Heel Strike in Running

With the growing popularity of POSE and Chi running, I read in online forums and discussion boards about the evils of heel strike (here, for example--and, of course, a lot of interest in different ways of improving form). Well, my name is Jon, and I'm a heel striker. I've never regarded it as evil, and have considered it to be a far more efficient means of propulsion than one of its counterparts, the toe strike. (Toe strikers are painful to watch, and have all the grace of a first-timer on a pogo stick.) I've never understood what people mean by "mid-foot striker," because try as I might, I can't modify my stride, at least while walking, such that the absolute middle of my foot is the first part to strike, at least without going through some ridiculous and unnatural contortions. Same with toe striking. Yet lots of experts--probably many who have more hours in POSE clinics but many fewer miles and palmares to their names--tell us that heel striking is bad, wrong, inefficient, a sure route to injury, a sure way to slow your running times, etc.

I've reviewed the basic principles of Dr. Romanov's POSE method and find most of them very sound (although his crossover into speed skating and swimming leaves the distinct scent of huckster in the air), but I'm still baffled by this notion of the mid-foot strike. (I'm also amused by another idea he promotes, that of trying to use gravity in a vertical plane to accelerate one in the horizontal plane.) How, exactly, does one stride forward, which necessarily brings the heel closer to the ground than the arch or the toe, and yet have the middle of the foot strike the ground first? Does one point one's toe in order to make the foot parallel before the foot strikes the ground? Is one's foot accelerating backward at such a speed that one's foot actually strikes the ground behind the hips? What does this mean? Neither of those anatomical contortions seem to be more efficient than the heel strike.

In truth, I'll bet if you surveyed sales clerks at running stores, they would tell you that 90 percent of runners land on their heels, even the ones who purport to be mid-foot strikers. When I run, I may feel it the most on the middle of my foot, but the outsole wear tells the not-so-sad truth that I strike on my heel.

So, as a response to all of this, I went to my reference on all things running, Galloway's Book On Running, (mine is a first edition) to see what the master said about running. The drawing below encompasses Jeff's attitude on the whole heel strike issue:



  


The issue is overstriding. Overstriders almost by definition must be landing on their heels. Not only does overstriding actually slow you down, it's very hard on your ankles, knees and hips. But landing on your heel with shorter strides, simply is not a bad thing, as Galloway demonstrates above.

I know it will take a lot of convincing, but I'm determined to demonstrate that even the most devout POSEur is a heel-striker, and that it's not necessarily a bad thing.