When it comes to which foot strike type, forefoot strike vs heel strike, is more economical
for running, forefoot striking may be more promising because it may give you more access
to spring energy from the arch and the achilles tendon which in turn may reduce muscular power
to keep the body rolling.
Forefoot running also produces significantly less all-around forms of impacts which may
result in less energy from the muscles and soft tissues because they may need to work
less in absorbing impact, and the videos i did on elaborating more on these two ways
forefoot running may be more economical than heel strike running, are linked below the
video in the description box, but another reason to add to the seemingly growing list
of reasons forefoot running may improve running economy is that it was found to naturally
engage a higher stride angle, which is the angle or the distance between the front femur
and the back femur at any given moment during the stride, and is typically measured at its
maximal distance during flight phase.
Stride angle is also a metric that indicates running economy whereby past reports have
found that a higher stride angle is related to better running economy because it implies
more efficient propulsion due to reduced ground contact time, which means when stride angle
is high when running, so is step-rate, which is the number of times your feet contact the
ground when running per minute.
So, with a higher stride angle, step-rate is also higher, which also means the foot
spends less time wrestling with the ground because the foot is now spending more time
in the air which can eliminate the chance of unfavorable postures or movements of the
foot to happen when on the ground.
Most interesting, a 2014 study in the journal, Orthopedic Biomechanics, which is linked below
this video in the description box, found that forefoot runners had faster peak treadmill
speeds, higher lactate thresholds and better running economy because they had a higher
stride angle compared with heel strike runners.
The study found that as running speed increased, stride angle was the main biomechanical variable
that stood out in being significantly different between the heel strike runners and the forefoot
strike runners.
So as running speed increased, the forefoot runners were more economical via of a higher
stride angle because it enabled the forefoot runners to overreach less with the foot at
landing because a larger portion of their stride activity was behind the body and less
in front, so the forefoot runners opened up their stride more behind the body and not
so much out in front, like a typical heel strike runner.
In heel strike running, much of the stride activity is in front of the body because there’s
typically a larger overstride angle at landing because in order to strike really far back
on the heel, doing so also engages a fully unbent, locked out knee-joint, of which taken
together, creates a long overstride angle.
The problem with this is, essentially, there’s a lot of wasted travel of foot at landing
because now the knee is in the vulnerable position of braking the body’s mass for
a longer period of time because a long override angle also creates a longer distance separation
between the center mass and initial foot strike position.
This long distance separation causes a longer brake period at touchdown in heel strike running,
and really, these aren't the mechanics you want to be sustained since these mechanics
have been very blame-worthy in much of the research to date for being one of the major
causes of runner’s knee.
But, in forefoot running, a higher stride angle is engaged and so you’re naturally
removing a lot of wasted movement of the foot at landing because the stride opens up less
in front of the body and opens up more behind the body which reduces braking and loading
time on the body at landing, therefore there can be more metabolic savings as there’s
just less resistance burdening the body and this alone is going to help unburned the leg,
especially the knee which is why forefoot running is shaping up to be one of, if not
THE gold standard for preventing runner's knee.
These findings underscore that foot strike pattern has a strong influence on so many
other stride parameters whereby forefoot running seems to do much more to help bring about
faster, more efficient mechanics for improving running economy as well as natural impact
protection as compared with heel strike running.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this video.
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Have fun out there on the roads and trails.
Bye for now.