How you should swing your arms tends to be an afterthought when running. You probably think of things like footstrike, core, posture, cadence, and so forth instead. That’s a mistake, since your running form is a whole-body cycle of events driven by your relationship to gravity. And in gravity, the higher up in your body … Read more
A majority of my clients use sports watches to track their distance and pace. But whether they do or not, most runners also eventually also learn to guess by the feeling in their bodies how fast they’re running. So when they want to run fast, they aim for the feeling they associate wit the pace …
I found an email in my inbox on Wednesday from Robert Johnson, one of the founders of Letsrun.com, the top running news site on the internet. He wanted to know whether I thought Hellen Obiri has the best running form for a marathon–or even workable form for that distance. It had just been announced that …
Hands are more than a mere detail; holding your hands correctly when you run affects your entire body. Much in our lives depends on skilled actions of our hands, every part of our bodies is woven into those actions so we can be powerful, gentle, and precise in fulfilling our intentions. This isn’t something we … Read more
You may hate me for this, but I’m going to say it anyway. The best core workout for runners is one that strengthens the core in the specific ways it’s used for running: upright, weight-bearing, with coordinated movements of the abdomen/back, pelvis, and hip joints, not to mention everything above and below those areas as … Read more
Here’s a simple trick you can do to pick up the pace, especially when you want to run faster but your body just somehow isn’t responding. I’m not a big fan of tricks and hacks. I want you to learn deeply and be transformed. But tricks do have their place, especially for a runner committed … Read more
As I worked my way through a series of blog posts on tight quads over the last three weeks, a reader asked me to write about tight/sore calves next. It’s a great suggestion, since the tight-calf-in-running problem is really common and has a massive effect on the entire body. In fact, in my post last … Read more
Data on your running has become easy to get. But it remains hard to act on, especially when it comes to using wearable tech (such as sports watches) to improve your gait. Alex Hutchinson recently wrote about a 4-stage framework for using the training data from wearable tech. The stages are: descriptive–what happened diagnostic–why did … Read more
Everyone says core stability is the key to running healthy and fast, so like many runners you may do a fair amount of core exercise. That will probably make you feel really strong, but it may not translate to fewer leg and foot injuries, faster times, or feeling good. This is the sort of inconvenient … Read more
Down deep every runner has The Dream, the fantasy in which they run almost without effort, just flowing or flying over the earth. But if you google “running quotes,” most of what you’ll find them talking about is hard work and suffering. That is the painful predicament many runners know all too well. Running doesn’t feel … Read more
As a dancer, I got used to stretching extensively every day. I wish I’d known then what I know now, which is that I was probably doing myself a lot more harm than good, weakening my muscles and worsening my fatigue and soreness. To learn more about that, listen to the Science of Stretching episode … Read more
The other day I was outside with a client, watching him run and asking him to notice certain things he was doing. A man I didn’t know walked past my client as he ran to the far end of the block, then offered the opinion, “He looks absolutely fine, he just needs to run faster.” … Read more
Conventional wisdom says an upper body strength program helps runners hold their posture and have a better arm carriage. But if you do it right, the benefits go way beyond that. There’s a way to do an upper body workout that actually makes your legs work better, giving you a distinct pop of energy from … Read more
The idea that distance runners should regularly do strength work to avoid injury has become pretty popular in recent years. It can indeed be very helpful for performing your best, and as a human being your fitness needs include other things besides running. But there are some significant potential pitfalls to be aware of if … Read more
