By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

While we would love to run with the grace of an Eliud Kipchoge, or the flawless form of a Shalane Flanagan, or the speed of a Priscah Jeptoo despite her unorthodox mechanics, our individual body structure allows us just a limited and highly individualized path of movement. While there are wrong ways to run, the consensus is that there’s not a uniform right form that everyone should adopt. Our running form is as individual as ourselves.

This includes the way your foot strikes the ground. Just because Kipchoge sets world records running on his forefoot, it doesn’t mean we all should imitate him. It is not like the way his foot strikes the ground is what makes him run a marathon in 2:01:09. That said, you should always work on perfecting your individual running mechanics. The one that is unique to you and your structure. It always starts with you.

This is Kenenisa Bekele on his way to winning the 2019 Berlin Marathon in the 2nd best time ever at the time. Take a look at his left foot.

I am a heel striker. In my decades of running, I’ve tried to “correct that deficiency” multiple times. But the more I try, the weirder I run, the more other body parts suffer and the less fun I have. My eureka moment came when I realized that heel striking has never injured me. I do wear out the heel of my running shoes in 250 miles rather than their usual 300-350 lifespan, but that is an economic consideration, not an orthopedic one.

In a post published this January in the Up and Running Physical Therapy blog, Dr. AJ Cohen, founder of the Up and Running Physical Therapy Clinic in Fort Collins, Colorado, stated that “the vast majority of recreational runners, close to 90% are heel-strikers and around 75% of elite runners. Non-heel strikers are kind of like left-handed people… they do it because it works for them and it’s what their body has determined it does the best with… but it’s not “better” or “more efficient” for the rest of humanity.”

If you haven’t made peace with your heel striking yet, hopefully this statement will put you at ease.

In his book “Your Best Stride” (highly recommended), author Jonathan Beverly emphasizes that “rather than the place on the foot where you land, it seems what is happening on your leg motion and body mass at the moment you touch down is more important.”

The idea is to create a stride that touches lightly without breaking. One that flows smoothly. Landing with your foot far in front of your body, usually with your heel, is what causes trouble. Your foot hits the ground with such force and in such an angle that your entire body breaks, increasing the force up your kinetic chain and multiplying the normal pounding that is intrinsic with the sport. This is where heel striking becomes a problem.

Jay Dicharry, a physical therapist, teacher, biomechanics researcher and author based in Bend, Oregon, says that “it is not rearfoot, or midfoot or forefoot that matters. It is where the foot contacts in relation to the body’s center of mass.” The closer you strike under your center of mass, the smoother your stride will be. It is that simple.

Based on these experts’ testimonies you can see the problem is not the heel but where it hits the ground in relation to your body. If you are overstriding, and here is where injuries may happen, the first thing to do is fix that particular issue, not the heel striking per se. Start by shortening your stride so you can increase your turnover (cadence).

This is the author, heel striking on his way to finishing the 2022 Houston Marathon

“Research shows that when runners increase their turnover, they reduce the impact in the knees and hips and often improve their stride mechanics,” said Dr. Brian Heiderscheit, PhD, Physical Therapist, Professor in the Departments of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Increasing the turnover will help your chances of your foot landing underneath your pelvis, reducing overstriding tendencies, and increase your lower extremity stiffness, with less bounce and breaking in your step.”

This blog post is meant to reduce the stigma of heel striking. For runners not to feel they’re doing something wrong, or that they must change their form to become more efficient, more economic or less prone to injury. Of course, if you are overstriding and landing with your heel, you should be working on it right now. Cut your stride, increase your cadence (turnover) and work on landing as close as possible to under your pelvis. Other than that, have fun running and go for that PR. You have better things to worry about than suffering because you hold the heel striker label.