Good-form running at the Runner’s Den in Phoenix

I never gave too much thought to my running form. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?

But now that I am broke, or at least my foot is, a recent Facebook post about a good-form running clinic at Phoenix’s Runner’s Den was irresistible.

I was really looking forward to going until 8 a.m. Saturday morning came. All I wanted to do was stay under the covers in my jammies, but I finally tore myself out of bed, cooked up a breakfast of coffee and migas, laced up my shoes and headed out, not really knowing what to expect.

This is Nathan. He teaches the Good Form Running clinic at The Runner's Den.

I was one of the first to arrive at Runner’s Den, and there met Nathan, the clinic’s instructor. Nathan said he ran competitively in high school and college and attended and taught the first good-form running clinics in the nation, at a running store near Michigan State University called Playmakers (the best running stores in the nation, Nathan told me).

Before Nathan learned good form, he told us that he constantly dealt with injury. After he learned good form? Not at all.

I also noticed Nathan was wearing Vibram Five Fingers of “Born to Run” fame. I own the book and have to admit, Chris McDougall makes a pretty compelling case for minimalist running. I probably would have given it a try at the time but I hadn’t experienced injury and figured I shouldn’t mess with what seemed to be working for me.

So back to the clinic. Runners slowly trickled in until there were seven of us.

Nathan began by finding out how long each of us had been running, what our next goal was and if we ever had any injuries. He took some notes and soon after had us outside lined up by some cones.

Nathan filmed us running with our shoes on and off.

Over the next hour after filming each of us running in our shoes and barefoot, Nathan taught us the four keys to good running form: posture, foot strike, cadence and lean. I’ll explain each in a nutshell.

Good posture: Feet forward, knees slightly bent, hips squarely above the feet and arms bent 90 degrees at the elbow. While running, the arms and hands should never veer across the body, above the nipple or below the waist.

Good foot strike: Nathan said runners should land on their mid-foot, rather than the heel or the ball. Landing on either of those puts unnecessary strain on various parts of the body, such as the knees. Also, the feet should land under the hips, not ahead of the body.

Good cadence: 180 footfalls a minute, which all of us in the clinic were under.

Good lean: Eyes on the horizon, head not too far back, not too far forward, and the body leaning slightly forward, not straight up.

And ran us through some drills.

Nathan demonstrated to us various ways of integrating all of these into our running, and helped us practice each with drills. Each new method he taught us made perfect sense, and I found myself repeatedly thinking, “Of course!”

When Nathan showed all of us our videos later (they were taken before he taught us what good form was), it was clear we were all pretty off. Every one of us was landing on our heels, our feet were landing well ahead of our hips, and a lot of us were too straight up, as opposed to leaning slightly forward.

Then Nathan showed us the video where he had us run barefoot. In that video, our feet naturally hit the ground more with our mid-feet than when we had shoes on. Nathan said that’s because our feet are used to so much cushion, that we allow ourselves to strike the ground with our heels; barefoot, and our bodies can’t take the impact and naturally lead us to hit the ground with our mid-feet.

Not that Nathan was urging us all to throw our shoes away and hit the pavement barefoot. But, he said: “We’re a running shoe store that advocates some barefoot running.”

He showed us what we were doing right and wrong, analyzing each of our running techniques by looking at us in slow motion.

Nathan said even running barefoot for 20 feet before a normal run with shoes on will help us strike at the mid-foot.

Before the clinic I was thinking of taking a couple of weeks off from running because of my foot pain, but talking a bit more with Nathan and my excitement in general about learning good form made me change my mind. I decided to rest for a couple of days and get back out there on Tuesday with this new knowledge.

I can’t wait to see if my foot holds up better and how these techniques feel on the track.

In the meantime, here’s a good article from Running Times Magazine that explains good running form and its history in more detail: http://runningtimes.com/Print.aspx?articleID=21511

And YouTube has an excellent video that runs through good-form running in about one minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q51W7dKaY94

If you’re interested in going to a good-form running clinic, Nathan said every state has one. Call your favorite local running store and ask about it. If you’re in the Phoenix area, you can sign up for a clinic on the Runner’s Den’s website: http://www.runnersdenaz.com/.