20 Magical Run Form Fixes | Masterclass

[00:00:00] This is what you think good running form looks like, and this is what yours actually looks like at the end of your race. A long run, your shoulders a hunch, your feet slapping and the arms are crossing your body like it’s swatting flies. And yeah, it is costing you your best time. Over the next one hour or probably even more, we’re gonna go through a full running form and Cadence masterclass.

[00:00:19] You’re gonna learn about foot strike. Stride, arm swing, cadence, soup to nuts, the bolts, whatever the saying is, plus the one villain. Most runners don’t even know that is wrecking every single mile or kilometer that they run. I’m Daren D Lake certified running coach and sub three hour marathoner, and I did my first form drill back in high school in the mid nineties, running four hundreds and eight hundreds, and then 30 years later, I still do drills before every single run.

[00:00:44] Like a 1% better runner every day should plus dedicated form and plyometric sessions every week because it’s just the cheapest way to get faster than I found and possibly prevent injury. Running magazines and publishers. They might charge some money, A lot of money for content like this. And honestly, I’ll just go full Oprah, where you get a training plan over here, you get an email course over there, everyone gets one.

[00:01:07] You know what? Just go and get one of those training plans right now at the QR code here, or again, link in a description. I’ll wait. You got it? Dope. All right. Last thing before we get into it, because this is a masterclass and this information is so dense and thick, please just go to the timestamps below, wherever you’re listening or watching to this, and just click on any of those hyperlinks with those sections that interest you, bounce around.

[00:01:31] Feel free. Let’s start with the villain over striking. When most runners think about run form, they obsess either about higher cadence or about foot strike, heel, midfoot, four foot strike, et cetera. But the real problem, it isn’t where your foot lands, it’s how far out you’re landing. Overstriding means that your foot is landing too far out in front of the center of your mass, so the middle of your body, and that creates a braking force.

[00:01:54] Think of it like every step is hitting the accelerator in a car. But you’re also, your foot’s tapping the brake at the same time, so you’re slowing down your stride with every single step. Quick run science nerd. Break studies show that runners who land closer to the middle of their body create less impact force and run more efficiently.

[00:02:13] What does that mean? Less pounding, less injury risk, more efficiency so you can go forward with less energy. So what does fixing your overstriding actually look like in practice and how do we do it? The three step overriding fix. Here’s what’s worked for me and a whole bunch of other runners that I coach.

[00:02:31] Step one, feel it. Do barefoot strides on grass or use minimalist shoes if you can. It’s not for performance. You’re not trying to go fast. Just feel where your foot lands Most runners overstride because they’ve never felt the difference. ’cause they have shoes with a whole lot of technology, a whole lot of cushioning in between, and that doesn’t allow you to feel where to step properly under your body, under your center of mass.

[00:02:51] Step two, film it. You can prop your phone up somewhere, make sure you want it level to your hips and your head. You don’t want it on the ground. Use a tripod if you can or something else at the track or at some level field if you know that it’s level. And make sure you film in slow motion. Go into your camera settings, put it at 60 frames per second or higher.

[00:03:10] That’s slow motion. The higher the frames, so we’re gonna slow it down. You can use any app, just Google any app on your app store, play store or whatever. And you can get that. And then you could slow it down. You can draw lines from your hips and see where you step frame by frame. And if your foot is landing in front of that line, boom, that’s overstriding.

[00:03:26] A little bit of overstride. Okay, but you don’t want excessive overstriding. Step three, increase your cadence. So now with all this information, we can use quick feet shorter strides by doing hills. Quick science nerd break A 2025 study in Nature Scientific reports found that uphill running naturally makes you take faster steps, spend less time in the air, and stay on the ground longer compared to flat running.

[00:03:50] So what does this mean? When you run uphill, your body automatically uses the exact movements that fix overriding shorter, quicker steps and foot landing closer to the middle of your body. It’s like having a running form coach that forces perfect technique without you having to think about it. Here’s the asterisk about cadence that a lot of people might not tell you.

[00:04:08] There’s no magic number that works for everyone. Elite runners might hit 190 steps per minute, Elliot Oggi world-class marathoner, but while recreational and amateur runners might find their sweet spot between 160 and 175 steps per minute, your height. Leg length, running speed and experience all play a role.

[00:04:25] Even choose, instead of chasing a specific number, focus on this. Gradually increase your current cadence by one to 2% per month. If you’re at 160 steps per minute and you wanna go up, aim for a hundred sixty two, a hundred sixty three next month. This gradual approach naturally shortens your stride and reduces overstriding without forcing unnatural rhythm.

[00:04:45] If you change your form too quickly, you can get. Injured. So you can use a metronome app during strides to feel a difference or music. I did a whole episode on using Music and metronomes. You could check that out up here or in your podcast player show notes or in the video description below. Get that link.

[00:05:00] But you’ll notice your feet start landing closer to under your hips instead of out front. When you shorten that stride. The key is patience. Small, consistent increases over months. Create lasting changes in your running mechanics. So now here’s where running advice gets it wrong. Again, they give you the what, but skip the how.

[00:05:20] When your body isn’t ready, some of you might try increasing your cadence and you feel awkward, or you find your calves or Achilles are absolutely on fire or burning hurts or et cetera. After a few runs, that is normal. Your hip flexors, glutes, calf, muscles, tendons, ligaments, they all need to adapt slowly to this new movement pattern.

[00:05:38] That’s exactly why I created my six month cadence builder. It doesn’t just tell you to run with faster feet and includes the strength work plyometric. Form drills and progressive buildup, your body needs to make these changes stick. Download my free six month cadence builder at the QR code here, the link below, or in the show notes of your podcast players app.

[00:06:00] It will teach you patience and consistency and build it over time, not just fix it once. So if we can increase overriding with shorter steps, what’s really causing the overreaching of your stride, the real problem is patience. Overstriding is a form issue, right? But I think it’s actually a fitness mismatch issue.

[00:06:18] So when you run faster than you earn, your brain panics. You reach with your stride instead of pulling from behind, because in your head you’re chasing a pace, not matching your fitness. Overstriding became a signal for me, not that I needed drills, but I needed. Patience. We all need patience. Quick run science nerve break.

[00:06:36] A 2021 study looked at 68 different research papers on running and tiredness. They found something important. When runners get tired, they spend more time touching the ground. With each step, the knee bends more when their foot hits the ground and they start leaning forward. What’s happening here? So when you get tired, your calf muscles don’t fire up as quickly before your foot hits the ground.

[00:06:57] This means you can’t handle the shock of landing as well. Your body tries to fix this by staying on the ground longer and changing how you stand. But this usually makes you over stride. It’s your body trying to protect itself, but it’s exactly when you’re running form gets worse and you waste a whole lot of energy and why you need patience with the six month cadence plan.

[00:07:15] So yeah, overstriding, that’s the villain. And knowing the villain exists is one thing. Catching yourself doing it though, that’s totally different. Most of us think we’re running clean when we’re not. I thought the same thing. So I went and paid a pro running physio physical therapist in Sydney, Australia to throw me on a treadmill and film me from a few angles and then roast me frame by frame.

[00:07:34] Here’s what he found. So I’m in front of Central Performance Physio where I will be getting my running assessment done. My gate. Assessment done right now. As I’ve looked at videos of me running, I realized that I am overstriding. I’m a bit lumpy. I’m a bit hunched forward, and I’m like, okay, I need to correct this the best way possible.

[00:07:54] Lemme see obviously an expert. Lemme see if this is causing any. Achilles issues or any other issues that may be happening, inefficiencies and maybe I can run more efficient and better. In this episode, I’m gonna go over and you will learn the silent flaws in your stride. You’ll spot them. You’ll make small but powerful form techniques and tweaks, how to do that, how to build up your training routine, some drills and bonus, a six month training plan to increase your cadence and optimize your cadence so that you can run with better form.

[00:08:24] I have that shortly. If you wanna sneak peek, just hit up the QR code right here. Or the link in the show notes if you’re listening to the audio player or the video description. That’s what I’m pointing down, if you want to get a link to that right now. But I’ll talk more about that in a bit. So who’s the guy helping me meet?

[00:08:39] Ben Liddy. He’s the head of running physiotherapist at Central Performance Physiotherapy in Surrey Hills, Sydney, Australia, where I live right now. I’m obviously American, but been here 13 years. He’s a master physio sports scientist, and level four world athletics coach, and hopefully is gonna help me improve my run form.

[00:08:58] So any guesses what he’ll say? Shouldn’t think about it, right? No, no. I just want you to run. All right. You can just press that stop button for me, man. Beautiful. Hey, the warm ups done now. The real fun, the slow motion freeze frame critique begins from the professional. I was a bit bit nervous, but I was just like, yeah, you know, I think I’m pretty good.

[00:09:17] Are, we’re gonna look through this from a couple of different lenses. So first one is just as an overall assessment, okay. What you’re doing well, what you can potentially improve upon, and then. Can we link any of that back to, you know, causative factors for your Achilles? The reality of the situation is, is that we can’t definitively say, you know, that this would be, is gonna be causing your Achilles issues because there’s so many potential reasons why someone can develop like a tendon type injury.

