramp up. Tiny bit of a ramp down, not as much as the strides. But don’t hurt yourself.

[00:08:44] Daren: Don’t just stop short. Pull a hamstring, pull a calf, muzzle. We don’t wanna do that. And the third part is rest for 60 seconds. Walk or jog, bat, repeat these two to three times. Uh, you can shorten the rest, but I like to keep the rest 45 to 60 seconds because with the run throughs, because they’re in the beginning, usually it just feels way better.

[00:09:01] Daren: Just have a bit of time in that beginning to wake your body up. Why are they important? Well, they build power and turnover, prepping your body for the speedier sessions, obviously. And the third of the four is strides. So. You do them by ramping up gradually. So I like to start at anywhere from 50 to 60% for the first couple seconds, then go 70% for the next few seconds, 80% for the next few seconds, and then I hold it about 90% for about two to three seconds, and then I ease it back down.

[00:09:26] Daren: So again, it’s that pyramid with the flat top, the crushed them, and you go up and then down. Really good to focus on cadence. So you want higher cadence, turn off and really pushing off from your glutes. I’m touch my glutes, you can’t see it, but really pushing off from your glutes and getting high knees as you can.

[00:09:40] Daren: And just thinking about running like Usain Bolt, that’s something I like. You’re running like a a 100 meter track star, that’s your goal. Rest is a three to one ratio for strides. So if you run for, let’s say 15 seconds, you wanna rest for 45 seconds, 15 times three, it’s 45. Repeat this, I’d say four times for your first.

[00:09:59] Daren: If you’ve never done these before, I’d start at 10 seconds, actually 10 to 12 seconds, and I’d repeat them four times and then do that for a week. Do two to three per week, and then every week add one. That’s it. You’re just gonna go five the next week, then six the next week, seven. And then when you get to eight reps, what I like to do is bang it back down to four, and then I go 15 seconds.

[00:10:20] Daren: So 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 reps. And then after. The eight reps, I then go to 20 seconds and over the course of a year, a season, you will hit probably about 25 seconds. I cap out at 25 seconds for stride. You can do 30, I’d say once you hit 30 seconds, you’re sprinting for quite a long time. So back it down. You’re still doing the ramp.

[00:10:40] Daren: The ramp is just longer. So the beginning 50% is three seconds, four seconds. And you’re only holding that 90% for three or four seconds. You’re not holding 90% for an extra 20 seconds. ’cause that will turn into. Sprints, which I’ll get into in one second. Why are they important? Strides in particular improve efficiency and for me, they simulate the end of the race kick when your legs are just tired of running that same pace for 5K, half marathon, marathon, whatever.

[00:11:06] Daren: Ultras, you wanna have a bit of a kick at the end. And it also is like, hey, wake up legs, like, come on feet. It’s a quasimoto kind of quote. If you’ve listened to Quasimoto and he’s a mad lib. Anyway, music reference, uh, has probably gone over a lot of people’s heads. Go check that album out on Spotify, and it’s just getting your brain and your body to remember that you can run faster than whatever pace you were doing at easy, long run or marathon pace or whatever, et cetera.

[00:11:27] Daren: So you’re probably at the point where you’re like, Darren, I just wanna do this stuff so I can run faster. I get it if in that much of a hurry, scan the QR code here or click the link below in the video description or show notes if you’re listening in your podcast app and you can get my free six weeks to sprinting for Distance Runners training Plan, quickstart Guide and toolkit checklist.

[00:11:48] Daren: I’m not messing around here. It’s crazy value all packed into one document. Just gimme an email. And I’ll get it right in your inbox. ASAP and mega bonus, you’ll automatically be signed up for my weekly newsletter that helps you not only do sprints and strides better, but you can learn about VO two Max Temple runs, how to run a faster 5K marathon, and even mental fitness tools and tactics all free.

[00:12:10] Daren: ’cause I go hard and I want the world to run faster, especially self-coach runners. That’s hopefully you. Let’s get back into the episode. Sprints. So these are amazing. Uh, they are similar to the other three, but very different. And I would approach them after you’ve done a minimum of four to six weeks of the windups run throughs and strides before you touch sprinting.

