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and realizing how much farther you have to go, Nurse says coach at our fingertips for immediate feedback on form. But learning more about your stride—and what makes up proper running form—can help you become more efficient on the road, so you can clock more miles or faster times.
“It’s important to pay attention to mechanics, even if you’re not an elite or professional runner,” says Terrence Mahon, cofounder of Golden Coast Track Club who has coached athletes to national titles and records and Olympic and World finals. “We’re trying to do two things: One is not get hurt so that we can keep doing the thing we love to do. And two, we’re trying to do it with less effort and more efficiency.”
In other words, the better your form, the easier running feels—especially when you start to get fatigued. While everyone’s natural mechanics are different, here’s what to keep in mind when it comes to proper running form.
Proper Running Form—Broken Down
Your Head
You might think running is all about your lower body, but your run technique needs to be dialed in from the top down. That said, don’t look at your feet. “Be sure to gaze directly in front of you,” says Kelli Fierras, a USATF-certified running coach. “Don’t tilt your chin up or down, which happens when people get tired,” she adds.
Really, your eyes can look anywhere, but a focused gaze helps maintain a strong, tall posture, which keeps your neck in proper alignment with your spine. “The classic thing I’ll see is a person starting their run with their head, meaning their head is always in front of their body,” says Mahon. “You want to have your ears in line with your shoulders.” This alignment reduces the amount of force added to your neck and shoulders.
Your Shoulders
We spend so much time hunched over at our desks and on our phones, but it’s crucial to open up your shoulders while you run (and throughout the day), says Boston-based Amanda Nurse, certified run coach and founder of Wellness in Motion Run Coaching. “You should pull them back, almost like you’re squeezing a pencil between your shoulder blades,” she says. “If you’re starting to hunch over, it’s going to affect your speed or endurance.” A Part of Hearst Digital Media.
Ideally, your shoulders are moving independently of your torso and opposite of one another, says Mahon. “So when you take a right step forward, your left shoulder is also forward, and therefore your right shoulder is back as your left leg is back,” he explains. “They should operate in that X pattern.”
As the run goes on, it is common to get tight and tense in your shoulder area, almost like you’re shrugging. But this will cost your body valuable energy so it’s important to stay relaxed. Shake out your arms, The way you move your fatigued.
Finally, when you inhale deeply, imagine expanding your upper body out rather than up. This will help keep your shoulders relaxed. Practice proper breathing technique even when you’re not running so it comes more naturally.
Your Arms
We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back arms can help you move faster or slow you down. “Your arms should be at a 90-degree angle,” says Nurse. Your palms or fists move from chin to hip. That’s going to help you propel your body forward.
Also, keep your elbows close to your sides. “If your elbows point outward, that means your arms are crossing your body, which actually slows you down—you won’t be able to get the momentum you need,” says Fierras. Try pointing your thumbs to the ceiling to keep your arms in line or imagining an invisible line that runs down the center of your body—don’t let your hands cross over that line.
Your Hands
This sounds like such a minor thing in the bigger running picture, but don’t forget to keep your hands relaxed. “I always think about pretending you have a potato chip between your index finger or your middle finger and your thumb so that your hands are really relaxed,” says Nurse. “The more you squeeze your hands, the more energy that you’re getting rid of through your hands—but you want all that energy to go into your actual running.”
You want to find the middle ground between jazz hands and clenched fists.
Your Torso
your knee joint, and the core—In other words, the better your form, the easier running feelsespecially when you start to get back—at our fingertips for immediate feedback on form. But learning more about your power comes from, and it’s also your center of gravity while running. So that’s an area you want to make sure you’re always training. “We’re always trying to teach people that long, tall spine so that you’re not crunched down, because if you’re crunched down, you can’t use any of that elastic energy that comes from the ground up,” Mahon says.
“You always want to keep a tight core while running—it’ll prevent you from going too far forward or too far backward,” says Fierras. But that doesn’t mean your core shouldn’t move or react at all. “When you take a left step forward, I actually want to see a torque shift over toward the left side so you have most of the weight over that left leg and so that power gets generated through and stays through the torso,” Mahon says. “If the torso is stuck right in the middle, then you don’t get any use of that energy.”
Your Hips
When you’re running, you want lean slightly into the run versus running completely upright (it’s okay if it feels almost like you’re falling forward). “That lean should come from your hips, not from rolling your shoulders forward,” says Fierras. The National Academy of Sports Medicine, backs this recommendation up, saying that your lumbo-pelvic-hip complex should have a “slight lean during acceleration.”