[00:09:48] Improper scheduling of recovery and overdoing things is more likely the most likely cause of why we get injured. Okay. Okay. So what we’re looking for here, okay, is the difference between your highest point in the air and your lowest point in the air. Okay. Running the ultimate. Um, goal is to move as fast forward as possible.

[00:10:06] So we fire up the iPad to dissect my form, the physio’s first comment. Apparently I do have some vertical oscillation. Uh, is it too much? Is it too little? He checks how high I bounce. He’s writing some stuff. Hopefully you can see that I’m, I’ve got that on the screen and how straight my legs are, or bent, whether I’m crossing over the midline.

[00:10:25] Turns out that my arms swing a bit wide, so I flail a bit and I flick my wrist and that actually is something that I knew I did, but I became super conscious right after. And then he also mentions that training load plays a huge role in tendon health. So technique alone might not solve my achilles woes, but I think this was still a good analysis and it’s gonna help me with other things that we’ll get into shortly.

[00:10:47] So, cue my face when I realized my arms are basically doing the helicopter just swinging around. I had no idea. I swung out so wide. I kind of knew idea, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. Then as he said it, and as I watched replay, I was like, yeah, it’s unnecessary wasted that I’m flicking my left wrist.

[00:11:00] I’ve been doing this for years too. So I was like, you know what, I’m gonna stop doing that. And it’s like a weird mirror version of yourself that you never met. Like looking at this like, hold on. I have to feel like I know that person, but I really don’t. The main issues forward trunk, lean, and foot placement.

[00:11:14] So we dive into the big question right here. Am I overstriding myself into an Achilles strain, the tendinopathies that I have, the issues that I have, the thing to note also with you here, okay, and this is I guess relevant to what we’re talking about with your Achilles and stuff, is that you are landing mostly on your heel first.

[00:11:33] People that land on their heel first are more loading up through their knee and hip area. Okay? People that land more on their midfoot or forefoot are loading up through their calf and Achilles area. So for you, if you’d come in and you were very much like a. Midfoot four foot runner, and you told me the same thing.

[00:11:54] You had chronic Achilles issues. You’d tried everything, you’d done all the strength training, nothing was getting better. Then we may look at changing how you run. Okay. But you are landing more on your heel. Okay. So for me to then say, Hey, let’s try and change you and get you to more of a midfoot four foot, knowing that that’s gonna put more pressure on your calf and Achilles, that would be silly to do that when I run faster.

[00:12:16] Yeah, I’m definitely like midfoot. Yes. And that’s obviously, that’s natural. Okay. Okay. So as we start to get onto the, the track and, you know, we are running at like, you know, speeds at 1500 meter pace, plus you naturally get pushed more onto your mid and forefoot. Okay? Okay. There’s no like, people out there that really sprint, that are landing heel first.

[00:12:36] Yeah. Um, so the faster we go, typically the more we’re gonna go onto that foot. It turns out I’m not landing too far out front, so I’m not overriding too much, creating that braking effect. I’m not doing that. Also my trunk leans forward maybe from tight hips. And Ben points out that not everyone must be a midfoot striker at the US Olympic trials.

[00:12:56] Many, um, oh, probably five to 10 years ago now. What, um, the 10,000, they had a look at people’s foot placement on the track, okay? And these are the best guys in the us. You know, all of them have run under 29 minutes. And the difference was, was massive. There’s heel strikers, there’s midfoot, there’s four foot, okay?

[00:13:13] So at the top level, there’s a huge variation. Okay? So people I think, get caught up in thinking that they have to be this midfoot forefoot strike. But there’s plenty of elite runners out there that are still landing on their heels, okay? But for me, stepping a bit closer to the center of gravity could reduce constant jarring.

[00:13:30] So getting my, my foot landing under my hips and my center of gravity, or even slightly behind it. So I’m pushing off and I’m not breaking, I feel. Kind of relieved and a bit annoyed combination of both. So I’m relieved that it’s fixable, but I’m annoyed. I have to unlearn years of this habit. But if I want that 1% edge, the 1% better runner, let’s go.

[00:13:50] As my son says, let’s go, he says that lot. Watch this way too much. YouTube. If you suspect that you are an overrider, maybe watch some slow-mo footage of yourself on a treadmill. Or if you can get someone to ride a bike next to you, or maybe you could put a phone up while you run past it at a moderately easy or slightly fast pace and you can see where you’re at and the truth, it might shock you, but as I say, knowledge is power, mobility, check tight hips are revealed.

[00:14:18] So next we do a mobility test. This is a Superfund leg drop off the bed sort of test. Just hold the right leg. Yep. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then let this left leg drop off here. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, I’m sure this has been an issue for a long time. Okay. But you know. Um, you are, you are very tight through your hips.

[00:14:36] Okay. So, you know, you know what’s funny? I saw you seven, eight years ago. Yeah. I’m so much more mobile than my hips than when I saw you seven, eight years ago. So, yeah. So ideally, you know, we are wanting to see you come down close to the bed, okay? Mm-hmm. And we can see that’s not gonna happen. The verdict from him, I’m still tight, my hips are screaming.

[00:14:54] Not today. If I can’t extend my hip, I’m forced into that forward trunk lean, which might worsen my overstride. I’m leaning forward and then I’m overstriding and I’m breaking, I’m exaggerating it, but even slight, you know, variations, half percent, 1% over the course of a marathon, which I’m doing very shortly, is going to wreak havoc on.

[00:15:12] So I know I’ve improved from eight years ago, but apparently it’s not enough, and Ben’s honest opinion is that some folks are genetically stiff. They have stiff, stiff and tighter ligaments and tendons, so they’re not as flexible. But he says there’s a limit. You don’t wanna be too stiff. You also don’t wanna be too flexible.

[00:15:28] So people with hypermobility, EDS, that’s not good. So you want economy in this like range of not too stiff, not too. Mobile. Not too flexible, but every bit helps. I need to be probably more in the middle, so I’ll keep working on that and it’s a everyday thing, 1% twice a day, rolling out with the spiky ball, and also doing all my stretching and all that type of stuff, and strengthening.

[00:15:49] Sometimes we focus on foot strike, but if your hips are locked up, all that fancy shoe technology in the world, the super shoes, they cannot. Fix your running mechanics. And a quick aside, if you want a simple way to overhaul your own form, don’t forget my free six month cadence guide. Yes, some runners don’t need to boost their steps per minute, but it’s worked absolutely wonders for me.

[00:16:08] You’ll get my weekly email newsletter with tips, tools, and tactics on everything from run form tweaks to mental mindset shifts because speed starts between your ears. Go check that out. The QR code here. The link in the video description below, or if you’re listening to the audio podcast, go in the show notes.

[00:16:25] Open up your podcast play device, and you can click that link to get It is for free. Let’s get into drills and form adjustments. We move on to the classic foot pickup drill. I call it classic, but it’s like, I’ve never really done this before. It’s kind of like a high knees, but not really. I’d say it’s like a, a, just, it’s actually a drill that I do called knee overs, and I’m actually doing that while I’m running.

[00:16:44] So instead of letting my feet swing out in front, I’m supposed to lift them up under my hips. So it’s really getting my knees high and doing it right now and making sure that I’m creating like kind of a little semicircle of sorts. And it’s like I’m trying to kick my glutes from below in a way, but. Over exaggerating.

[00:17:00] ’cause I’m running at half marathon peso. I don’t wanna be doing heel kicks while I’m running. It’s a waste of energy. It doesn’t look good. It’s also not efficient. At first it feels a bit strange, but then we film the side by side from what I did in the beginning to when he said, just lift your legs up, lift your lower leg up, and my trunk looks way more upright and stable.

[00:17:20] Less flailing. I actually was making sure I wasn’t flicking the wrist and making sure that I was running with my shoulders relaxed and you know, going straight versus the twist, the helicopter, and who knew how much a small cue and shift would make. And I’ve been doing this for about two months now, and I’m gonna say that I.

[00:17:37] Don’t twist as much. And I also don’t flick my wrist. I don’t flick my wrist at all anymore. I stop that and I’m trying to make sure that I’m always lifting up my legs. I got a higher cadence DJ mix in my headphones that I listen to most of the time. That’s a 1% higher cadence, which you can download that again at the link below right now you can download to get a higher optimal cadence.

[00:17:57] We’ll have a whole six month guide on that. So this is where the graphics really help and, uh, drawing a line from my foot to my hip to see how the changes are. And I’ve really got a huge aha moment when he did that for me. And it leads to the next section, takeaways and training factors. So some real talk here, keeping it a buck a hundred as the Gen Z kids say four tweaks alone can’t magically cure my achilles troubles and my issues.

[00:18:23] They still training load strength work and yeah, rest that little detail that. Often runners ignore, but the physio does say, if I land more efficiently, so underriding under my hip and not overstriding, I’ll stress my calves and Achilles less over time, especially on longer runs. Who else hates hearing rest more out there?

[00:18:42] It’s like, rest more. Yeah, I know, I know. Everyone says rest more. But, um, it is, it is very true. It’s not a quick fix, but layering all the small 1% improvements, 1% better runner, that’s what I’m pointing at. Technique, mobility, strength, rest, recovery, uh, running form. Thinking about your running form. It might be the difference between finishing healthy or limping to the finish line or even start line.