[00:12:33] Daren: It is a, a little bit goes a long way, like salt and sugar. You can totally ruin your, your training block. You can ruin your, your year. You can pull something like. Basically the risk and reward are crazy here. So it’s high risk for what I think is a low to medium reward. So you want to do it on the low end and have low risk how to do it.

[00:12:53] Daren: You go all out. Pretty much from the beginning. After the first one or two seconds, you’re gonna hit 95% effort. And now what? 95% is what’s a hundred percent? You don’t know. You gotta go out there and kind of do a hundred percent and know and do 95% and you wanna start at 10 seconds for the first few, I’d say do two to three reps to start, but you’re only gonna do 10 seconds.

[00:13:14] Daren: And you wanna start with hill sprints to reduce injury. So if you have a hill with grass, it’s even better. So if you can, if you have a grassy hill, which I think actually. Most places have grass hill or even stairs. If you don’t have a hill, you live in a really flat area. If you can do stairs somewhere, bleachers at a stadium or stairs at your apartment or a big building or some sort of public sector or something, that’s great.

[00:13:37] Daren: Or if you have a bridge, you can do these sprints. Start on the hills for the first few weeks minimum. I promise you, your body will thank you ’cause it won’t be injured. Rest. 90 seconds to three minutes. Do not rush this. Yes, you’re like, I just ran for 10 seconds. I gotta rest for a minute and a half. Two minutes.

[00:13:54] Daren: Three minutes. Yes. I promise you, you need that rest. It will feel like compared to a, let’s say two, three by one mile workout, two three by one k workout that a lot of distance runners do, this will feel like nothing. You’ll see 800 meters total of distance that you run for the whole workout. Promise you, you can do these.

[00:14:11] Daren: At the end of a workout, but I would actually treat them as their own separate workout in the off season or in the base training preseason for your, if you’re doing marathons, half marathons, five Ks, et cetera. So why is it important? Sprints provide potent neuromuscular adaptation, super potent. It’s like.

[00:14:28] Daren: A drop of cinnamon or some sort of essential oil. Lavender, it’s like just a little bit goes a long way. They enhance motor unit recruitment, so bit of exercise science, improving nerve firing and activating more muscle fibers. And some studies have shown that they actually burn more fat, uh, doing more sprints with less work, but it actually takes time because you’re doing the rest.

[00:14:48] Daren: So some people feel lazy, they feel like you’re not doing anything. I promise if you do it 95%, you will feel them. Please again, start at two to three reps. For your first one, do it one per week, one set per week. Two to three reps. If you’re doing two to the reps, you can put it at the end of an easy run or something.

[00:15:03] Daren: Next week. You can do three to four reps next week, four to five reps. I’d pretty much end at eight, and you can do what I did on the strides where you go back to four. Four reps. So for whatever, 10 seconds and you go from 10 to 15 seconds. So 15, go four next week, five next week, six, and you can do that in the off season.

[00:15:21] Daren: You can build up to about 20 to 25 second sprints. Be super careful with them please. Please proceed with caution, when to use them. So Windups, I like to do them before intervals. Tempo runs long, runs after warmups, form drills, pretty much anytime I’m gonna do something fast ish, I’m like, let me just throw a windup, one or two in there, see how I feel.

[00:15:41] Daren: Run throughs. So I like these on track days before fast sessions. I don’t really do ’em for temple runs. You can if you’re big into temple runs. But these actually get me ready to run faster for the track session and on the track. I just feel like I’m going through really fast strides. Use them. Anytime I actually do them probably I run about seven to nine times a week.

[00:16:01] Daren: I’ll do them after about anywhere from five to six runs. Sometimes all of my runs in a week I’ll do them and they just feel great. At the end of a cool down, you could do strides in the middle. Sometimes I’ll do strides in the middle ’cause I’m like, oh, I got this flat surface. Let me do some strides. Or I’ll do them for the last 10 minutes and I’ll break them up.

