1. Stand and move with structural alignment – Feet under ankles, ankles under knees, knees under hips, hips under shoulders. All with your feet and knees pointing straight forward.
2. Pick your feet up off the ground in a straight line, ending up under your butt (your knee should stick out infront of you). Initiate the movent from your hamstrings (back of your leg). At this time you should not be moving. You’re just standing in place picking your feet up off the ground and setting them back down. You’re teaching the pattern to your brain.
3. To move forward slowly fall forward like a tree hinging from your ankles. The further you fall, the faster you run.
4. Your foot should make contact with the ground at the middle to front of the foot. This should happen purely from you placing your foot down directly under your structural center of mass. This will allow you to use your calf as a shock absorber, and help you avoid having a heel strike slow you down and cause shin splints.
Tips:
-For this to be effective you’ll have to work up to having a very quick foot turnover, so work on having light, quick feet.
-When done correctly your foot strike can barely be heard and you’ll find yourself starteling people as you run by.
-A quick way to learn the form is to run in bare feet (no shoes). If you listen to what your body is feeling you’ll quickly start taking quick, choppy steps, and landing on the front of your foot to avoid causing pain via heel striking.
Now get outside and have fun by working hard! 🙂
