Newsletters December 2003 Jeff Galloway: Running Form
Efficient Running Through Better Running Form
by Jeff Galloway

If you are want to run longer distances with less effort, former Olympian Jeff Galloway has some tips for you.

Concentrate on your posture, bounce and stride to get the most out of each step....

Points on Form

There is no single prescription for efficient running, for we are all put together differently. These points on form are general principles of body mechanics that can be applied to all runners. Be sensitive to your own structure and abilities and never force a particular running style on yourself that doesn't feel right.

Distance running does not require strength. Instead of overcoming gravity, we're trying to minimize its effect by staying low to the ground and reducing extraneous body motion. By going slowly in the beginning, it's easy to get moving, and once in motion, the body wants to stay in motion. I use three components to monitor and fine-tune running form: posture, bounce and over-stride.
Jeff Galloway has helped thousands of athletes run a marathon with his low-mileage training.
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Posture

Don't try to be a Marine at attention. The best posture for running, walking or cruising is just good posture, with all elements relaxed and balanced as the foot comes underneath. A forward lean forces you to shorten your stride and creates extra tension on the lower back and neck. A backward lean is unusual but will also produce a shorter stride and possible tension in the lower back.

Some will argue that a forward lean will help you run faster, but I've found this to help only for a hundred meters or so. It forces you to work harder and therefore spend resources that are then not available later in the run and you lose more time than you gained during the short burst. The only exception I've found to this rule is when running on a gradual, downhill grade. A slight forward lean can help you run faster, and the boost from downhill gravity will offset the decrease in stride length.

Bounce

When in doubt, use less energy and stay lower to the ground, and you'll run faster, more smoothly, and with better leg turnover. The energy spent in bouncing too high even by an inch is wasted - burned up in the air. The higher you lift yourself off the ground, the greater the shock you have to absorb when landing and the longer it'll take for your feet and legs to recover from that run. Excess bounce also forces the legs to go through inefficient, extraneous motion during the extra time in the air. A higher back kick, for example, is the result of excess leg swing because your body is off the ground for an extra second or so. Such a kick produces early fatigue in the hamstring muscles.

You can correct bound by keeping your feet close to the ground during sections of every run, especially when you feel the temptation to bounce, which is usually during the first mile and when going downhill. Instead of bouncing and spending energy, save your resources with a quick and light lift-off of the foot. You'll run about as fast by staying low to the ground and taking more steps per minutes.

 

Over-stride

As the forward leg absorbs body weight, the lower part should not be extended out in front of you. The tendency to overstride is another attempt to counter slowing down with a quick fix. Unfortunately, our intuitive sense of pace gets us into trouble here. As runners get tired and realize that the main driving muscles are weakening because of fatigue, they subconsciously lengthen their stride to speed themselves up. This is another quick fix that will help for a short distance but is counterproductive later.

Longer strides will over-stretch the muscles, causing them to tighten up later and weaken. Too long a stride can put the knees or the muscles out of efficient mechanical range, increasing recovery time and causing injury. Everybody has weak links, places that tend to get injured most often. When the main driving muscles are tired, the knees wobble more and the weak links are likely to be pushed beyond their capacity.
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Shorten your stride

When you feel tension in muscles that are at their limits - especially the calf and hamstring groups - you need to shorten the stride a bit to relax them. Keep on shortening your stride until the leg muscles do relax. This may allow you to pick up the turnover of the feet and legs. But even if this increase doesn't happen, you'll reduce the chance of injury caused by the increased fatigue of over-striding and speed up recovery. Often, the only adjustment needed is a shortening of an inch or two, but the relaxation it provides will allow the legs to go at a faster rhythm. Some runners can actually speed up at the end of the race.

As you pick up the turnover on form accelerations, be sure to keep the stride short enough so the leg muscles are relaxed and maintain a quick rhythm. When in doubt, keep the stride short so you can maintain a light, quick step on each of these pick-ups.

Turnover Drill

As runners become faster, their stride length decreases. Therefore, the way to get faster is to increase the turnover of feet and legs. Even those who lack a fast bone in their bodies will benefit from turnover drills because the teach the body to find a more efficient motion.
The Drill

After a slow 1-mile warm-up, select a level and traffic-free stretch of road, trail or track. Without picking up your speed, count the number of times either your left foot or your right comes down in 30 seconds. Jog or walk for a minute or so and then run back, counting again for 30 seconds, with the goal of increasing the count by one or two. Repeat this four to six times, with the same projected increase each time but without a significant increase in effort.

If you do this drill once a week, you'll intuitively learn to stay low to the ground with an increasingly lighter touch of the foot. If you do this drill at least once a week, a year from now you'll be running faster and with no increase in effort. The increased turnover and improved efficiency also makes running feel easier. You'll see more progress if you do it twice a week. But you'll lose two weeks of progress if you miss a week.

From Jeff Galloway's Marathon You Can Do It! (Shelter Publications, 2002), p. 140 and Galloway's Book on Running, 2nd ed. (Shelter Publications, 2002), pp. 23-25
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