[00:16:16] Daren: I’ll do two. So I’ll do one 30 seconds, 40 seconds, rest, 1 30, 40 seconds rest. Then I’ll run for three to four minutes. This is my cool down run easy. And then I’ll do another. A batch of two, then another batch of two, and I’ll get Aiden. So the sprints, these when to do them, do them on fresh legs. So treat them as their own workout.

[00:16:33] Daren: Like I said, if you’re starting out two to three, you’re treating your own workouts, not, not enough, really. Uh, you might feel like you wanna do more. So I would then put them at the end of a really short, easy run when you starting out. But then as you start doing more of them. Please treat them in the workout.

[00:16:47] Daren: You might not feel like it did anything, but at the end of that workout or the end of that day or the next day, I promise the older you get. I’m 43. I did some back in October, a few months ago, and I messed my achilles up. I was so sore for days. My, uh, si joint in the back. It’s just everything. Just things I’ve never felt hurt, hurt after doing 800 meters worth of sprint, so eight by 100, it was absolutely crazy.

[00:17:11] Daren: Why running fast matters. So a bit for you. Exercise science nerds. Why should you do this Neuromuscular adaptation, so fast running, refines, nerve firing and motor unit recruitment. As I said before, they make your stride more powerful. There’s so many studies behind this. The problem why people don’t do them is ’cause it’s just another thing.

[00:17:29] Daren: But I promise you, if you just incorporate anything, any of these four things into your running, you will see so much benefit anywhere from, I’d say six to eight weeks out if you do them consistently. Do ’em once a week, start off and then do ’em twice a week and you’ll be good. And they’ll also help keep you young and also help possibly stay injury free, which I’ll talk about in a second.

[00:17:49] Daren: They improve economy and efficiency. So strides and sprints sharpen your mechanics for smoother, faster running. That’s free speed. So the whole point of having an economic stride is that you actually hit the ground with the least amount of force and you actually like spring off the ground. So you actually teach your body to be super.

[00:18:06] Daren: Economical and use physics and just again, free speed so you’re not actually pushing off the ground, you’re bouncing off the ground. You gotta do strides to teach your body how to do that. Caloric burn and epoch, and I’ll talk about that really quick epoch. It’s exercise, post oxygen consumption, and I.

[00:18:22] Daren: Sprint workouts do that. So sprint workouts in particular, that strides and the windups, they’ll probably do a little bit of that. But the sprint workouts in particular, if you treat it as its own workout, but comparing them directly to steady state runs, it oversimplifies the whole fat metabolism thing.

[00:18:35] Daren: So it’s just like we won’t go into detail on that. Different intensities, target, different energy systems. So you should be doing all of this. You should be doing Sprint, you should be doing easy run, you should be doing VO two. Max workout should be doing tempo workouts. I actually talk about all of that up top and there’ll be links below.

[00:18:48] Daren: On how to do all those types of workouts. We need to be Swiss Army knives with our energy systems, with our fitness to run our best and just stay generally healthy. Number four, race day simulation strides mimic that final push when you are already fatigued. Five. McMillan also highlights how short explosive efforts greatly improve neural muscular adaptation by teaching your body recruit muscle fibers more efficiently.

[00:19:11] Daren: All this means that it bridges the gap between everyday jogging and true speed training going. Pretty fast. We never go a hundred percent in sprints, but going pretty, pretty fast and let’s be honest, sprinting, it’s fun. It’s how our bodies remember that they’re built to move quickly. We are supposed to run fast.

[00:19:26] Daren: We did it as kids and we just stopped doing it. Once you hit 15, 20 years old, unless it’s for your sport and even then you hit 30, 40 years old, you just stop sprinting. How to stay injury free. So after years of doing stride, sprints, windups all this stuff and injuring myself or you know, having some mild annoying little nagging things, I was like, all right, I need to research some ways how to do this.

[00:19:46] Daren: So this is how you stay injury free while doing this stuff used soft surfaces like grass. Dirt or a track when possible. Track’s are nice and bouncy. Most people probably have access to grass and dirt if you can do that. The problem with grass and dirt, if you can do artificial fields, that’s great ’cause it’s perfectly flat.