[00:19:00] Don’t wanna limp to the start line. So wrapping it all up after all that, I feel both validated and challenged. I was like a bit torn. I’ll be focusing on those foot lift drills, general plyometric and form drills watching my trunk angle. So no twisting. That flick, making sure I don’t do that and possibly doing all this and cutting down stress on my Achilles.

[00:19:20] Even as a run coach, I totally need another coach’s input and that’s the beauty of running. We’re always learning. So like I said, I’m always researching, talking to experts and experimenting on myself. It’s what I do. I live it. I breathe it just to help you out. So if you’re chasing that extra 1% or you’re trying not to get injured, give your run form a second look.

[00:19:37] Go to get a run form analysis. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it. You don’t have to get ’em all the time. You can do a couple sessions with them and then kind of go away for a few months, six months, a year, then come back and see where you’re at, your Achilles and your best times. They might. Thank you. So did you catch that golden nugget that Ben said there in the episode?

[00:19:54] He told me heel striking wasn’t my problem. And that goes against what most runners have been told their whole lives. So let’s settle this one for good. Heel strike. Midfoot. Forefoot, which one actually matters and which one is just noise. Heel strike the misunderstood villain. So what’s happening with all this heel striking is like stretching before a workout.

[00:20:15] Some people swear by it, others think it’s outdated and harmful. The the actual truth. What should you do? It depends. Heel striking means your heel makes contact with the ground first, and it’s how most people actually naturally run, especially at lower speeds. I do it, most people do it. But the controversy isn’t about the heel strike itself, it’s about how you do it.

[00:20:34] Actually, it’s just like walking because usually I’m with your heel first and then your toes. So the good parts of heel striking, it’s natural at slow speeds and it’s absolutely fine. Most people walk heel to toe anyway. Most modern running shoes are literally designed for it. They have all that cushioning in the back of the heel and can be totally fine if you’re landing under your hips while you heel strike.

[00:20:54] Overstriding is actually the real problem. It turns your heel strike into a breaking mechanism. So er increasing stress on knees and hips and just overall body, it’s less efficient at higher speeds. So here’s a quick deep science moment. I’ll have three of these. Deep science moment number one. So the overstriding trap.

[00:21:10] So I actually just did a run form analysis and I found out that I overstride, even though I think I didn’t, and I’ve seen video of myself, I’ve actually videoed myself with this constant stuff just in general and I thought I ran pretty well. But he actually zoomed in. Physiotherapist and was like, yo, a little bit overstride.

[00:21:26] You actually lean forward a bit and also I have a little bit of heel strike and it’s at like these moderate speeds. So about my marathon pace a little bit faster than my marathon pace. So when I run fast, I have really good form, so I even need to sort that stuff out. But bit more of the science of it.

[00:21:39] Overstriding is when your foot lands way out in front of your body, it creates a breaking force that slows you down with every step. Imagine you’re riding a bike and you’re just tapping the brakes every few seconds. That’s what Overstriding does to your momentum. And here’s the crazy part, even elite heel strikers don’t overstride.

[00:21:56] They still land underneath their center of mass making their form efficient and they’ve been doing it forever. So if you see someone with bad running form and they’re running fast, I’m sure they’ve been doing it for their whole lives and their body is super efficient at running that way. Might not be pretty, but it works for them.

[00:22:10] So if heel striking isn’t automatically bad, then what about four foot striking? You’ve probably heard that landing on your toes makes you faster, but is that actually true? Let’s get into that section four foot strike the try hard of foot strikes. What’s happening. Four foot striking is when you land on the balls of your feet with your heel barely touching the ground, or not even touching the ground at all.

[00:22:32] This is what sprinters do, and yet it looks fast and yet it looks good. You get to get that flex of the calf muscle, but it also loads your lower legs like crazy. So your planter, your achilles tendon, your calves, your soleis, all that gets loaded up. Uh, the good side of it is that it’s great for short bursts of speed.

[00:22:49] Great for running up hills. That’s a short burst of speed. It reduces impact on knees. It loads the calf muscles instead, and it uses the Achilles tendon like a spring. And some of the cons. It’s a higher strain on your calves and Achilles, which means increased injury risk. It’s pretty tough to sustain this for long distance running.

[00:23:06] I’d say anything longer than 800 meters, and it’s not always more efficient. It depends on the runner. So if you’ve been doing it your whole life. Probably are efficient at doing it ’cause your body’s gotten used to it. I know a runner that runs on her toes and her calves are flexed and I’m like, how do you do this for marathons?

[00:23:23] Ultras? It’s pretty crazy. But her body’s used to it. So a deep science moment. Number two, the Achilles load factor. Your Achilles tendon is basically a rubber band. And when you four foot strike, you stretch that rubber band with every step loading it with energy, and then it propels forward, propels you forward, your feet forward, your legs forward, your whole body forward.

[00:23:40] And it actually is in the shortening cycle. So it’s a bit more exercise science. So when you flex it up, you’re up, your calves flexed, you’re actually shortening. And then when you go down, you’re in the eccentric and you are lengthening it. So sounds great, right? You get all this. Here’s the catch. If that rubber band is a condition for that kind of load, it starts fraying.

[00:24:00] Keep doing it. Stretching out, stretching out. It gets weaker and weaker, which is why four foot strikers often end up with Achilles tendinopathies, Cal Strange or plantar fasciitis, and a whole lot of other things below your knees if you’re not used to it. Making a sudden switch to four foot striking is like taking a Honda Civic.

[00:24:17] Take a Honda Civic and trying to drive it like a Formula One car. It’s just not built for it. So if heel striking isn’t always bad, and four foot 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.

[00:24:35] Strike the sweet spot. 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. So if this is your foot right here, and this is the ground right here, this is your foot, you just hit it like that. Four foot tracking, like that heel striking is like that, obviously, duh.

[00:24:51] This tends to be the most efficient way to run for most people because it’s spreads out impact forces evenly. Again, most people, not everyone is most people, so some of the benefits. Balanced impact distribution encourages landing under your center of mass. When you mid foot strike. When I’m in foot strike, it’s way easier for me to land under my body and my hips and then push me forward, which is what we want.

[00:25:11] Often improves running economy for distance runners and the bad side, only a couple actually. It can take time to adjust if you’re a natural heel striker. So if you are used to that clunky sort of running, which is fine, but it is a bit clunky, then trying to run on your midfoot is a bit tough. I got the fix for it.

[00:25:28] And it requires stronger foot ink calf muscles because you are using more of your lower legs. Why? It works for most runners, every time your foot hits the ground, the ground hits back with the equal amount of force. That’s called ground reaction force. GRF, basic physics heel striking sends more of that force up your knees and your hips, which are stronger.

[00:25:49] Muscles and body parts and bones. They’re way bigger than your lower legs, your Achilles, your calf, et cetera. So in contrast, heel striking sends more of the force up your knees and your hips. Four foot striking, overload your calves, but midfoot striking it distributes the impact across your entire legs, reducing stress in any one area.

[00:26:07] Think of it like a trampoline versus concrete. A midfoot strike lets your body spread out the impact like the trampoline absorbing the 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 more help from the technology and the tools on your actual feet?

[00:26:26] Let’s explore how the right shoes can work with not against your natural running style shoe choices to help with foot striking. Let’s talk about shoes and this thing called heel drop. It’s basically how much higher your heel sits compared to your toes. Uh, just the FYII did an episode on that. You can go right here on why shoes and feet are so important while you age as you age.

[00:26:47] ’cause we’re all getting older, none of us are getting younger. So check that out. Goes really into detail about shoes, feet, et cetera. Think of all of this shoe choice stuff like slides at a playground. The steeper the slide, the faster you go down. Same with shoes. The bigger the drop, the more they push you towards heel striking.

[00:27:04] Here’s the science a bit more. For every millimeter of heel drop, you’re changing the angle of your ankle by one degree, which affects how forces travel up your entire leg. Pretty wild, right? So here’s a breakdown of three different kind of areas of. Heel drop. So we got high, medium, and low. So with high heel drop, I categorize 10 to 14 and up.

[00:27:24] It’s 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, a lot of new running shoes, especially super shoes, they have a lot of padding in the back heel, or the actual whole shoe is chunky. Even though you’re actually not that much, I mean six or eight millimeters, your heel actually isn’t hitting the ground with as much force because it’s got all that shoe technology, all that cushioning, all that material underneath.

[00:27:51] So medium drop, I’d put this between. Four and eight millimeters, which is actually most shoes out there. So let’s just call it the Goldilocks. It’s not too high, not too flat. Not too low. Helps you land more naturally. And it’s great for mixing up. You’re training a lot of super shoes that are six to eight millimeters.

[00:28:07] You can get four millimeter shoes. They’re becoming less and less for whatever reason, I guess, ’cause so many amateur runners are running now and they’re hill strikers and they just know that four millimeter could destroy them. Soy can Canva with four millimeters. The soy shifts with four millimeters.

[00:28:21] Soy seems to be one of the last shoes doing the four millimeters. And then there’s ultra that does mostly zero mil. And I think there’s super shoe is four millimeters, so I’m sure there’s other shoes out there that do four mil. It’s quite hard for me to find them. Meno maybe. So yeah, it’s uh, every time I find four millimeters, I like hold them tight.

