Why Not Flat Foot Strike?

33gail33

I am another one who switched to forefoot strike and also now won't wear anything but zero drop shoes. I switched over a few years ago to try to minimize impact. I was always a slow runner and don't race or anything so not sure how my speed was impacted. I am not running right now due to knee arthritis, but still only wear zero drop shoes for walking and such.

autumnblade75

It feels like I'm landing on the bottom of my heel, to me. Nearly flat-footed. I switched to zero drop, minimal shoes fairly early on, and it was like magic. As soon as I made the transition, and I didn't bother with gradual build-up, either, I was running nearly a minute per mile faster (from 12 min miles to 11).

A couple years ago, I was persuaded to give cushioned shoes another try. I went with a neutral shoe, around 10mm drop. I don't wear them. They're ok, but the toes are a little too narrow to be comfortable. The cushion causes my heels to sink in when I stride, and the top of the heel cup abrades my ankle. They're not so bad that I couldn't wear them for short distances, but anything over 6 miles means I'm gonna need some bandaids.

I'm convinced that it's not what part of the foot hits first, but how hard you're slamming it into the ground. I know I feel best when I'm landing lightly - it feels springy and gazelle-like, and I tend to startle the people I'm coming up behind. I don't know how they don't hear the huffing and puffing, even if they can't hear my footfall... I must be doing better with that than I realize, too.

ATT949

When I started running, I ran on my forefoot because I used to play basketball. That simply doesn't work when you're running half marathons so I had to learn to run on my mid foot. It became "natural" very quickly.
Along the way, I got sucked into the "support" game. That lasted a few months until I got away from the mass market magazines and learned more about the physiology of running. My shoe of choice were Newtons and then I switched to Kinvara's when I got tired of the price of Newtons.

GiddyupTim

I am a natural forefoot striker and I do believe that gives you more natural shock absorption and more spring in each step that translates to being faster somehow.
That said: I remember a study done by physiologists at Harvard a few years back. This was back when the whole forefoot and barefoot running movement was starting and getting much attention.
I'm pretty sure that at that time it was taken for granted that forefoot running was the evolutionarily preferred running style of the caveman and African savanha dweller.
So they tried to train heel strikers to forefoot run. They could not and, I believe, they also found that heel strikers did experience more pounding force with their strides but did not have more injuries.
Whatever it was they found specifically, they definitely concluded that if flat foot is your style, you probably cannot change it very much and it really doesn't matter.
I am pretty sure my running form is exquisite and people out there are passing me all the time.

ttippie2000

I'm age 56 and being about 220 at around 18% body fat. I like to run but notice the weakness in my physiology is my Achilles tendon. I just can't run on my toes very much. Landing flat footed and trying to distribute the weight seems to work for me. Even running flat foot presents some limitations in terms of the stress I incur on my lower body. I manage this by rotating between bicycling, swimming and running. As long as I'm not training for an Iron Man I'm good to go.

DX2JX2

GiddyupTim wrote: »

I am a natural forefoot striker and I do believe that gives you more natural shock absorption and more spring in each step that translates to being faster somehow.
That said: I remember a study done by physiologists at Harvard a few years back. This was back when the whole forefoot and barefoot running movement was starting and getting much attention.
I'm pretty sure that at that time it was taken for granted that forefoot running was the evolutionarily preferred running style of the caveman and African savanha dweller.
So they tried to train heel strikers to forefoot run. They could not and, I believe, they also found that heel strikers did experience more pounding force with their strides but did not have more injuries.
Whatever it was they found specifically, they definitely concluded that if flat foot is your style, you probably cannot change it very much and it really doesn't matter.
I am pretty sure my running form is exquisite and people out there are passing me all the time.

I don't know if it was the same study, but a study also found that training heel strikers to run forefoot generally leads to more injuries for those runners even with a careful transition and adaptation period.

Contrary to popular belief, forefoot striking doesn't eliminate landing force, it just shifts it to another place on the body. There is some belief that your natural running style is your body's way of telling you which part of your own body will be best able to deal with the stress.

OldAssDude

If you think about it in terms of general physics, and why an arch is so strong structurally, it will make you realize that is why we have arches in our feet.

Now think about an arch being it's strongest when the weight is distributed evenly to both sides of the arch. I think when you get to the full load bearing point of the stride that the weight should be distributed evenly to both sides of the arch (flat foot), and weather or not you forefoot or heel touches the ground first makes no real difference, as long as your foot is flat on the ground when your full weight is on it.

I watched many slow motion videos of professional runners. Some heal touch, some forefoot touch, but all are flat footed during the full weight bearing part of the stride, and the ones who are not I would be willing to bet that they have had injuries.


Something to think about.