[00:20:02] Daren: Grass and dirt. There’s divots and sticks and stones and all that stuff. And you might step wrong, especially when you’re sprinting and you could twist an ankle or you could just hurt yourself. You don’t wanna do that. So be careful on grass and dirt. Uh, never go a hundred percent. I’m gonna say that.

[00:20:14] Daren: Leave a little in tank, always just a little bit in reserve insurance, you never know. And for true sprints and 95% effort, aim for again, one to four or one to five, work to rest ratio. So if you sprint for 15, 20 seconds, rest for a minute, 20 a minute, 30. If not two minutes, just walk it out. You know, don’t scroll, just focus.

[00:20:33] Daren: I hate people that scroll in the middle of sets, even in the gym, but just focus and consistency matters more than intensity. Regular practice pays off. Sorry, back to soft surfaces. Hills are great to start with. That’s another way to start with ’cause flat land sprints and downhill the force on your body on flat and downhill.

[00:20:47] Daren: I think it’s seven times and then downhill. It’s like 12 times. But if you go uphill, it’s only. One to two times. But the force in your body because of gravity isn’t that much, but you’re able to actually get that stride up. You have gravity as resistance, so you’re not putting as much impact on your musculoskeletal system, your joints, bones, ligaments, all that stuff.

[00:21:05] Daren: Tendons, you’re not putting as much. Force on them and stress, so therefore they can come back and be ready. If you wanna do flat land sprints or flat earth sprints in the next four to six weeks, so start off on hills, on grass, that’s a double whammy for safety. Consistency matters more than intensity.

[00:21:20] Daren: Regular practice pays off most adults. Stop doing the quick bouncy movements that keep their tendons, joints, and muscles resilient. Gradually reintroducing drills like skipping or strides can revive that capacity to handle speed and reduce the risk of poles or strains when you decide to start sprinting the finish line.

[00:21:38] Daren: Concluding thoughts? I focused on the small details because that’s where performance hides and sits. A lot of people don’t know this stuff, especially new runners. Especially distance runners. They’ve been doing the same thing. It’s not flashy or trendy. It’s deliberate, precise, and effective. Windups run through strides and sprints.

[00:21:54] Daren: Might sound like minor tweaks, but they can completely change your game if you commit to them. And these are the 1% better things that I talk about as the 1% better runner. Here’s the real question. Why do more distance runners do strides and sprints? Are you already adding these to your training? Are you skipping them like speed, veggies of sorts?

[00:22:11] Daren: Eat your veggies. Your parents would say, lemme know in the comments below. Or if you’re listening. Podcast hit me up at talk TAL k@onebetterrun.com. That’s the number one. Better run all spell normal.com. Thanks for rocking with me. Time, time, time. I’m obsessed with it as it’s the one thing we can’t make more of, but ironically, we as humans, we made the whole concept of time.

[00:22:31] Daren: Thanks for giving us your time by listening, watching or reading this. We love helping runners get 1% better each day, one step at a time, and can only reach more runners by people like you sharing us out to runners like you. As I might have mentioned earlier in the episode, if you haven’t already, you can get a free step-by-step 30 day base training and habits guide to getting 1% better in running and life.

[00:22:53] Daren: Each day by signing up for our email newsletter. Unlike other running videos and podcasts, we are not about the quick hack and fluffy motivational quotes. Instead, the 1% Better Runner focuses on how small daily habits ripple into broader life success, helping runners perform better on and off the road, or the trail, or track wherever you want to be doing your workouts.

[00:23:13] Daren: All in five minutes. Per week, this episode and all this content is produced in Sydney, Australia, and I’d like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Your Nation, who are the traditional indigenous custodians of this land. Much, much, much respects. If you wanna contact us about anything, email talk@dlakecreates.com.

[00:23:31] Daren: We’re also on the socials, mainly Instagram and Strava. Right now, just search one Better Run, or D Lake runs small steps now. Lifelong Impact later. Peace.