Why getting the correct foot strike can reduce your injury chances.

85% of novice runners incur an injury in a given year. A recent study has found that shortening your stride and landing closer to your forefoot, as opposed to heel-striking, reduces the chance of some injuries but can increase others.

The 1-year study of 320 novice runners found that injuries such as plantar fasciitis and knee pain were dramatically reduced in the forefoot group. However, the chances of injuries such as Achilles tendinitis were more prevalent. The table below lists the injuries over one year, 166 runners ran more on their forefoot while 154 did not:

 

Type of Injury	Number of reported injuries by forefoot runners	Number of injuries reported by heel strike runners
Plantar fasciitis	2	23
Knee Pain	4	18
Iliotibial band	3	8
Hamstring	3	8
Achilles tendinitis	5	0
Calf strain	5	0
Shin splints	3	1
Patellar tendinitis	2	0

The researchers concluded that those who ran more on their forefoot had a 62% lower injury risk than those who didn’t and that a gait retraining program is effective in lowering impact in novice runners. In just 2 weeks, with a running gait modification the chance of injury can reduce.

 

 

To find out how your foot strike is affecting your running, possible causes of past injuries and to prevent them before they do occur get in touch and we can enhance your running today. Get in touch here…

 

You can find the full details of the study here:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0363546517736277