[00:28:37] Six millimeters, a nice middle ground. And then. The low drop or zero drop is between zero obviously millimeters and four millimeters, and it’s almost like running barefoot. And usually those shoes are more natural. They don’t have as much technology happening. Your calves need to be ready for this huge warning.

[00:28:54] Speed. Demons love these. They feel more like track flats and they’re just overall for me. A better experience, but I have to be very careful with using zero millimeters. My ultra escalante’s, which I just got, the Escalante fours, they’re actually amazing. I like them way better than the threes. I love the threes and the fours.

[00:29:13] They’re actually more firm. They feel more like a firm shoe that I could run in once I kind of get myself acclimated to the shoes. I do a lot of weightlifting. I do a lot of walking with them, but quick heads up, don’t go jumping in between different drops too quickly. Keep running in. Whatever you have been running in your body needs time to adjust.

[00:29:30] Even a small change can make a big difference in a bat or good way. So again, I like to have all different shoes. I have probably too many shoes, but they all serve a purpose. Whenever my Achilles is acting up, I throw on the eight millimeter, the the 12 millimeter. So I got some 12 millimeters that are ready when my Achilles is just not happy and I need to do a long run or whatever.

[00:29:51] Throw those on. But I am, again, I’m walking doing Easy Grass runs, do pretty much all my gym stuff in zero Mill shoes. I, I’ll do some, again, some easy runs in the zero mill, but I like to do more of the stuff between four and eight. Mil is my sweet spot, so shorter, faster runs more in the four mil, but most super shoes for the faster runs are six to eight mil.

[00:30:10] Anyway, so that’s kind of my whole shoe lineup that I use. And I could go into soy and mno and now I finally got some new balance. What is it? The fuel cell Rebel Rebel fours. I got some of those happening. ’cause the pink and the dope. So yeah, I’m, I’m all about different shoe for the right job. Alright, foot strike sorted.

[00:30:30] But foot strike is only one piece of the puzzle. There are six levers that make up your run form, posture, arms, breathing, cadence, stride, and yeah, foot strike. Time to zoom out and give you the whole picture. Here’s what we’re gonna cover, what running form actually is, because it’s not about looking good.

[00:30:49] How to get it right without overthinking, why it’s the key to running better, longer, and with fewer injuries. And I’ll give you six practical fixes that you can implement. ASAP ranging from foot strike posture, arm swing, breathing, stride, length, cadence, and more. And you can start using all that right now to level up your running.

[00:31:06] Form the first one foot strike, the start of your run form and stride. How your foot hits the ground when you actually run. It’s one of those things runners love to overthink. So let’s break it down and clear up a few myths. First up, heel striking. Here’s the deal, it’s not the villain we once started was new research shows that heel striking doesn’t directly cause injuries.

[00:31:26] The actual reason why people get injured when they heel strike is overriding. So over striders, also heel strike, that’s when your foot lands way out in front of your body, creating a breaking force that slams your joints and just slows you down. Modern running shoes, especially super shoes with higher stack heights have made heel striking way less of a problem ’cause they soften the impact.

[00:31:48] But don’t take my word for it. There’s actual studies out there run scientists that are doing all this stuff from Gruber et al. That backs this up. They found that heel striking isn’t inherently harmful. It’s a combination of heel striking and overriding. That’s the issue, as I said before. In other words, it’s not about what part of your foot hits the ground, it’s where it lands in relation to your body, which leads to midfoot striking, and this tends to be the sweet spot because we have four foot strikers, and I’ll go into that in a second.

[00:32:12] Why? Because it’s better for running economy. Midfoot striking is when you land closer to the center of your mass, and when you midfoot strike, you actually land under your, your hips. You reduce breaking forces and transition more efficiently through your stride. It’s smoother, lighter, and less taxing over time.

[00:32:26] Four foot striking, unless you’re sprinting. It’s probably overkill, or you naturally just land on the tips of your toes. It’s probably overkill if you want to try to. Four foot strike landing on your toes shifts a lot of stress to your calves. And Achilles, which can lead to injuries like tendinopathies, tendonosis, they, they call it, uh, tendonitis.

[00:32:43] Some people call the Achilles stuff planter stuff, possibly shin splint and calf strains. So what’s the takeaway? Don’t stress about being a heel midfoot or four foot striker. If you’re comfortable injury free and not overstriding, you’re probably fine. But if you’re looking to improve your efficiency, aiming for a midfoot strike for as much as you can in your runs and reducing overstriding is a game changer.

[00:33:02] Bottom line, foot strike isn’t one size fits all. The goal is to make running feel easier, not force yourself into someone else’s ideal running form. Let’s go to the next one. Posture the foundation. This is your base. If it’s off, everything else falls apart. Keep your shoulders relaxed. I probably have bad posture as I’m talking about this in this camera, on this recording.

[00:33:23] Chest open and head neutral. Not craning forward like you’re checking your phone. Mid. Run the nerd neck. Picture a string pulling you up from the top of your head. Tall but not stiff, why it matters. Good posture sets the tone for everything else slouch and your burning energy that could be used to move yourself forward.

[00:33:40] The next section around running form, arm swing, your secret weapon, your arms. They’re not just there for decoration. They actually help you run better. Bend your elbows at 90 degrees and swing them straight forward and back. Yes, this looks ridiculous, but the more you try to think about doing that, the better it is.

[00:33:57] Not across your body like you’re dodging through a crowd. You do not wanna be doing that. And a lot of people do that and they don’t know, especially as they get tired, your brain doesn’t care about good form, shoulders down, fist loose. You’re not in a boxing match. Why It matters. A clean arm swing keeps you stride balanced and your energy focused where it should be on moving forward, not sideways.

[00:34:13] Now the fix to all this, ’cause we’re in the third one of six, the fixed all this is. Plyometrics and running form drills and also mental workouts, which I have a whole thing on, and you can download that at QR code either here or here, or if you’re listening the link in the show notes, or if you just wanna click below the video description down there on the website somewhere, if you’re reading it, that’s the best way you gotta do it.

[00:34:36] I’d say before every run, if you can do about two to three minutes, and if you could do once a week, about five to 10 minutes of form drills, plyometrics, it’ll take time, three to six months, and also increasing your cadence will help. This will fix a lot of your running form issues. Enough from the sponsor who is us, we’ll get back into number four, breathing, which is, I’ll call the energy booster.

[00:34:54] This one’s huge and a lot of runners get it wrong, myself included. Wasn’t until I saw a. We called them, uh, sports medicine. Uh, I was taking a sports medicine class back in high school and I remember she was, uh, the sports medicine teacher was like, try to breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth.

[00:35:11] Um, this doesn’t work if you’re sprinting or at the end of races or you’re doing hard workouts. It is in through mouth. Out through mouth is best. But when you’re running easy, I try to train myself to breathe in through nose and then out through mouth. And I also try to sync it with my steps. So three steps in, two steps out.

[00:35:28] This all depends on so many factors, how fast you run, what you like naturally doing, but try to get some sort of a rhythm. Different paces will mean different types of breathing. As I said before, stay relaxed. If you’re gasping, slow down and reset why it matters. If your breathing is all over the place, your energy is to nail this and running feels way easier, I promise.

[00:35:46] All right, this is the fifth one. Stride length, the efficiency hack. Stride length is where people mess up because they think longer is better. It is not. Now, as I talked about in a video about cadence, it is all about the pros and they have longer stride length, but they use less energy because they can bounce off.

[00:36:02] This goes back to form drills. This goes back to higher cadence. So what you wanna do is aim for controlled smooth steps. Your foot should land under your body, not way out. This goes back to overriding, and this is where people, when they want to take longer steps, they actually reach out, and when you reach out, you end up overstriding.

[00:36:18] So this is, let’s say these, this is your body. These are your hips right here. Your foot lands out here. Here. You want your foot to land under. Form drills do that, especially B skips. B Skip is such a valuable drill that I love doing and it makes you, your body think and know that you’re landing under and then propelling yourself up while keeping your hips forward.

[00:36:41] Avoid overstriding, ’cause it’s like slamming on the brakes with every step. The right stride line keeps you efficient, reduces impact, and helps you run faster without feeling like you’re working. Harder. This takes time. So that leads us into number six. The last one, which is cadence. The rhythm of running, just like dancing cadence.

[00:36:59] This is just a fancy word for how many steps you take per minute. Aim for 170 to 180 steps per minute. Think short, quick steps. Not long, slow ones that will cause you to. Midfoot strike and also not overstride. You’ll stride normally. You’ll land as close to under your hips as you possibly can. It’ll feel weird at first, but it makes a huge difference in efficiency and impact.

[00:37:22] Why it matters. Higher cadence means smoother, runs less pounding on your body and more energy to spare. Out of those six levers, there’s one, almost every runner sleeps on arm swing runners. Yes, that was me up until a few years ago. I still made this mistake, thinks that arms are just along for the ride.

[00:37:40] Kinda like a tyrannosaurus rex. They’re just going with you. They’re not. They’re doing way more work than you think, and if you get them wrong, you’re leaking energy every single step. That runner with the ugly arm swing just passed you at mile eight looking perfectly fresh. Meanwhile, your picture perfect form has you feeling tight, twisted, and tired.

