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Lead Stories: Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Longer Lower Legs =
More Efficient Running

Posted October 29th, 2007 at 3:30 PM by Allyson Rosen

Section: News & Results, Running & Training, Health & Fitness, Exercise

People who have longer lower leg lengths (the distance from knee to ankle) will usually have greater endurance during running or walking than those with shorter lower leg lengths.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin showed that people with longer lower legs use less energy when they run (Journal of Human Evolution, August 2007).

In a previous paper in the same journal, these authors showed that people with longer lower legs are better able to prevent heat build-up, which slows you down and makes you tired. When you exercise, almost 80 percent of the energy that you use to power your muscles is lost as heat.
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How To Be An Economical
and Efficient Runner

Posted October 19th, 2007 at 3:26 PM by Lisa Cieplechowicz

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Health & Fitness, Exercise

For many runners, scoring a faster running time can be a point of frustration. Though you train regularly and your technique may seem impeccable, sometimes your efforts seem to add up to nothing when it comes to improving your speed. In fact, how fast or slow you run often has a great deal to do with your economy of motion.

Economy of motion is a simple enough concept. It refers to the relationship between how much energy you expend when you run and how fast you go. Typically, the less energy it take you to run a given distance the faster - or more “economical” - you will run. Unfortunately, as the New York Times reports, improving your running economy is one task that’s particularly difficult to accomplish, if possible at all.

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ASK FLASH: Running Form

Posted July 11th, 2007 at 11:08 AM by Joshua Flash Gordon

Section: Running & Training, Injury & Rehab, Columns, Training Tips, Ask Flash

Need advice? Injured? Confused? Overwhelmed? Bored? ASK FLASH!
ASK FLASH is a free advice column to help you with all of your running, fitness and nutrition inquiries. To ASK FLASH — simply fill out the form at the conclusion of the column.

This week we briefly tackle the topic of running form…

Q. I was looking through my race photos and I noticed that a turning outwards of the ankle in a few photos– mainly the ones from the Capitol Hill classic (photo 1), which were taken immediately after a big long steep uphill. So, perhaps the hill had something to do with it. Both photos 2 & 3 are at the finish lines of marathons, which were relatively flat.

Another question is– If this ankle turn is a problem, does this make a difference for longer races? Or does it only affect shorter distances/sprints where every split second counts? ~Elizabeth from Virginia (Pictured)

A. Form is an interesting topic. In general, I believe it is important to minimize any body movements that are not working toward moving you forward in a comfortable and efficient manner. To that end, the fact that your ankle is turning significantly in two of the pictures that you sent me is some evidence that there is inefficiency in your stride. However, don’t let that discourage you …
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Increasing Stride Length

Posted May 18th, 2007 at 12:30 PM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor. Make sure to also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

Stride length should not be increased by reaching your foot forward. That only moves your foot plant point in front of your center of gravity and causes a braking action, slows you down and adds to injury-causing stresses. The desired ways to increase stride length are to increase the time your foot is planted on the ground, thus delaying the push-off point, and a stronger push-off, which will increase forward momentum.

I believe there are four primary ways to do this. One is to increase leg strength, which Norman suggested and you have explained probably isn’t what’s holding you back. The other three ways are through improving running form, speed work and stretching.

Running form - The key here is to keep your center of gravity forward, especially your hips.
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Stride Length Improvement

Posted February 2nd, 2007 at 10:00 AM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

Although both stride rate and stride length increase as runners become faster, greater gain is realized by more runners through the increase of stride length, not stride rate. And stride length is the ultimate limiter of how fast we will eventually become because it is the primary bio-mechanical determinant of running economy.

Certainly, a runner who has a very slow stride rate, such as 150 or fewer strides/minute, can realize a lot of pace gain through increased leg turnover as his/her cardio-respiratory systems develop to enable faster paces.
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Expand your comfort zones; improve “running strength”

Posted December 22nd, 2006 at 6:15 AM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

Running strength isn’t quite as definitive as VO2Max or lactate threshold. It’s a bit ambiguous. However, as I view it, it has two components: physiological and psychological.

The physiological component is related to running economy, but it is also different. I think of both running strength and running economy as sub-elements of a broader subject that I call running efficiency.

Running economy is a measure of how efficiently you use oxygen while running at a specific pace. Improving running economy means that you can physiologically sustain a faster pace at a given percentage of VO2max, or a given pace at a lower percentage of VO2max, for a longer distance.
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Marathon Training: Long Run Time and Total Weekly Mileage

Posted November 23rd, 2006 at 12:00 PM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Make sure to also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

I don’t like to apply precise, limiting criteria, whether percentage or time based, to the relationship of the long run to total mileage on a week by week basis. For instance, some people, including some experts, suggest that the long run should be limited to a certain percentage of weekly mileage. Some say that it shouldn’t be longer than 20-25%. Others say 30-35%. Still others say that it is OK to go as high as 40%. Bob Glover suggests that it can go as high as 50%. On the other hand, Jack Daniels says it should be limited to 25-30%. The recommendations are all over the spectrum.

Applying the criteria of somewhere in the 25-35% range, which is where most of the recommendations that I have seen fall, would limit the 40 mile/week runner to a long run of 10-14 miles. I think that is inadequate to prepare to run a marathon seriously. Read the rest of this entry »

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Running Form

Posted November 10th, 2006 at 7:30 AM by Martha Jones

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Many people look terribly uncoordinated when they run. Telling them to change their form will just make them more uncoordinated. If a coach criticizes a team member for poor running form and doesn’t correct the underlying causes, the person is likely to become self-conscious about how he or she looks, and run even more slowly. Coordination usually improves just with repeated practice in the chosen sport.

Running form can improve markedly if you can correct muscle imbalances and structural abnormalities with appropriate exercises and perhaps mechanical devices. A coach can videotape the athletes while they run, then review the tape in slow motion to analyze the mechanical defects. For example, leaning forward during running is often caused by weak back muscles, which can be treated with exercises to strengthen the back. Pointing the toes out is often caused by weak lower leg muscles and can be corrected by doing exercises to strengthen the shin muscles. Leaning back on the heels after foot plant can be caused by excessive rolling-in motion of the feet or weak calf muscles. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tall vs. Short Runners

Posted September 29th, 2006 at 4:00 AM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Make sure to also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

[Some people believe] that taller runners inherently have a longer stride length. And, as a result, if two runners have the same stride rate, the taller one should be faster because of this naturally longer stride length. Neither premise is true. The determination of stride length simply is not that simple.

Although leg length, which is largely determined by height, is a factor that does affect stride length, it is a relatively minor one. Stride length is primarily determined by rear leg drive and range of motion. The former (drive) is completely independent of leg length (height) and the latter (range) is only very slightly influenced by leg length….do the geometrical math.

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