Heather Fell: One of the most significant differences between elite runners and the
rest of the running community is their stride and in particular, the recovery phase. If
you do watch any world-class long-distance runners, you'll notice that their heel is
almost kicking their bottom on every single stride. I want to find out why and whether
there’s something there that we could learn and benefit from too.
[music] Just recently, we witnessed Joshua Cheptegei
breaking the 5K record. Admittedly, he was running around 60 seconds per lap, which would
be a sprint for pretty much anybody, but did you notice his stride and his recovery? We
could look at elite marathon runners to give us a slightly more fathomable pace. Even then,
they're kicking their bottom on pretty much every single stride. Everything they do at
that level is designed to either make them faster, more efficient, or a combination of
both. I want to know whether the high kick is a byproduct of something else they're doing
in their stride or whether it's even actually helping them to run faster. It's time for
a bit of science. [music]
Fulcrums and levers. Don't worry, we're only going back to basic physics because anything
beyond that I'd be lost. We're going to look first of all at the hip and the knee joint.
I know we're talking about what happens at the foot and the heel but we need to move
further up to actually address what's going on. If you think about a fulcrum that's moving
around the joint, which would be your hip, then the shorter the actual length of the
lever, the easier it is to move from that fulcrum.
For this to put it into perspective, have a play with your arms. You simply put your
hand on your shoulder and try moving your elbow. That feels relatively easy. Now lengthen
that whole lever, the fulcrum end being here and try moving it. It's a lot harder. The
same is happening at your hips. When your leg is coming through on the hip drive, if
you think that when your knee is bent, it's actually making the lever shorter and therefore
easier. These elite runners aren't thinking, "Oh,
I need to bring my heel up towards my bottom." They're just thinking, "I need to get my leg
through quickly." If you try to run with your legs straight, you'd soon realize how difficult
that is. It's naturally as you run faster, that angle your knee is going to be more flex
and your heel is naturally going to be folded up further making it easier to bring that
leg through. [music]
Next time you're heading out for a run, why not mix things up and do a little bit of an
experiment. Do some sprints or some strides and just notice how that feels. You'll realize
that your heel is naturally coming much higher to your bottom without you forcing it. It
is hard to know how much of a kick you have when you're normal running, but if you're
running on the muzz or you're doing a cross country race, then the amount of mud and how
high it goes up your back can help to tell part of that story.
Admittedly, we're not going to be running at the pace of elite runners, and we've determined
that pace plays a part in how high you kick, but is there a way that we can actually increase
the height of our kick without needing to run at that pace? It does depend on a few
factors. [music]
We're back to a little bit more science for this one. Think of our hip joint as being
a bit of a coil. You've got your muscles and your tendons running over the front of your
hip and they work on elastic recoil. When your hip is stretched or put into extension,
it's naturally going to recoil forward. As you're running and you get to the end of each
stride before your foot comes off the ground, that's putting your hip into more extension.
The faster you're running and the larger the stride, the more that is going to be put into
extension, so the more it's going to come through quickly to start with without actually
needing a muscle to initiate it. It will be happening naturally.
That's the hip. Then we need to focus at the knee joint. Picture your knees being a completely
floppy joints, like a basically a floppy hinge. If you move your thigh or the top part of
the lever forwards fast, then naturally that bottom bit is just going to flick up behind.
The quicker you move that thigh and your hip joint forwards, the more the heel is going
to snap up behind you. [music]
Some of you might be questioning what prevents hyperextension at the knee, because if you
are flicking it forward so fast, it sounds like a recipe for disaster, but naturally
your hamstring at the back of your leg is going to be reaching its full length, so that
will be slowing down that movement. Also, it's going to be starting to contract and
engage, because you're going to be getting ready to pull your foot back underneath you
as part of the gait. This might sound like you're going to lead
to a heel strike from this kind of gait, but if you watch elite runners, most of them aren't
running with a heel strike, and that's because of the forward lean. If you look, they'll
have a very slightly in going from the ankles all the way through up to their head slightly
forwards, which is going to encourage more of a mid and fore foot landing.
[music] We've identified that a high kick goes hand-in-hand
with running fast, but which comes first, and is it something that we mere mortals need
to work on? 40 Years ago Peter Cavanaugh discovered that the closer your heel is to your body,
the faster and the easier it is to run, and the more efficient your running will become.
There's got to be a line somewhere, as you don't see people bending their knees to walk
faster, or ultra-marathon runners with a really high kick. I don't actually know where that
line is, because you're not going to be trying to do a high bottom kick when you're out for
a jog. In actual fact, you don't really want to be even thinking about that part of your
running. [music]
It's the front end of the stride that you actually want to pay more attention to, so
the knee drive for example, because the higher your knee is coming, the faster and further
your thigh will naturally be moving, which will have more of a inertial force on your
heel and causing a more of a high natural kick. Next time there's a mass sporting event
on television, whenever that might be, watch all the runners. If you watch the elite runners
and then compare them to say the three-hour marathon runners, and maybe the four to five-hour
marathon runners, you will notice a significant difference in the knee drive and as a result,
the heel kick. [music]
As with any running gait analysis, you're always going to have outliers from the norm.
Then you've also got triathletes, in particular ironman athletes. Now, the top male pros are
going to be running around 240 for a marathon and the top women are running under 3 hours.
Incredibly fast times, but you'll notice that their gait is different again. This could
be in part due to the fact they might have slightly tighter hips that restrict it from
all the cycling but also the effect of fatigue of cycling 112 miles beforehand, but I think
that's a topic for another day. [music]
At the end of all of that, I just want to reiterate that a high kick is a byproduct
of being fast and efficient as a runner. Ideally, it's best that you keep your priority focusing
on your fitness and your form as a high kick isn't something that can be forced. Hopefully,
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