[00:38:00] Why is that? In this episode, I’ll answer that and cover why arm swing matters for energy and balance with science to back it all up. Four simple fixes and four drills that you can use today to help you improve. What is arm swing? Arm swing is the coordinated back and forth motion of your upper body, obviously that very simple, shoulders, elbows, and hands.

[00:38:19] It cancels leg torque and keeps your torso stable. I didn’t care about any of this until I learned to swim, so for my Ironman. That I did, I needed to learn how to swim properly for 3.8 kilometers. That’s about 2.5 miles in o open water, the ocean in the water. You can’t effort, you know, hard effort. I’m gonna try really hard to fast times like you can in running.

[00:38:40] So in running you could try really hard and you’ll probably run faster. Walking, even cycling, you could try really hard and you go faster. Instead, you actually have to slow down, which allows you to move smoothly and suddenly be fast with less effort. Same rule applies to running. So if you slow things down and you tighten the mechanics and you get your arm swinging and you focus on drills, you can run cleaner and hopefully better.

[00:39:02] So a 2014 study in the Journal of Experimental Biology tested runners with different arm positions behind the back, across the chest, and on top of the head. Yes, it’s silly, but uh, this is actually some good stuff. The worst, the arm position, the worst, the energy cost running with your hands on your head.

[00:39:19] That’s brutal. 13% increase in metabolic cost compared to normal arm swing. So when the researchers, they stop people from swinging their arms in all those different ways, runners automatically increased their torso rotation to make up for it. Like the physics, you can’t negate the physics. Your body knows it needs that counterbalance, so give it what it wants.

[00:39:38] Torque is like driving with the steering wheel slightly turned to the left in relation to running with your arms in arm form, you waste fuel and after a 20 mile drive, 20 kilometers or whatever, you’ll end up in the wrong place if your steering wheels. Tilted like that, you’re gonna go that way and you’ll probably crash into the side or another car or something, or golf a cliff.

[00:39:56] And from an energy view, it’s like leaving a window open at highway speed. Tiny losses, they add up to wasted fuel. Speaking of tiny losses, if you wanna be fuel efficient with your arm swing and use this now, I created a free cheat sheet checklist and drills built into the training plan. I’m gonna go over those drills very shortly, but this is, you jump on them right now.

[00:40:15] So again, I got you covered. Get it for free at the QR code appear. Link below on the show notes, but back to science. Alright, here’s the first simplest thing to check. Number one, shoulder drop, not shrug. Drop your shoulders. That’s it. Super simple. I’m always carrying tension. Always have high shoulders. I have big, broad shoulders.

[00:40:31] Ah, don’t carry tension in your traps when you run. The traps are back here. It’s the big muscles, obviously, of your back and your shoulders. But why should you do this? Because Ray’s shoulders create constant tension and waste energy holding that position. Think of flexing your bicep for 30 minutes straight.

[00:40:48] It’s exhausting, right? The drill to practice it. Shoulder drops, do shoulder shrugs like you’re in the gym, both no weights and then release. So you wanna go up and then drop 10 times before you run up and then drop. Super easy. Do that before you get out the door or in front of a mirror or reflective surface so you can train your brain and body.

[00:41:07] To know what feels and looks like it’s supposed to, uh, the right way. During your warmup, every two minutes, if your warm ups, 10 minutes, every two, three minutes, do a body scan, check if your shoulder’s crept up and exhale hard and let them drop down. Again, a common mistake with this whole shoulder thing, collapsing the chest when trying to relax.

[00:41:26] So relax. Shoulders without slumping. You don’t wanna do that. Needs a strong enough core. So if you have a weak core, no problem. Just strength. Train more and do some planks. Got you covered. Go get that episode up there, link below. I got episodes about everything onto fix number two and drill elbow angle.

[00:41:42] 90 degrees, but soft aim for a soft 90 degree. So we want this, but back here at mid stride of your elbow, perfectly bent in the middle, not locked, not straight. Not here. You don’t want that. You don’t want that. Just nice, nice and loose. Why the elbow hinge gives leverage without wasting rotation. Imagine rowing with a broomstick versus a proper ore in the water.

[00:42:05] The drill to practice it. Elbow angle, standing in place, pump your arms for 20 reps and looking in the mirror or filming yourself. Watch that for 90 degree. Bend at mid swing. So you wanna keep it loose. Always be loose. Always be loose. I’ll get to hands in a second. Then run easy for 400 meters, focusing only on keeping that elbow hinge.

[00:42:22] So this is on your warmup. You can do that. A common mistake with this whole elbow thing. Straight arm windmills that send rotation into torso. So you don’t wanna be doing this, you also don’t wanna be doing that. I’ll get into crossing over in a second. But before you bend your elbows, you want to help out another self-coach runner.

[00:42:39] Do this easy thing. Just watch this until the end. Help put it at two x speed. If you can’t wait, the signals to the algorithms that this content is for the types of runners. Thank you for doing it. If you haven’t, and if you’re feeling spicy, you can like this, subscribe, share out a link or comment below if you’re actively trying to fix your arm swing or not.

[00:42:57] Or if you don’t care, would love to know. Let’s get into tip number three. Drive back. So this is fix and drill number three. You don’t wanna cross. You wanna drive back. Drive the hands back, finish behind the hips. So I don’t know if you can see me finish behind the hips. Don’t cross the midline. Why?

[00:43:14] Crossing the body causes counter rotation and fights the legs. Think piston motion in a car or engine, not a windshield wiper sweep. We don’t want that. The drill to practice it, drive back. This is really easy. During your next easy run, focus on one arm for one minute, drive your hand back until it passes your hip pocket and then switch arms.

[00:43:33] So you wanna do that one minute? You just focusing on that? Focusing on it. Do not over exaggerate. We’re not over it. We’re just making sure it passes. Alternate after those one minute on, one minute off until it feels natural on both sides. A common mistake, thinking longer arc across the body equals more power.

[00:43:48] Again, we are not pushing like this, so how does arm pattern actually help the legs enter? Run science nerd break. Arms and legs are neurologically linked, like literally wired together in your spinal cord. A 2001 study in the European Journal of Neuroscience used walking to prove this. When researchers distributed one leg during walking arm muscles responded in just 65 to 80 milliseconds.

[00:44:12] That’s faster than conscious thought. The study found flexible. We’re gonna get a big scientific neuronal coupling between your limbs. A task dependent connection that coordinates upper and lower body movement while this was tested in walking the same neural pathways fire during running. When your arm motion is consistent, your nervous system uses these connections to sink timing and the result smoother, less effortful steps like pedaling a bike in proper rhythm.

[00:44:37] When your legs and body work together in a smooth, nice fashion, you coast easier, fight the rhythm, and every pedal stroke feels harder. And onto the last tip. Hands and grip matter more than you probably think. So fix and drill. Number four, hands low. Loose grip, as I talked about earlier, hands should sit around the belt line.

[00:44:55] Fingers are relaxed. Why? Because when shoulders creep up, usually with fatigue or tension, your hands, they drift high, which waste energy. So the hands actually go against the shoulders in a good way, like they’ll, uh, counterbalance and check the shoulders and all this waste energy. You’re basically carrying your arms instead of letting them swing.

[00:45:12] So we don’t wanna carry them high guard. Is for boxing. I’m not a boxer and it’s not efficient for running. So the drill to practice this all hands low and loose. This is actually a sprinter’s drill. I love this drill. Run 30 seconds. Imagining you’re holding a potato chip between each thumb and finger right here.

[00:45:29] Got a little potato chip firm enough not to drop them light enough not to crush it. You wanna check your hand position? They should hover around your waistband or shorts. So we’re doing that down here and you wanna make sure she’s doing that. And you wanna put your thumbs up also. So thumbs up or facing as close to up as you can with that potato chip.

[00:45:47] So it’s like the potato chip’s in between here. So common mistake, clench fist or holding. Phone or water during normal runs should not be holding anything that messes up so much. Even your phone, you might think it’s light, uh, water, like you actually will like mess the rotation for miles on end and many, many runs day in, day out.

[00:46:04] We don’t do that. So these are your four drills. Pick one per run this week, rotate them through. By the end of week, you’ll have done all four. Or you know what? Get that training plan and it’ll help you do all this. So what happens when you put all this together? Remember that runner that beat you and was looking great with the ugly swing from the intro?

[00:46:22] Turns out their run form probably wasn’t ugly at all. It just looked different. What matters is this Super easy to remember. Sequence drop shoulders, 90 degree elbow drive back, loose hands with thumbs pointed up, potato chip nail. Those four things your way. We’re all different. And you’ll be the one looking fresh at mile eight, kilometer 14, whatever race you’re doing, and you’ll have reduced torso rotation, less wasted vertical motion and cleaner cadence.

[00:46:47] A small 1% better focus that stacks with everything else. Here’s a cool way to frame up run form mentally kind of a little hack. It’s easy when you’re fresh. First 20% of a race and long run, anyone looks smooth. The last 10% of that same race and long run, absolutely different story because that’s when your form falls apart and that’s when it matters the most.

