Hey everyone its Bretta Riches from
RunForefoot.com. Today I'm going to talk
to you about how long it takes a heel
strike runner to fully transition to
forefoot running or for a habitual shod
runner (a runner who has worn running
shoes for a long-standing period of time)
to run barefoot or in minimalist running
shoes without any problems. And of course,
barefoot running / minimalist running
most often involves a forefoot strike
landing pattern. The obvious answer is
there really is no one-size-fits-all
timeframe to learn forefoot running in
full measure because the duration and the
ease of your transition depends on many
factors. Obviously it depends on your
fitness level which includes running
experience, the conditioning of your legs,
especially the strength of your calves
and your ankles, as forefoot running
requires strong calves and ankles, so you
want to make these areas of the lower
leg a solid point of interest for
strengthening but just as uniquely
important with respects to how fast you
learn forefoot running depends on how
well you grasp the mechanical concepts
of forefoot running, such as landing
softer by bending your knee when your
forefoot strikes the ground which is
going to soften your foot ground
interaction, pulling up of the lake to
help give you a lighter exchange with
you and the ground as illustrated in
Pose Running. In this view, to make good
progress in learning the proper forefoot
running mechanics it's important to draw
from other informational resources like
Pose Running and Chi Running, tips from
Barefoot Ted, Barefoot Ken Bob and even
Christopher Mcdougall to help fill any
knowledge gaps you may have about how to
fix your heel strike running style. It's
also equally important to talk to other
experienced barefoot runners about what
they did in their training and
transition to make a difference to help
you take the best route forward. In that
spirit, that's why i created my blog RunForefoot.com
and my youtube channel to
provide a wealth of information on
barefoot / minimalist running and of
course forefoot running to help new
forefoot runners struggling with pain or
mechanical components to help fine tune
your mechanics and help make learning
forefoot running less overwhelming by
providing new
finance based on evidence-based advice
to help in any way I can. From my
personal experience, running barefoot
really played an active role in helping
me learn the precise spot on where to
land on my forefoot (which is just under
the fifth toe); this really made running
more comfortable and easier and it helped
my knee pain as well. Barefoot running
was pretty much the all-powerful CEO of
helping me learn to avoid heel strike
and land on the sweet spot on the
forefoot, not to mention a lot of
evidence supports that safer landing
behaviors are elaborated by the
heightened sensory awareness that comes
with running barefoot. In most cases,
barefoot running is responsible for most
of the mechanical smartness that is in
alignment with running injury-free
because barefoot running allows you to
clearly discriminate whether you are
landing on your heel first or your
forefoot first. Running barefoot is
really great for synchronizing
mechanical actions that are important to
developmental changes that can improve
your ability to land with less footstep
intensity and from that, at least at the
anecdotal / personal level, I strongly
feel that learning efficient forefoot
running mechanics in full measure is
incomplete if you don't run barefoot if
you don't integrate barefoot running or
dedicate some time to running barefoot
for the reason that cushion running
shoes are really ill serving because
sensory input is blurred or more foggy
which may cause you to misuse your
forefoot strike without knowing it when
you run in these types of shoes. Learning
forefoot running correctly which I
always like to say is a sensory-driven
process can be made more complicated in
cushioned running shoes because for some
runners the underfoot cushioning makes
it a little difficult for your
perceptual awareness to really make
sense of your precise footsteps and
forefoot strike accuracy. As a
consequence of poor ground-feel when you
run in thickly cushioned running shoes, you
might be trapped in an endless cycle of
running with an inconsistent with strike
pattern where half you run, you land
forefooted and the other half of your run, you land on your heel first
without fully know
it it is because the under heel
cushioning in most traditional running
shoes makes the heel strike impact feel
comfortable but doesn't fully reduce the
heel strike impact that is why the
narrative less is more is in a forefoot
running learners best interest, in my
opinion anyway, but probably the most
valuable concrete learning strategy is
to fundamentally realize that learning
anything new is a process that takes
time which is a concept a lot of runners
have a hard time accepting because most
runners want to get faster now, they want
to see results now; most runners are
highly result-oriented which is great,
but patience is golden when learning a
new running condition, such as forefoot
running. My strongest advice is to stay
on the forefoot running course because
as long as you land with a forefoot
strike when you run, you are certainly
starting on the path forward, running
more injury-free with greater
sustainable mechanical efficiency as
compared to if you remained a heel strike
runner. Always remember, there's a
fundamental reason the best distance
runners in the world, like Tirunesh Dibaba,
Paula Radcliffe, Galen Rupp, Mo
Farah, Molly Huddle, Dathon Ritzenhien, Haile Gaberselassie, Tiki Gelana and Edna
Kipligat, Bernard Lagat, to name a few
are all non-heel strike runners and are
among the best runners in the world and
these distance runners really model and
represent the success of what could
happen to your running performance if
you don't heel strike. So, see the way
these runners run because it's very
encouraging as they set a real example
of what forefoot running should look
like the most important dialogue is that
forefoot running really puts you on a
stronger path to build on good running
progress. Ultimately, I wish there was a
magic answer to learn forefoot running
as fast as possible without
complications to avoid a challenging
road ahead, but like anything else
forefoot running does take time and it
will take time; it's a learning process
which you can't do shortcuts for, but
it's a process that is in a runner's
best interest, if you want to run without
injury and to see big performance gains.
Heel strike running has been the scene
for so many injuries. When it comes to
learning forefoot running, patience is
certainly a virtue; you cannot shortcut
it, but being patient pays off. The more
patience you have, the faster your
transition time will go because you will
be in a better position to avoid injury
when you're patient and avoid falling
into the too much, too soon trap. So
that's the most common sense, practical
approach is to always bear in mind that
patience is really the opportunity to
progress without continuing injurious
problems. In my upcoming videos, I will
discuss some of the common areas of
soreness related to learning forefoot
running, same with barefoot running and
minimalist running, and how and why
certain forms of muscle pain is in a
sense a necessary reaction or a normal
adaptive response to learning forefoot
running. For more information on how to
run forefoot and why not to heel strike
when you run, please visit my blog runforefoot.com
and don't forget to
subscribe to my youtube channel to stay
updated on all the latest research
regarding the biomechanics of running.
Thank you so much for listening and
watching. Have fun out there on the roads
bye for now