Size Doesn't Matter - But Your Technique Does (For Running, That Is)

When I signed up for my first ultramarathon, I started training like crazy. I hired a personal trainer and a strength coach to kick my butt into high gear twice a week. For months I ran, biked, squatted, pressed, lunged, and lifted my way towards ultramarathon fitness. I was in the best shape of my life. Little muscles I didn’t even know existed started popping out and I delighted in making my girlfriends squeal in horror at the size of my flexed quads. And yet, in spite of all my hard work and my Herculean muscles, just a few months before competition day, my training suddenly ground to a halt. 

I started developing all sorts of injuries, from pains in my knee to stress fractures to tendonitis. I saw doctor after doctor, determined to fix the problem. I got ultrasound, electric stimulation, orthotics, and kinesio taping, but nothing seemed to work. I was told I had lazy glutes, imbalanced quads, tight hip flexors, weak bones, and fallen arches in my feet. One specialist finally told me my body simply wasn’t made for running and if I wanted to walk without a cane in my thirties and forties, I had better quit.

I was devastated, but also too stubborn to give up. At long last, I was put in touch with a fellow Canadian, legendary ultrarunner Ray Zahab. Within seconds of seeing me run, Ray had the answer dozens of doctors had been unable to find. The problem wasn’t in my bones, muscles, or tendons. No, the problem was in my running technique. 

Over the months I had spent working on every aspect of my body, I hadn’t spent a single minute working on the way my body moved. Frankly, I didn’t really think there was much to it. However, what I quickly learned was that if you don’t have proper running form, then it really doesn’t matter how much you run, how many weights you lift, or how large your quads are. That’s right: the size of your muscles doesn’t matter – it is how you use them!

So that you can avoid the same mistakes I made, I’ve written down my top five basic pointers on running technique:

1. Body Position

Generally speaking, you want to be running with your head in a neutral position, looking forward, and with your shoulders down and back. Of course, if you are running over difficult terrain, you may have to look downwards to avoid tripping, but you want to avoid running with your head down because it will also pull your shoulders forward and hunch your back. You should also be keeping your arms at about ninety degrees, swinging your arms forward and back with your elbow tight to your body. Avoid the tendency of sticking your elbows out or swinging your arms diagonally across your body, as this will waste your energy. You want to use every bit of effort into propelling you forward, not sideways!

Some people advocate leaning forward with your upper body so that you are leading with your chest. I agree this is a desired form, but I don’t think it helps to try to force it. You will naturally wind up in this position if you follow the next two points.

2. Stride Length

This one is a big one, so pay attention: the vast majority of you are probably overstriding. This means that in an effort to run farther and faster, you are reaching your leg out too far in front of you and most likely landing on your heel. This is the equivalent of slamming on the brakes! Remember, you want to get maximum result out of minimal effort. The best way to do this is to land front- or mid-foot with your body positioned more or less over top of your leg so you can push forward off it. Easier said than done, right? Working on point number three will help get you there!

3. Cadence

Cadence goes hand-in-hand (or foot-in-foot!) with stride length. Cadence refers to the speed at which your legs are turning over. Just as most of you are probably overstriding, I would bet good money you are also using a very low cadence. To find out what your cadence is without having to rely on fancy gadgets, time yourself running for ten seconds and count how many times your feet hit the ground. Before I started working on my technique, I was running at 22 per 10 seconds, or 132 foot strikes per minute. The most efficient cadence is 30 foot strikes per 10 seconds, or 180 foot strikes per minute. Next time you watch a marathon on television, watch for the top runners’ cadences – you’ll see pretty near 180.

Rather than try to count your steps all the time, the easiest way to increase your cadence is to run to a song that has a beat close to 180 or 90 beats per minute (bpm). For me, my song is Cinderella Man by Eminem. Seriously! It has a beat of around 90bpm, so I know I need two foot strikes per beat. On one run, I listened to the song on repeat thirty times until it was engrained in my brain – and in my feet. If you can’t find a song of your own, you’re welcome to borrow mine!

At first, you’ll feel a little bit like motor-mouse. You will feel like your legs are spinning underneath you at a ridiculous speed without getting you anywhere. But give it time. Soon, you will start to build speed while maintaining your cadence, and your stride length will follow as well. All the pieces of the puzzle will start to come together!

4. Breathing

Some people try to match their breathing with their strides. If this describes you, here’s a quick anatomy lesson: your legs are not attached to your lungs, so stop trying to match them. You want to be able to get into a good breathing rhythm, but it may or may not match what your legs are doing. Your breathing will, however, give you an indication of how hard you are working. If you are running long distances, you should be able to breathe comfortably enough to carry a conversation. If you can’t, slow down a bit until you get your breathing back.

5. Relaxation

I know - running can be painful. It can be a real struggle. But whenever you can, remind yourself to relaaaaax. This means every part of your body. For me, I find that if I’m not thinking about it, I will automatically start to clench my hands into fists. Every twenty minutes or so I try to tell myself to let them go and I immediately feel a difference throughout my body. The tenser you are, the more unnatural your running stride will be. For example, if your knees and lower body are tense, you won’t be able to absorb the shock of hitting the ground very well and this will cause you to bob up and down, which is really inefficient. Telling your lower body to relax will help keep your upper body steady and allow you to channel your energy forward rather than up and down. If you are running trails, think of yourself as a stream of water easily passing over the rocks and roots underneath you. Smooth as silk!

Next time you go out running, try tackling one of these points at a time, and then when you think you’ve mastered it, move onto the next one. Before you know it, you’ll be the hottest runner out there - because it is all in the technique, baby!