[00:47:07] Let me show you what’s actually happening in your body when fatigue hits and how to train for it. In this episode, I’ll be going over the hidden form mistake that slows you down when it matters the most with science to back it up, how to incorporate the fix into your training. ASAP. Again, we got science to back it up.

[00:47:24] Why training your focus matters so much, and if you get to the middle, I got a free download for you that will fix all of this and a whole bunch more. The mistake isn’t how good your form looks initially or how clean your foot strike is. It’s that your form turns into absolute trash under fatigue. This is usually when you need it most at the end of your race or long run.

[00:47:44] Here’s a quick analogy to help it hit home. Imagine driving a new car with perfect alignment and super crisp steering. Then imagine after driving it for a few months on bumpy roads, your shocks start to fade and there’s more bounce over bumps than usual. And when you take your hands off the steering wheel, the whole car starts going towards the guardrails to the right or left.

[00:48:01] You’re still on the road. But never really going in a straight efficient line. That’s race form. When under fatigue, quick science nerd break a 2021 Systematic review, analyze runners before and after fatigue inducing runs. They found that when you get tired, your body essentially falls apart. Mechanically, kind of like when your IKEA furniture starts wobbling after a few years, everyone has that desk or chair.

[00:48:22] Your joints bend differently. Your legs lose their springiness, your feet stay glued to the floor longer on every step. You take fewer steps per minute. Your stride gets shorter. It’s like watching a perfectly synchronized machine solely transform into one of those wacky, waving, inflatable two men outside of car dealerships trying to get you to come in.

[00:48:40] So how do you actually train your form to hold up when you’re falling apart? Enter how to fix tired form in five easy steps. So this is got five parts to it. It’s train the finish, film your fatigued form, strengthen the weak links, mental reset cues, and learn to have higher cadence. Let me go through all of those.

[00:48:59] So with Train the finish, this has three sub components to it. Fast finish runs strides slash sprints and plyometrics slash form drills. Let’s start with the fast finishes. This is subsection a practice progressive negative split long runs. So you’re basically going. A bit slower and then you speed up over the course of a long run, hour, two hours, three hours, however long your long runs are, and or fast finished tempo runs where you start slower.

[00:49:24] You’re doing very easy run and you end very fast. So 10 K pace, 5K pace. That’s different than the progressive runs. This is so your body gets used to how your form feels when you’re tired. You’re not fresh. And then you have the cues and you know, to get upright, which I’ll get into in a second. Subsection B in most runs, especially long runs and workout temple runs, doing form drills, plyometric strides, and even skips.

[00:49:46] Yes, skips. I did a whole episode on skips and strides and sprints. Check. The link below or the show notes if you’re listening, but quick summary, TLDR do 10 to 20 seconds worth of 80 to 90% speed sprints like effort. At the end, give yourself 30 to 42nd walk, run in between and do that four to six times total.

[00:50:04] So you’re just going as fast as you can for 10 to 20 seconds. Break for 30, 40 seconds. I call this dusting off the cobwebs from running at your steady long run pace. It feels kind of gross at first ’cause you’re used to that slower pace and then you gotta like change gears and go faster. But by the second one, I feel great.

[00:50:20] My hips open up and it’s like a nice stretch of your body at the end of the run. And if you’re not ready to do strides for whatever reason, I suggest that you start with skipping. Yes, skipping 20 to 30 seconds with a 20 to 30 seconds rest. Do that four times Super easy. Skips are easy and are a beautiful bridge between marathon pace and plyometrics and sprinting and c.

[00:50:40] And another way to end a run explosively when you’re fatigued is to do form drills and or plyometrics. You can do either or, or both. I did a whole episode on that up here or the link below in your show notes. But a quick, again, TLDR summary form. Drills are butt kicks, high knees, and if you know how to do them, AB and or C skips, those are some ideas.

[00:50:59] There’s other ones out there, but those are the main ones. And plyometrics are more like jumping movements, explosive jumping movements. You got pogo lunge jumps, squat jumps, and broad jumps are some ideas. Pick your favorite two or three and just do one minute of each, 30 seconds of each, 30 seconds off.

[00:51:14] Nothing crazy. Just make sure your intent is to be explosive and have good form and focus when you’re doing them. Don’t half-ass them as you won’t get the benefits. Alright, now this is number two. Learn to have higher cadence. I think this is the most important and potentially trainable thing that you can do.

[00:51:29] Research suggests training and racing at higher cadence may help. It doesn’t help everyone, but it’s helped me. It’s helped other people. While your cadence will still drop, when your fatigue studies show that cadence training reduces impact forces. So how are you hitting the ground and improves mechanics?

[00:51:45] So how your body and your stride and your form is when you’re fresh, which may give you a buffer when fatigue hits, you get some benefits, like reduced energy cost, so high to cadence. With shorter steps can improve running economy by reducing the metabolic cost of each stride. AKA, how efficient your energy is, like a hybrid car going across the country with the least amount of fuel, and it can potentially improve load distribution, which is just sciencey for more frequent light of steps may help distribute the workload more evenly across your body.

[00:52:14] Knowing the steps is one thing, programming them into your brain and actually doing it. Is another number three. Instead of filming your warmup when you’re fresh, film your last one to two reps of a hard workout or strides. That moment right there will tell you the real story. When you see it, your brain automatically tries to fix it the next time because it can visualize it and feel it like when you do a movement in front of a mirror, if you’re exercising or doing dance or something, or like some sort of a stretch movement.

[00:52:38] Yoga you auto correct because you can see it and feel it. Make sure to use 60 frames per second on your camera, FPS or higher. That’s a slow motion on your camera or smartphone. And then you can use a run form analyzation software or app to slow it down. Google them. They’re all on the app store. There’s a whole bunch of ’em.

[00:52:55] You can draw lines and see frame by frame exactly where you are and see where the breakdown is. Number four, strengthen the weak links. So run fatigue hits your glutes, hip flexors, calves, and core First in the gym. Make sure you train those religiously. When you strength train to get the most out of it, two to three times per week in the gym or at home is absolutely fine.

[00:53:15] A few workouts to focus on are kettlebell swings. Those work glutes and hips, single leg dead lifts. Again, glutes and hips just in a different way. Front and side plank holds raises or bands, so you’re on your side core, glutes and hips. Again, hitting it just all in different ways. That’s the goal. It’s holistic.

[00:53:31] You want all these hip thrust bridges, glutes and hips. Bulgarian split squat again, glutes and hips. A lot of these also hit hamstrings, but we’re mainly focusing on glutes and hips because those are the ones that really tire out your hamstrings. Still important. You still need to work them out in the gym.

[00:53:47] Number five, mental reset cues. So this is, we’re getting a bit woo. What your brain does is what your body does. Some simple internal mantras and prompts that keep me focused, that you can use. I’m pushing from the back, so I’m pushing off and going forward. When I’m raising my knees, I’m trying to keep them high.

[00:54:03] I’m trying to keep my arms forward, swinging forward, not to the side. And my favorite visualize that my neck is being held up like a Christmas tree ornament. So I’m being held up. So the only way, if, if I had a string and I was being. Pulled up, I would have to have my neck up. Those are cues that really help me.

[00:54:19] Whenever I’m tired and everything’s getting really hard and my brain’s gonna mush, I’m like, just keep it. Keep it right here. We got this. But your form is only one piece of the puzzle of what is breaking down, what’s actually happening, why all this matters. The real enemy isn’t formed. It’s focus as fatigue.

[00:54:34] Deep into your brain stops listening to your body cues. Instead of adjusting effort or resetting posture, you’re subconsciously panicking. You chase a pace your fitness doesn’t yet own, or usually chasing an effort because you’re naturally slowing down, but your effort is going up. Yeah, that happens.

[00:54:48] You’re trying harder, but your times are going. Now you’re looking at your watch. Why am I going slower? That disconnect breaks the connection between good form and good decisions. In my upcoming book, the 1% Better Runner, I describe focus not as goal setting, but as the ability to link physical signals and mental responses when that link breaks under fatigue and your form crumbles.

[00:55:04] And I’ll be sharing more soon about that and other pillars in future content. So stay tuned to that. So you see the most important thing that I said there, the one thing that protects your form when you’re beyond tired. Cadence finally into cadence. That’s how important this next section is. So let’s slow down, start from scratch and get this right, what cadence actually is, and things will get very, very deep, very quickly, but a whole lot of actionable stuff for you to take away.

[00:55:30] In this episode, I’m gonna show you what cadence actually is. The cadence range most beginners should aim for how to measure yours in 30 seconds. A whole bunch of traps to avoid a free training plan to help you improve your cadence for your whole running life. So we don’t do really quick hacks. We do this for 3, 6, 12 months and a bunch more.

[00:55:51] So what is cadence? It’s simple. Cadence is how often your feet hit the ground per minute. It’s like your heartbeat, but for running, if you count every step you take in one minute, then that’s your cadence. AKA steps per minute. Most smart watches can show you this without your counting, and if you have a foot pod or a power meter, Garmin used to have foot pods or you have a heart rate monitor that has that in it, you can get more accurate readings.

