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Unveiling My New Running Form

For the last two months, the unbearable humidity stopped me running. Instead, I focused on the corrective exercises in the book Anatomy for Runners. Those exercises aimed at strengthening my glutes while stretching my hip flexors, letting me swing my legs back further than I did. In other words, they aim to take out a lifetime of sitting postures out of my gait. The nice weather this week afforded me to test my (partially) corrected body on a couple of runs.

My shadow running. The stance of the legs has improved.
As can be seen from the shadow picture above, my legs project equally front and back from my hips. My upper body posture needs some work, but the key is the leg stance. Previously, I would run largely by thrusting my legs forward, one at a time. My legs extend too far to the front, causing me to hit my heel more, probably contributing to my recurring plantar faschitis. Further, only one leg's muscles are used at any one time, and my center of gravity (cg) wobbles as my legs advance.

In the new form, my cg is centered between my feet at all times, so it glides forward in space in a straight line, and I am more balanced. While I thrust each leg forward, I use the glutes of the other leg to "pull it back", or rather pull my torso forward while bracing on it. Thus, both legs work for each step, doubling the power of my steps, and distributing the load more equally on the two sides of my body.

For my test runs, I went at a slow pace to adjust and feel my way through. The first time, I went 2.5 miles that left no residual soreness whatever. The next day it was as if I hadn't run. That encouraged me to go on a longer run today - 4 miles. One thing I found was having to stop often and re-tie my shoes because the changed stance affected how my feet sat in them. Although I found the constant use of my glutes tiring, I persisted through the 4 miles, and within a couple of hours afterwards, feel like the run never happened. I'll see what soreness I'll feel in the morning.

The main thing now is the cheer I got from the sunshine and being outdoors in nature.
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