Are you running your way right into bad knees, a bad lower back and achilles tendonitis?
We're going to find out why that is.
And more importantly we're going to tell you how to fix it.
What's up guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM
Today we're going to talk about running.
Now even you guys that have the ATHLEANX Program that do our Burst Training, you know what
a role running plays in our high intensity interval training.
And you know that we feel that the long distance marathon type running, not the best, not the
most conducive to building muscle.
Or preserving muscle for that matter.
But at the same time guys, there's another adverse effect from that.
And even from running fast,
and that is, running can do damage to your joints.
Especially if you're not concentrating on where you're landing when you're running.
So with this video what I wanted to do was talk to you guys about the different landing
positions and what they mean.
And what they could be doing to the rest of your body.
So with that said, the three places that you're generally landing when you run, are either
on your heel.
Now there's lots of evidence, they look at some of the top runners in the world, 90%
of runners run on their heels.
Meaning when they strike the ground their heel hits first out in front of their body,
ok.
The second type of runner is the toe runner.
A lot of sprinters will claim that they run on their toes.
That's a good thing because they're the guys that actually land out here up on their toes.
The third place that people could run that they often don't, is the most, least representative
of those three positions is on the mid foot.
The mid foot is when all toes are on the ground but you still have your heel off the ground.
Now I want you to try a quick test, whether or not you know where you run, again most
likely if you had to guess, you're probably a heel runner.
Based on that evidence of the fact that most of the people that run, do run on their heels.
But I want you to do a quick test for me, even with your shoes on, I want you to pick
your toes up and jump up and down a few times, ok.
First of all, not only should you have a complete lack of spring in your step but it should
kind of jolt the whole lower body.
You should feel the jolt every time your heels hit, that goes right through your heels, up
through your ankles, into your knees,
and even I feel it right here in my low back and hips.
That should tell you something.
That when you land on your heels you completely lack shock absorption.
Now think about if you do that every single step when you run for miles and miles and
miles.
There's a lot of stress going up through your body that's not good.
Comulative, it's going to cause a bad problem over the long term into your low back and
the rest of your knees and ankles.
On the other hand, if you go up by your toes and you jump up and down on your toes.
I'm talking extreme toes, way up here as high as you can go.
Feels better, feels a lot more springy.
But the fact of the matter is here, we're sort of over utilizing and over stressing
our achilles tendon, right.
This is basically a cap phrase.
And if we land in that contracted position over and over and over again, we've got a
lot of stress on that tendon.
Which again can lead to issues over time, breakdowns of our achilles tendon in terms
of tendonitis.
So if we were ideally, want to be some place, where we wanted to land, it would be right
there on the balls of your feet.
And anybody that has done again, our Burst Training Workouts where we advocate jumping
rope, you're right there guys, on the balls of your feet.
You have the perfect combination of shock absorption and spring.
Because as you land, you can absorb that blow.and then you can propulse yourself right back
up, off of your feet.
So now let's look at that in terms of running.
When we run guys, if we know that the ideal place to be is here on the balls of our feet.
You're going to need to make sure that you don't have your heel too far out in front
of your body.
As a matter of fact, when you put your heel out in front of your body, you're pushing
off with the back leg and you're putting the brakes on with the front leg.
Think about that.
As this heel hits the ground, it's basically saying, Whoa, hold on a second, stop, decelerate.
And then you do it all over again.
Where this one is saying, Whoa, Go Jeff Go, right this is pushing, this is stopping.
It's actually contradictory to what you're actually trying to do.
So you don't want that.
And again that heel into the ground causes a big force to go right up through that leg
and cause problems.
So the main key is you want to make sure that when that foot lands, that it's landing ideally
underneath our hip.
So instead of, the leg is going to go out in front of you.
there's no doubt, you're leg is going to pass out in front of you.
But where are you landing?
And if you can see right here, as I land, I land on the ball of my feet right here,
with my foot underneath my hip.
But there's one thing I'm not doing.
The last piece of the puzzle here guys is, you want to lean your trunk forward.
Especially as you start to run faster you'll see, all the top sprinters are leaning like
this.
They're not just leaning toward the finish line, they're leaning like this throughout
their run.
They do that to get their center of gravity more forward to allow themselves as they come
down to again, get that foot right up underneath their hip.
The last key point, I know I said the other one was the last key point.
The main focus you should have guys, you should not have quiet glutes when you run.
Your glutes should be actively pulling your leg back.
You should feel as if you're pawing at the ground.
To actually propel yourself forward.
It's not a passive move, it's not this.
You're not working your hip flexors to run.
You're using your glutes to drive the leg back against the ground.
Use the friction between your foot and surface of the ground to push you to the next step.
And again when it lands, it's landing right here, boom, underneath, you're leaning forward,
pushing you and you go on.
So start concentrating on where you're running.
If you're a heel runner and you're doing this kind of thing with your leg out in front of
you, No Good.
Because again you're most likely going to cause yourself some knee problem.
Now there is one indication here.
If you guys are runners and you have a lot of knee pain and you want to get rid of that
knee pain, you're going to want to become, again, more of a, more of a toe runner.
More towards the toe.
Mid foot would be best but get more towards the toe.
If you are somebody dealing with achilles tendonitis, right now and every time you run
you feel it.
And you going to want to get more towards your heel.
Now again the best part is in the middle.
But you're going to have to, if you could do one thing to make that feel better today,
it's going to be, get more towards the heel, if all of your pain is achilles tendonitis
when you run, alright.
But the idea is we want to get you in the center where you're supposed to be and start
to ingrain that by using the right mechanics when you run.
Alright guys, I hope you found this helpful.
I get a lot of request here on running type videos.
Whether you are a long distance runner or whether you are a sprinter, doing the type
of high intensity training and running that I believe you should be doing, it doesn't
matter, running mechanics are going to be the same.
And you're going to make sure you have an eye on what you're doing to make sure you're
not breaking down during the process of trying to get healthy.
If you guys want a complete program where we just don't incorporate running but we incorporate
weight training and flexibility and the right nutrition and everything combined.
And that's the ATHLEANX Program guys,.
And that's where we train athletically and where I coach you guys as if you were my own
athlete.
Alright, and we can get that over at ATHLEANX.COM.
In the meantime guys, make sure you leave your comment below.
What type of runner are you?
And make sure above all else, you try that drill.
Because as soon as you try to do the three different landing positions you'll see right
away where you should be.
Alright guys, be back here soon with another video.