I feel like I’m learning to run all over again. Trying to find good form. (kinda long post) (Read 556 times)

Or maybe I just never learned the right way. This week, I ditched the stability shoes. Well, almost. I have a new pair of DS Trainers – a lot less shoe than Mizuno Wave Inspires or Brooks Adrenalines or Nike Triaxx. Ironic how less shoes costs more money. Anyway, first run on the treadmill yesterday felt fine but I could feel my left ankle roiling in. So I put my Superfeet greens in this morning for a 4 mile easy run outside on asphalt. Even with the SF, I really felt a lot more of the ground when I landed. It really made me adjust and not strike hard with my heel. I was landing more consistently on the mid foot and balls of my feet and when I toed off, I felt like I was using more of my forefoot instead of predominantly pushing off with my big toe. I also almost instinctively used a little more knee bend but I'm not sure if that made me "sit in a bucket" with my hips. I was trying to be conscious of not bouncing and was using my body to absorb the shock instead of relying on the shoes. It sounds like a lot but the bottom line was that I was landing softly and quickly with my feet (they were REALLY quiet this morning) and adjusting my body to that. Does this sound like I’m on the right track? One issue is that my left foot still seems to want to abduct (point out too far), resulting in external rotation. I’m REALLY working on this. It gets better when I run faster (at least I think it does) but my left side is where all my injury issues are. PF, runner’s knee, even shin splints will be worse on that side. Any other tips for getting my stupid left foot to point straight ahead? And I also would love to be able to run in these w/o the SFs but am nervous about doing so since I do have low arches (but a neutral gait). I really like running with less shoe and am doing all sorts of exercises to strengthen and stretch my arches, achilles, hams, quads, hips etc. I’m wondering if I’m crazy trying to work on form so much but I think the stability shoes are just holding me back. And I want to run my first marathon this Spring and never will if I keep getting nagging injuries. Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading MTA: running my first FULL marathon this spring, not a half.

If you lie down on your back and let your leg muscles loose...and see how your feet point out. My left foot always point visibly more outward than my right. Sometimes, particularly when I get tired, I feel like I'm running more on my left leg than my right. I have more injuries on my left leg/foot than my right and my left leg is stronger than my right. The thing is; there aren't too many people who is perfectly synchronized. But trying to "correct" an issue like "my foot pointing out" by "thinking about it" is not the way to do it. There probably is (if not multiple) a reason why it does and most likely it's a matter of joint and/or muscles way up in your hips. I have a picture of runners like Bill Rodgers whose foot spraws out (he runs tip-toe). Australia's Rob de Castella is even worse. In most cases, our body is resilient enough to take such twisting and turning. The issue, to me, is more of an issue of certain part of your body--legs and feet--is not strong enough to take such beatings. I think this is where we went wrong a quarter of a century ago; we went to protect and support those weak areas of our body instead of strengthen them. It sounds like you're doing what you need to do to strengthen your body; just make sure you talk to someone who knows what he/she is talking about and/or qualified PT to identify the actual cause of your "foot pointing outward". If in fact some of your issues like PF is caused by twisting and turning of your foot, exercises like picking up marbles with your toes would work well to strengthen your arch to counter it BUT it would probably not going to do anything to correct your twisting and turning of your foot. Like I said, it's most probably coming from your hip joints. You're possibly knocked-knee and, if such a structural issue is the cause of it, it is very difficult to even do anything about it. But, once again, I'm pretty much convinced that our body is strong enough to take such abuse; it's just that we weakened our body over the years with inactivity/over-protective gears.