You Want To Run? 3

Beginners Running 3

Carrying on from the previous post where we looked briefly at the constituent parts that make up running ability, I want to take a slightly deeper dive into the mechanics of running and the implications that those mechanics have for us both in terms of running technique and choice of running shoes.

First things first an important disclosure. The terms “science” and “evidence” are often bandied about in the area of human performance. The reality is when it comes to human physiology it surprises many people how little is really known. When I say known I mean specifically knowledge that is the product of high quality scientific research. The standard approach to good quality science is a protocol known as random, double blind, that means neither the subject or the scientist know who in the research randomly selected cohort are receiving the real drug, therapeutic protocol etc. Furthermore this double blind protocol should be carried out with a large sample of people of varying ages, genders and ethnicities and all of this should be done over an extended period of time. All of this, not surprisingly makes good quality science very expensive and as a result it very rarely actually happens. So most evidence and what is “known” is usually the product of relatively poor science. This relative lack of good science is one of the reasons so much “knowledge” changes so regularly. This is particularly evident in the Youtube sphere of health and diet.

Taking the above into consideration, my view is that we should focus on what we do know from the field of anthropology and human anatomy. The evolution of the human body from a knuckle walking ape like creature to a fully upright biped can be traced over millions of years and that change in physical structure occurred for one reason; humans evolved to walk and run with great efficiency, though not with enormous speed relative to other animals. If we examine the fastest animals; horses, dogs, antelope and fast cats they all have something in common, they all have very slender lower legs made up almost entirely of tendon, they all stand on their toes (hooves are a development of toe nails) and their hind legs are permanently bent at their equivalent of hip and knee joints. This creates the potential for great speed, humans don’t have such an extreme design. Our relatively straight legs, the fact we don’t naturally stand on our toes means we don’t have the absolute speed of these animals but we do have remarkable economy.

The manner in which humans utilise the structure of their feet is unique and importantly it changes as we change speed. At this point it would be useful to clarify a few points around terminology. These are terms that you’ll come across and it’s important to be sure about the context of their use given the fact that imprecise language can cause confusion.

Supination: this term describes a movement whereby the lateral (little toe) side of the foot drops towards the ground. Supinated:  describes an end point position rather than a dynamic movement.

Pronation: this describes a movement opposite to supination, here the medial (big toe) side of the foot / ankle rolls down into or towards  the ground. Likewise pronated  is an end point position. 

Not only are pronation and supination natural movements, they are essential movements for correct walking and running. Only excesses in either are problematic. There are other terms around foot strike that we’ll look at in the next post, but for now, focusing on supination / pronation, let’s look at the basic skeletal structure of the foot. In the image of the foot bone structure I have colour coded the bones into pink and green. The bones shaded pink are those related to the big toe and the next two toes the toes in green are the little toe and fourth toe.  If you follow the structure from the toes back into the mid foot and from there towards the heel  you can see that the pink and green are clearly structured differently. 

Not only are the pink bones much thicker / stronger, in particularly the big toe, they are strongly connected to the bones that form the base of the foot and ankle, whereas the green bones are very slender and have a far weaker connection to the bones of the foot and ankle. In particular you can see that the little toe bones have almost no connection at all they are essentially floating, connected by tendon and ligaments. This difference in structure should make it clear that the toes have different roles to play. One of the functions of the little toe side of the foot is similar to that of an outrigger on a canoe, the outrigger doesn’t carry people or cargo, it is there to provide stability and helps the canoe cope with rough conditions.

The little toe, due to its floating structure, is not designed to produce force. It is however perfectly adapted to receive force. When running, the foot going forward should slightly supinate (i.e. little toe drops towards the ground) to allow the little toe area to contact the ground first. The common term for this is foot strike, I don’t like the term as “strike” gives a mental image of force whereas what should be happening is that the little toe “finds” the ground, this should be followed by the ankle flexing until the heel just taps the ground and the foot then pronates towards the big bones of the big toe ready to use the strength of those bones to create leverage along the length of the foot to push the body forward into the next stride. NB. The heel doesn’t touch the ground when sprinting. 

In the head on images below we can see that the runner, Jakob Ingebrigtsen world record middle distance runner, has a clearly supinated (little toe first) foot landing and as the foot takes load he has a noticeable pronation (inward rolling of the ankle), as stated previously these are perfectly normal movements. 

The side on image captured the moment before he lands his foot shows an aspect of foot strike that often causes confusion. It can be seen that his foot is extended quite a distance in front of his body and has the appearance of over-striding, possibly even close to a heel strike. However this view doesn’t take notice of the fact that his initial little toe first ground contact is very light, by the time he gets his heel close to the floor and is taking body weight through his foot, the foot is under the body via flexed soft knee. 

The mere mortals among us should not have our landing foot so far in front of our body as we would be taking the force of impact before the foot gets under our body. Such over-striding will, over time result in pain and discomfort, often felt in the famous runner’s knee or plantar fasciitis. This highlights the risk of average members of the public mimicking running styles of elite athletes. The next post will look more closely at other questions around foot strike.

If you need a little personal help with your diet, running or lifestyle in general  get in touch.

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