Running Technique: How you run and how you can improve your style
If you go out for a run often you wont notice if your running technique is going more damage to your body that good. I drive my car all around Berkshire, Surry and South West London delivering personal training sessions. On my way to clients I see so many people running with the worst style of running. It’s a personal trainers nightmare because all I want to do is get out the car and tell them what they are doing wrong.
Things to look out for when your running:
- Running with slouched shoulders, Try to stand upright and use your core muscles.
- Knee collapsing in whilst taking a stride, This is due to weak glute muscles.
- Not lifting your leg up, instead you move your leg out to the side to take a stride.
- Not being strong through your shoulders when running, This can make your arms flair out and seem to be out of control.
Running with slouched shoulders
If you are a culprit for this you need to start looking up from the group for a start and start looking in front of you. This will make your body open up more. If you feel that a slouched position is a natural position for you and you end up with back pain after running it’s because you have a weak core.
Start to incorporate a core routine that stimulates your muscle surrounding your shoulder girdle, spine and hips. This will strengthen all the areas needed to correct your posture whilst running.
Knee collapsing in whilst taking a stride
The leg collapsing in when landing or when taking off is a key indication that your glutes are weak. If you continue running you will end up with excruciating knee pain whist running. Until you start to strengthen your glutes with some leg exercises you wont get any better.
Start by learning how to squat, lunge, deadlift, hip thrust and mini band walk. These exercise all work on the strength of your glutes and legs. Once strengthened you will want to maintain strength or get even stronger to make yourself even faster.
Not lifting your knees up, instead you move your leg out to the side to take a stride without using your hip flexor
The hip flexor is one of the main muscles used when running. If your unable to lift your knee up like you are performing a high knee drill then you need to stretch your hip flexors. This will improve your range of movement through your stride length. Making you able to cover a bigger distance over on stride.
If your the one who doesn’t lift your knees up when running you will end up with tight hip flexors and bad knee pain. Start to practice running in front of a mirror in the gym. You can also look at getting a running coach/personal trainer to help you improve your running style.
Not being strong through your shoulders when running
Lots of runners don’t see the point in working the upper body when training for running. This can be due to people thinking that the arms aren’t used during the running technique or they don’t want to carry extra weight. You can incorporate the shoulder when performing core exercises. Im not saying you have to bench press and do lost of weights. However adding exercises like bear crawls, thread the needle, Supermans and bird dogs can all improve shoulder strength.
This will enable you to maintain strength whilst running and not losing energy through the lack of arm control.
Last note:
In my day personal training in Windsor, I want to be able to see lots of people running up and down the Long Walk with great running technique. So that I can think that someone has got a good running style that’s worthy of a complement.
