Land, load, lever, lift and fly!

Although he had been told that he wouldn't run again he worked on his running technique, made sure he always ran with a natural running style and became a professional triathlete.

So what is a natural running style? The first thing Mike did was to bring one of the audience to the front to demonstrate the part of the foot that was designed to make contact with the ground first. He asked his demonstrator (let's call him Joe because I can't remember his name) whether he considered himself to be a heel striker or forefoot striker. Joe said he is a heel striker. Mike told him to take off one shoe and hop on one foot. The question was, "Where did he land?" (On his forefoot). "Why?" (Because it's the best place to be for balance and comfort). He then told Joe to take the other shoe off and run across the room. He asked us which part of the foot landed first. It was the forefoot but Joe said he was a heel striker. When Mike asked him why he didn't put his heel down during the demonstration Joe said it was because it would hurt.

So why do runners put their heel down first when we weren't designed to do so? It's because modern shoes have been designed with a big heel on the back of them and this makes it very difficult for us to put our forefoot down first or to land with a flat foot (which is also okay -the key is to make sure your foot is underneath your centre of mass) and so we've adapted over time and become heel strikers. Mike told us that the human body is very quick at adapting bad habits and he related this to going to MacDonald's! "We know the food is c**p but we get a taste for it pretty quickly and we love our MacDonald's. What modern running shoes have allowed us to do is to become unnatural. They allow you to become a heel striker."

So why have they been designed with this whopping big heel on the back? Apparently one of the leading sports shoe companies decided that we might like our running shoes to look and feel like the shoes that we wear out and about. They started designing our running shoes in the same vein as lifestyle shoes and all the other companies followed suit. The lift at the heel on some shoes is just too big. Some have as much as a 17% difference between the heel and the forefoot. These are not good. We should be wearing shoes that have very little difference between the heel and forefoot. We should be wearing shoes that allow us to run as if we were barefoot.

Over the last decade running specialist shops are selling fewer and fewer racing flats or shoes that have very little lift at the back. I know this because I used to sell running shoes into running specialists and as the years went on I got fewer and fewer orders for racing flats so that, in the end, the company I was working for stopped bringing them into the UK. I also used to go to the global product meetings where people working on the running category in each country would sit around the table and fight for the product their country needed. Those of us from northern Europe, central Europe and America were sorry to say that we only really needed the flats for our sponsored athletes but the reps from France, Spain and Japan were still selling them like hotcakes.

Mike asked us to estimate what percentage of runners use shoes. Several guesses came back and most of the audience reckoned it would be around one third. We were wrong. Apparently it's 10%. The other 90% are running naturally and 10% are allowed "the luxury of becoming unnatural!" Unfortunately most UK runners are in that 10%. We are brought up wearing shoes and that is what feels natural to us. If you'll forgive me going off on a tangent for a minute, my sister moved with her family to New Zealand around ten years ago. They were surprised when they got there that the school uniform included bare feet. The children rarely wear shoes and my nephew, Jack, is developing into a good little runner. When I asked if I should send him a pair of running shoes or spikes for his birthday I was laughed at! No way! He wouldn't be allowed to wear them anyway. They do all their running barefoot. After last night's talk I found myself thinking, thank goodness!

Anyway, where was I? Only 10% of us actually wear shoes for running. Africa is the country that springs to mind when we think of barefoot runners and Mike showed us a a picture of two of the most famous barefoot runners of all time, Abebe Bikila and Zola Budd (now Pieterse). He also told us an anecdote of a race in Nairobi where everyone stood there on the start line for the photo shoot in their pristine running shoes. The gun went and they ran off around the corner, took their shoes off and ran barefoot. A journalist went up to one of the runners to ask what was going on, to be told "We're sponsored by these companies and we have to wear them but we all hate wearing shoes and it's much better barefoot, but, you know, the camera's are only there for the start so we have our photos taken and then we kick them off"! Mike speculated that when the Africans come to the UK to race they accept that they are all equally disadvantaged by wearing shoes and so they keep their shoes on.

Mike then showed us a picture of two high standard Triathletes, Craig Alexander and Terenzo Bozzone, racing each other towards the end of a half marathon in a triathlon. The title on the slide was "Which one won?" The way to the correct answer was to look at their running form. Alexander was clearly coming down on his forefoot and Bozzone on his heel. Mike explained that when you strike the ground with your heel out in front of your centre of mass you effectively put the brakes on so with every step you take you brake then have to accelerate again and have to work hard to propel yourself forward after each landing. By landing on the forefoot you keep the momento going and the running feels much easier. By landing on the forefoot you run far more economically.

Mike then went on to explain one of the misconceptions of natural running. Some people presume that if you land on the forefoot your heel doesn't make contact with the ground but it does. It contacts the ground very briefly after landing and this is important for something called elastic recoil. As your heel lowers to the ground you stretch and load your achilles tendon. It then shortens as you lift yourself into flight. You lower, load and lift and this enables you to release the energy that is stored in the tendons. If you land on your heel the energy is killed dead and nothing returns. So if you want to run quicker you should use that energy and to do that you need to land forefoot. It is no coincidence that the faster you run the further forward on your foot you land.

Going back to the runners who have grown up running barefoot. We often ponder on why the Africans are dominating distance running at the moment. There are many theories: it's because they are born and live at altitude, it's because they don't have MacDonald's and eat healthy food, it's because they don't have the gizmos and gadgets that we have and so are more active in their lifestyle. Some people have suggested that, if we want to become dominant in the endurance events again, we should send lots of TVs, game stations and MacDonald's to Africa. Well maybe we should send lots of shoes. Maybe they're so good because they've developed their elastic recoil by running barefoot.

Mike also spoke to us about the shape our foot should be and showed us some horrific pictures of mis-shaped feet that have ended up that way because they've been forced into fashion shoes. Apparently our feet should be a nice V shape with a narrow heel and a wide forefoot. I am going to go off on a tangent again here because I found myself reminiscing back to my childhood. I didn't like shoes and avoided them whenever I could. I remember my mum taking me to Clarks for a new pair of school shoes and being horrified when the sales assistant told her that my feet were so wide they were off the scale. They were wider than their widest measurement of G. Mum told me that I had caused this by not wearing shoes! Well good for me!! Although I do have a nightmare still to get a pair of shoes to fit my hooves that are almost as wide and high as they are long!

So after much discussion it was time to get active. Mike allowed us all to try on a pair of Newton running shoes and take them for a spin on the track. Newton have designed their shoes to mimic barefoot running and have done such a good job that Zola Pieterse uses them! Mike took us through a series of running drills that would help those heel strikers to transition into a more natural running form. It came with a word of warning though. If you are to change your running style you must do it gradually or you risk injury. It's like any other new concept you introduce to your training. You should start by doing a few minutes and then increase it by no more than 10% week on week. You will find you have sore bits just as you will with any new training that you introduce but it will pay off in the end. The best surface to start practising on is sand. If you don't have that then grassy parkland would be good.

Anyway, I'm off to Anglesey tonight or first thing tomorrow so I'll get busy with the drills on the beach!

Here are a few snaps of Jonathan in his Newton running shoes last night.

Land, load, lift, lever....FLY!