Your IT Band is Not the Enemy (But Maybe Your Foam Roller Is)

Foam rollers seem to be all the rage these days and often for good reason. They’ve been demonstrated to restore lost range of motion at certain joints and many of us swear by their ability to help massage away soreness and speed recovery. Chances are high that if you’ve ever used a roller, you’ve used it to roll out your iliotibial band (IT band), and likely at the recommendation of a trainer or one of your runner friends. It’s okay. We’ve all been there. 

 

But now do me a favour. Stop abusing your IT band. It is your friend, and you haven’t been treating it like one. 

 

Initially, the logic behind rolling your IT band seems fairly sound. Foam rollers increase range of motion and reduce pain. My IT bands are tight and my knees hurt. Therefore I should apply the roller to my IT bands to solve these problems, right? Unfortunately, more often than not the answer to this question is a resounding “no.” It’s quite possible you’re actually doing more harm than help and further stretching an already abused and over-elongated piece of tissue.

 

In order to understand why rolling your IT band isn’t always a good idea, you first need tounderstand the anatomy of your hips and thighs and the issues that most commonly lead to IT band pain in the first place.

 

Kinesiology Lesson Time

 

On the sides of our hips we have a couple of muscles responsible for the motion known as hip abduction, the movement of your leg away from the centerline of your body. Basically, if you’re standing up and you lift your leg out to the side without rotating your foot or leaning your upper body in the opposite direction (which would be cheating) you’ve just abducted your hip. Congratulation, that’s step one in understanding the problem.

 

Step two is understanding what hip abduction is mainly responsible for. It is meant to allow for dynamic stabilization of your knee during movement, particularly walking and running. Our knees have a tendency to shift medially, or laterally, during movement and our bodies use hip abduction as a way to mitigate this issue. 

 

Step three is understanding the muscles that produce this motion. Your IT band is attached to a smallish muscle called your tensor fascia latae (TFL), which is meant to stabilize your knee and assist in abduction, but the prime mover is actually your gluteus medius, one of the muscles in your buttocks (found, perhaps unsurprisingly on the upper part of the lateral aspect of your glutes). I would say that in 90% of the cases that present with IT band issues it is the gluteus medius (or glute med if you want to speak in sophisticated PT lingo) that is actually the culprit behind the pain.

 

When the Glute Med Goes on Vacation

 

The issue is often that the glute med either isn’t firing correctly or just straight up isn’t firing at all. The human body is an incredible machine and will adapt to just about any demand placed on it. When one of your primary movers is too weak to perform the movement on it’s own, some of the stabilizers and assistive muscles will kick in to help. While this isn’t such a big deal if it happens once or twice as a result of absolute fatigue of the prime mover, when your body becomes neurologically programmed to always initiate movement with the smaller assistive muscles, then you’re setting yourself up for an injury.

 

What typically happens is something like the following scenario. Our glute med isn’t firing correctly for any number of reasons. Generally speaking, the glute med is one of the weakest muscles I test on a regular basis, even in monster athletes. When the glute med is weak, it can’t do much to stabilize your knee so the TFL kicks in. Now your TFL isn’t quite as big or powerful as the glute med so it can’t dynamically stabilize your knee nearly as well. It is, however, attached to this big thick piece of tissue (your IT band) that it can tighten up to help stabilize the knee statically. The problem with this is that you’re now statically using a structure to achieve dynamic stabilization. That’s kind of like responding to the shocks on your car being too loose by tightening them up so much that they can’t move.

 

As a result of this compensation an enormous and unnatural stress is placed on the IT band, which leads to tightness, inflammation, pain, and (frequently) foam rolling. The problem then is that we are attempting to treat an over-stretched, inflamed tissue by further stretching and beating the heck out of it. While it may feel nice for a little while after your leg goes numb, you aren’t really doing anything to affect any kind of permanent change and in some cases you may be pushing the issue further. 

 

How to Test for Glute Med Weakness

 

The truth is that glut med weakness is an incredibly common issue. If you have IT band pain and want to test for glute med weakness in yourself you’ll probably need a friend to help. Lay down on your side in a straight line and make sure your hips are stacked on top of one another. Now with your legs out straight bring your top leg, whichever it may be, back a bit so that your toe is touching the heel of your bottom foot. Now flex your ankle and try to raise your leg. 

 

Many people have trouble even performing this leg lift without rolling backwards (which allows you to cheat with your hip flexors), turning the foot outwards (which allows you to cheat with your external rotators) or letting the leg shift forwards (which lets you use your hip flexors again). So if you’re able to do this you’re already ahead of roughly 50% of the population. 

 

Now have your friend attempt to push your leg down gently at first and then with slightly increasing force. If you can maintain the height of your leg without your body position shifting, then congratulations, your hip abduction is actually quite strong. For most of us, we will either resort to cheating or simply be unable to maintain the leg raise.

 

 

The nice thing about this issue is that it can be fixed rather easily. The same leg lift you used as a test can be used as an initial exercise to reteach your glute med to fire. You simply need to pay close attention to avoid cheating and make sure you feel the muscle pulling from the upper region of the lateral aspect of your buttock (where the glute med is located). If you start to feel the pull on the front of your hip, then take a break and adjust your position because you’re cheating. 

 

As with most movement disorders the true solution is mindfulness of your body position and mindfulness of your movements. Weak hip abduction is an insidious because it can cause all sorts of issues. Luckily, it’s rather easy to identify and deal with. Get your glutes firing again and maintain mindfulness of their proper use while working out. Yeah, it really is that simple. Now get out there and get moving.