[00:56:16] But the smartwatch is fine, even though cadence is pretty simple. We need to know this. What happens when your cadence is too slow? So when your cadence is too slow, you often end up overstriding. But a quick definition overstriding is when your foot lands too far out in front of your body, that creates a breaking force.

[00:56:33] Every time you step, the breaking slows down and sends extra stress up through your shins. Achilles, sometimes knees, hips, et cetera. Think of it like pushing a sharpening cart and where your hands are at the area where you put your hands on the shopping cart. If your hands are way too out front, so the sharpening cart’s really far and out and they’re too wide, you’re fighting the cart the whole time.

[00:56:55] It’s harder to control. It’s more strained. You just like, why am I doing this? It’s like, ah, this hurts. But when your hands are closer to your body and the shopping cart is actually closer to you, you push from under you and the cart rolls smoother. You have more control, less effort, et cetera. Cadence works.

[00:57:10] Very similarly to that, when you raise cadence a bit, your foot tends to land closer to the center of mass. So again, we don’t want it out in front. We want it under our body. So less breaking, less stress, more smooth, and we’re propelling ourselves forward instead of stopping kind of starting stopping kind of, that’s very CL clunky.

[00:57:28] We don’t need that. We don’t want that. So now we know why cadence matters. How do you measure yours? Yes, your smartwatch does it automagically. It’s pretty easy and it’s actually pretty good. It’s not magic if you’re holding something, barely swinging your arms, you got a phone on you doing something weird like.

[00:57:44] Pushing something like a stroller, pram, et cetera. It can be off. It will give you bad readings, bad data. So here’s a quick check if you wanna do it. So count every time one foot hits the ground for 15 seconds, and then you wanna multiply that by eight. Now you might go, why by eight? Because you actually wanna get both feet hitting the ground.

[00:58:02] But that’s annoying to count both feet. That just steps a minute. It’s really simple. Most smart watches will do that for you. Here’s the part most runners might miss though. Cadence changes with pace, terrain, and fatigue. So measure it on different runs, like an easy conversational run. So zone one, zone two, run on flat ground, and then a faster interval run.

[00:58:22] Just hit lap on your watch, smartwatch, et cetera, and you could see your average cadence for the lap. And here’s the science of research that proves it. In a study published in medicine and science and sports and exercise, runners increase cadence by just five to 10% without running faster, and the mechanics got smoother with less stress going through the joints.

[00:58:40] Think of it like chopping vegetables. If you do long, slow chops, each cut needs more force and control. Big swing, big impact. But when you chop like a chef, ta cha ta, short, quick motions, each cut is lighter, smoother, and easy to repeat. That’s cadence in a nutshell. Again, it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close.

[00:58:57] And if you want to help another runner get better cadence, do one of these things. Watch this until the end. The algorithm loves that. It shares it out to other runners that may not even know about this stuff. You could also share a link of this episode to someone, text it to them, hit ’em in the dms, whatever email.

[00:59:12] Or you could like subscribe or comment and tell me what your current cadence is and if you’re trying to increase it or not. ’cause you might actually be like, I’m good where I am, but why are you watching this video is the question. Okay, let’s get back to it. Alright. Here’s a smart way to increase cadence, which is some of the stuff that’s in that free training plan.

[00:59:28] Because most people, they try to force this whole cadence thing. They push the pace, they start tap dancing down the road, or they jump straight into 180 steps per minute, like it’s a magic switch. And they go, oh, I have to run that fast. Or they over stride. They start reaching out thinking that they’re increasing their cadence.

[00:59:45] That’s how you get, again, tight calves. You get tense shoulders and usually you don’t have rhythm. You need rhythm and feel when you’re running. And when I first tried to fix my cadence, I made the beginner mistake. I try to jump it. Like 10 15, I think 20% in that first week. My calves got tight, I got plantar fasciitis, and that’s when I learned you can’t force cadence.

[01:00:06] You gotta guide it over time. And the smarter way to do it, start with the 5% rule, just bump up your cadence a tiny bit, 5%. Every week or two and just for a few minutes at a time, your body can adapt to that. It likes slow adaptation, especially your muscular skeletal system, your bones, your ligaments, soft tissue.

[01:00:25] It needs time to adapt. You don’t wanna change your form too quickly. Again, this is all in the training plan. You can also use a metronome or simple rhythm cue. This is the easiest thing to do. Most smart watches, they have a metronome feature on them. It either buzzes and beeps to whatever number you set.

[01:00:40] So let’s say you are at 150 steps per minute and you want to go up. So 5% of 150 would be 7.5. So you wanna go from 150 to a hundred fifty seven, a hundred fifty eight steps per minute. Easy enough. Set that in your watch. Or you can use a Spotify playlist. Just search your BPM write and literally search whatever BP M want.

[01:01:01] If you want a hundred fifty five, a hundred sixty eight, it goes in round numbers 180. Just put that into Spotify, 180 BPMs, and you’ll get a playlist, which actually adapts the music and the songs to songs that you already listen to. It’ll actually put those in there that are around the BPM and the pace that you want, or you can get a DJ mix.

[01:01:18] Drumming bass is a great genre to do running. Cadence, a good running cadence ’cause most drumming bass between 170 and 190 BPMs depending on the sub genre of drumming bass. I did a whole deep dive on actually using music and sounds to increase your cadence. You can get that right up here or below in the show notes, uh, or episode description, a link down there.

[01:01:37] And yeah, I went much deeper than this episode will talk about. Or you could add strength training, microdose, plyometrics, and form drills like high knees, A Skips, B skips, C skips. They teach your body to land under your hips and move smoother. Pogo even do that. I did a whole episode on a skips up here. Go and get that.

[01:01:57] And also strides, they help too. So strides can’t help your cadence ’cause you’re running faster. So to run fast, you actually wanna run faster in really short bouts, 10 to 20 seconds of strides. I did all episode on that too. I did so many deep dives and episodes on that. So strides up here or below in the episode description.

[01:02:13] Again, you wanna think shorter steps, not faster is another kind of little mental hack. That’s the secret. You’re tightening the stride. You’re not speeding up because if you increase the stride length and the cadence that makes you go faster and your heart rate will go up and you’ll get tired. So many people say, I increased my cadence, but now I’m running faster and I can’t.

[01:02:30] It’s like, no, you increased your speed too. So you want to keep the same speed. And then have shorter steps. That actually is a skill and it takes time, and I do that in that free training plan. The realistic way is doing one cadence focused run each week, just one, only like five to 10 minutes, usually early in the run when you’re not tired, and then you get your brain and body all synced up and you keep it controlled and sustainable.

[01:02:53] That’s what works for most people. Again, over six months, you then gradually increase your cadence and it sticks. So what cadence should beginners actually aim for, and what are the myths around all of this stuff? You’ve heard that 180 steps per minute might be the perfect cadence. Possibly if you looked into cadence, you’re like, oh wow, this 180.

[01:03:10] Everyone wants 180, 180. Here’s a bit of truth on that. That number got popular because Coach Jack Daniels, he watched a bunch of elite runners at the Olympics count their turnover around that range at race pace on a track. These are also elite pro runners that are running 12, 13 minute, 14 minute 5K, you know, really fast miles.

[01:03:30] So 1500 like it. It’s not what amateurs should be doing. It wasn’t meant to be a rule for every day. Amateur age group runners, myself included, some people might land in that. 180 I did a whole deep dive on is 180 steps per minute. Good for runners. Again, get that up here or below in the episode description.

[01:03:48] I do so many deep dives on all that stuff. If you sign up for that newsletter, it’s a quick little plug. You also get a lot of deep dives that I’ve done in the past and future VO two, max Temple runs, et cetera. If you like to nerd out on all this stuff, it’s free, free on newsletter. You get it once a week.

[01:04:02] Okay? Also your height and your speed matter with how many steps is optimal for you. Taller runners and slower paces mean lower cadence, and that’s actually optimal and that’s normal and that’s fine. The goal isn’t to hit 180. The goal is to get smoother and waste less energy so that you can propel yourself forward with a lower heart rate and run faster, easier.

[01:04:22] Here’s a simple beginner at target. If your easy run cadence is consistently under a hundred and fifty, a hundred fifty five steps a minute, you’re probably reaching. Way out in front and overstriding. So increasing your candidates will most likely stop your overstride. A small bump can help. If you’re already around a hundred and sixty five, a hundred seventy five on easy runs, you’re probably fine, and you could even just increase two to 3% if you don’t need a huge jump to get results.

[01:04:49] Sometimes 5% is enough to feel a real difference. So even 3% again is enough. Now let’s talk about the biggest mistakes runners make. When they try to increase cadence, they jump into it too fast. They add 10% overnight, 15%, 20% overnight. That is a path to injury. Your body needs time to adapt. They override while fixing that cadence.

[01:05:08] They reach forward with their leg thinking that they’re increasing cadence, which is the exact opposite of what we want to do. It might cause injury. As I said earlier, they obsess over foot strike. Worrying about landing when your toes are midfoot just creates tension. Focus on rhythm. Instead, there’s no perfect foot strike.

[01:05:24] I did a full episode on foot strike, four foot versus Midfoot versus Heel Strike. Up here or below in the episode description ’cause cadence and foot strike. They’re actually very closely related and you also end up running faster to hit a higher cadence if you increase your strad length than cadence.

[01:05:39] That speed, we don’t want that. That’s fine for intervals. ’cause when you run faster, usually a cadence goes faster. That’s great for intervals not so great. When we wanna do low heart rate, easy zone one, zone two running, which is what most distance runners should be doing and aiming for most of the time to build up their aerobic system, et cetera.

[01:05:55] That base the real way forward is slow consistency. That is sustainable. Alright? You know what cadence is now, but knowing the number and actually running with a good cadence to very different things and lots of runners, they trip up on that same mistake. Here, let me show you what it is and how to fix it without forcing it.

[01:06:13] I will be going over the number one mistake runners make with their cadence. The simple reframe that instantly makes it easier. Three proven ways to feel cadence instead of forcing it all was science to back it up and a free download to fix all of this. ASAP. When I was training for my first Ironman, I thought efficiency meant stretching my stride as far out as I could, more ground cover for step right, wrong.

[01:06:36] My college coach at the time shouts to coach Marty Owens. Loved. The man stopped me and said, try shorter steps. Get power from your glutes, not from Overstriding. I thought he was crazy, but just after a few reps, I realized I was smoother, faster, and less tired. That was the first time I understood cadence, wasn’t about numbers, it was about rhythm and feel, and it stuck with me until this day, and hopefully until I die 30, 40, 50 years from now.

[01:07:01] Cadence isn’t a goal, it’s a byproduct. When runners fixate on 180 steps per minute, they skip the most important step. Learning how cadence feels when it’s right. So why does chasing number backfire? Because cadence is tied to efficiency. The real variable is in how many steps you take. It’s how much time you spend on the ground, which in the running science world is called ground contact time.

[01:07:23] The shorter it is, the more elastic energy you recycle. Or elastic recoil as it’s called. And the longer it is, the more you waste. Imagine a person trying to pedal a bicycle faster by moving their legs more quickly, but the bike’s chain is loose and slipping off all the gears. No matter how frantically they pedal, all outta control, they’re wasting energy and getting absolutely nowhere.

[01:07:43] What they need isn’t faster pedaling. They need to fix the chain First run science nerd Break researchers at the University of Wisconsin took female runners and had them increase their cadence by just five to 10% above their natural rate. So if they naturally ran at 160 steps per minute, they increased it from 167 to 176 steps per minute.

[01:08:04] What they found was pretty wild. Impact forces on their knees and hips dropped significantly, but their speed stayed exactly the same. So we know that a small five to 10% increase in cadence can reduce impact forces without slowing you down. But how do we actually achieve this? So focusing on the input without obsessively counting steps or forcing an unnatural running style, the output cue, what actually improves your cadence.

[01:08:29] So the key is shorter, quicker steps at the same effort. We don’t force it. It’s not robotic and definitely not Overstriding. Side note, if you want to know more about overstriding, I did a full deep dive up here. Click on that or the link below or in the show notes of your podcast app. But here’s Dr.

[01:08:44] WittFitt, the Internet’s busiest running physical therapist, and she’s an awesome human with a cool way to think about shortening your strides. I want you to focus on shortening your stride, shortening how long you are stepping while keeping your same pace. Here is a cue I give to runners. If you are running down a paved trail, a dirt trail, and all of a sudden there’s a lizard or a snake that crosses your path, you kind of.

[01:09:07] Pull back your steps get shorter. ’cause you’re probably trying to either stop or jump over the critter. This is actually a great sensation to put into your brain because that is what shortening your stride feels like while trying to maintain the same pace. Because here’s why that cue actually works.

[01:09:25] When something starts across your path, your brain doesn’t have time to think stride. Mechanics, I need to do this perfectly. That’s too much time. It triggers a reflex. Shorten quicken, stay light. Neurologically. That recoil response reduces overriding and forces faster turnover without you even trying.

[01:09:40] It’s the brain doing the coaching for you. In my full Cadence Toolkit episode, I went through 18 ways to do this systematically. So go check that out. Link there or link below or in the show notes. So how do you actually train cadence without overthinking it? Let’s go into the three simple steps that build rhythm instead of obsession.

[01:10:00] So the three ways are practicing uphill, running, running without shoes on or minimalist shoes. And three, run with audio cues. Let’s zoom into each one. Number one, practice uphill pickups, intervals, strides, whatever you wanna call it. Sprints. So hills are nature’s cadence hack. It’s pretty cool. All you need to do is run 15 to 30 seconds uphill.

[01:10:21] We don’t want to do too steep and not too shallow. Do this at a strong effort. Your stride, it automatically, automatically shortens your turnover. Quickens. You don’t even have to think about cadence. It just happens. It’s pretty cool. So neurologically running uphill increases ground reaction forces. Again, more run science and it forces your brain to recruit.

[01:10:39] Muscles faster to keep momentum. Huge bonus. It builds strength in your glutes, calves, and hip flexors, which means higher cadence, feels easier on flat ground, so you actually are wearing a weight vest. Pretty much do not wear a weight vest when you run, by the way. Walking weight vest is fine, but it’s just like wearing a weight vest, taking it off, and then you’re like, oh my God, this is so much easier.

[01:11:00] Number two, do 30 seconds of barefoot or minimal shoes. Strides on grass or soft surface. This one’s simple, but it’s powerful. Take your shoes off or use minimal run shoes. If you got really fragile feet, I got fragile feet with the least amount of cushion. Heel drop and just run 20 to 30 seconds. You wanna do a bit of a sprint, like a stride.

[01:11:21] It’s like in between a fast run and a sprint, and you wanna do it on safe grass, sand or dirt. AstroTurf or artificial grass is best or even a track. And if you’re on regular grass or dirt, just look out for rocks. Kind of do a quick scan, recon of your area sticks, divots again, rocks, pebbles, et cetera. On the ground.

[01:11:39] You don’t wanna hurt yourself. Twist an ankle without that cushion of your normal shoes, you know that’s stacked and all this stuff. Your body instantly protects itself. Your stride shortens. Cadence goes up. It’s pure survival, the science behind it. So shoes especially super shoes and super cushiony, plush run shoes.

[01:11:56] So a lot of people like to run in really nice. These are so soft and, and you know, bouncy, it’s like, ah, they blunt your sensitive nerve ending body parts at the bottom of your feet. So barefoot or minimal shoe running reduces. Proprioceptive latency, which just means your feet sends sharper faster signals to your brain.

[01:12:13] ’cause it knows actually what’s happening on the ground can actually feel all sides. It’s like upgrading your body’s wifi or Bluetooth connection. And once your brain maps that rhythm, you can carry it back to normal shoe running. Huge caution. If you don’t run or walk barefoot a lot, only do three to four, 20 to 32nd strides at first.

[01:12:33] And please, please, please, please go a tiny bit slower than a normal sprint starting out for a few weeks. And you only need to do one a week and then you could do two a week After you get a couple of these in. The risk of injury is quite high and all we are doing is getting your brain body connection to fire better.

[01:12:49] This isn’t a suffer fest as the reward is way too low for the risk of hurting yourself. Run science nerve break number two, barefoot study. So sciences compared. Experienced barefoot runners on a treadmill in three conditions, completely barefoot and minimal issues and regular running shoes. The barefoot condition automatically produce shorter strides and higher step frequency without the runner even trying to change anything.

[01:13:12] And number three, audio cue run with a subtle. You can use a few things here. Some people like the metronome on their smartwatch that beeps and buzzes at the correct cadence. I personally hate it. I can’t stand it. It’s probably the musician in me and the DJ in me. I need something that’s a bit more live and with the pulse.

[01:13:29] So instead I use music, who would’ve thought, but it naturally matches the rhythm that I want. I did a huge deep dive on how to do this at the episode. Up here below, or in the show notes, you can get the link, but here’s a quick. Version TLDR of it all. Spotify is great. They have a bunch of playlists that are actually made similar to the music that you like if you just type in the BPM of your choice.

[01:13:50] So, uh, they range from, the lowest I’ve gone is 170 and I think the highest I’ve seen is 190 BPMs, uh, or possibly again, lower or higher. I haven’t really tested it, but that’s one thing. Spotify, that’s probably the easiest hack drum and bass. So if you wanna download like an MP three that you can modify, the speed of drum and bass is great.

[01:14:10] I call that electronic European soul music or hip hop r and b music or urban black music. Um, or you can use a hip hop mix that is between 80 and 90. BPMs drumming bass is about 175 to 185 BPMs, so that stuff works perfectly. Some rock music is between. 80 and 90 bps. I don’t know of any rock DJ mixes, but if you know of some and you want to just listen to an hour of a rock DJ mix, why not?

[01:14:35] Why does this work? The science behind it? Because your brain is wired to sink movement with rhythm. It’s called auditory motor entrainment translation. If the beat is right, your feet will follow without you counting steps in your head. I use VLC player on my smartphone to dial in the exact BPM of the DJ mix.

[01:14:52] So I’m getting really granular. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but I like doing it ’cause I’m a bit of a nerd. Unfortunately, house techno four on the floor, folks won’t be able to run to that beat as the BPMs. The beats per minute. Okay, steps per minute. It’s too slow. It’s usually around 115, 120 to like 150 BPMs for like really fast trance.