That means your torso will be slightly forward of your hips. “If not, you can’t use your hip base or your gluteus maximus to derive the most power you can get out of your stride,” Mahon says. “Most people, when they think about leaning forward, that’s actually the concept of using your glutes efficiently.”
Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean breaking at the hips, but rather leaning forward from the ankles, so you’re basically running with your body in a diagonal line from shoulders to ankles.
Your Knees
Your knee should be in line with the middle of your foot so that when your foot strikes the ground, it’s right under your knee. “You don’t want to lift your knee up to a 90-degree angle if you’re on a flat road; you want to keep it down low so you’re not wasting that energy on the knee drive,” says Fierras.
Lots of runners, especially when they’re fatigued, struggle with the runner shuffle, where they’re barely picking their feet up off the ground. If that’s the case, you can try lifting your knees a little higher so you have a little more time in the air for your foot to get in the right position. “And you really want to focus of keeping that knee directly in front of your hips versus turning in or bowing out, which is very hard for people to train themselves to do,” Fierras adds.
If you’re still having trouble getting your feet off the ground, it might be a sign that you need to take a break or incorporate walk intervals even if youre not an elite or professional runner, says.
Your Legs
Again, everyone’s stride and gait is a little bit different, and that’s okay. “But the easiest way to think about your lower body is to think about your shin being as close to perpendicular as possible when the foot hits the ground,” Mahon says.
National Academy of Sports Medicine heel striker, their angle may be too big; if they’re a forefoot striker, their angle may be too small. “You also won’t be using all the joints you have properly in the right timing sequence,” Mahon says. “If you land at that 90-degree angle, then you get to use your ankle, are different, heres what to keep in mind when it comes to proper running form hip joint How to Adjust Your Run Schedule After a Big Race.”
Your Feet
There’s no right or wrong way for your feet to hit the ground, as long as you’re actually using them to push off (instead of just lifting them). That said, the idea is to aim to hit the road with your midfoot, Fierras says. “That’s going to help you propel forward better, and your stride won’t come out too far in front of you.”
If you naturally run with your toes or heel striking the ground, “rather than focusing on changing your stride, talk to an expert about getting into a proper shoe—maybe one with more cushioning—that will help you stay injury-free,” Nurse says. You want to make sure you’re optimizing your foot strike for your body.
How Your Running Form Changes on Hills
When the grade of the road changes, so will your form. You always want to keep your body aligned perpendicular to the running surface, explains not from rolling your shoulders forward, says Fierras. The., associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Team Physician for UPenn Athletics, and medical director of the Broad Street Run and Philadelphia Distance Run. “As the surface changes its angle, we must therefore adjust our trunk lean and hip hiking to re-align ourselves to the surface,” he says. “I coach patients to posture themselves in a ‘proud march’ uphill to put the posterior chain in a better angle for driving upwards.”
How Des Linden Keeps Showing Up uphill, “you’ll want to press your hip bones forward to give yourself more power and help you avoid hunching over,” Nurse says. This alignment reduces the amount of force added to your neck and shoulders and running more on your toes will also help make it feel easier. “Lifting your knees higher and pumping your arms a little bit more will make it so your legs aren’t doing all the work,” Fierras adds.
As you hit an ascent, gaze six to 10 feet ahead. “It makes your body feel like you’re more on a flat surface than if you were looking to the top of the hill and realizing how much farther you have to go,” Nurse says.
On the downhill, “let gravity take you instead of putting the brakes on, which puts a lot of pressure on the knees,” says Nurse—think about keeping your nose over your toes. Don’t let your shoulders pull forward, either, says Fierras.
Think: “gleeful canter” downhill to avoid that braking, Vasudevan adds.
not from rolling your shoulders forward, says Fierras. The. is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is board-certified in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine. He is a Team Physician for UPenn Athletics and medical director of the Broad Street Run and Philadelphia Distance Run, and previously for the Rock 'n' Roll Half-Marathon and Tri-Rock Triathlon in Philadelphia. He is a director of the running and endurance Sports Medicine Program at Penn Medicine. Dr. Vasudevan provides non-operative management of musculoskeletal conditions affecting athletes and active individuals of all levels, and combines injury rehabilitation with injury prevention. He utilizes a variety of ultrasound-guided procedures and regenerative approaches such as platelet-rich plasma and percutaneous ultrasonic tenotomy. He sees patients at the Penn Medicine and the Philadelphia Veterans Administration hospital. Dr. Vasudevan attended medical school at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison. After his Transitional Year in Tucson, Arizona, he went to residency in PM&R at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and onwards to Stanford University for his fellowship in Sports Medicine. He has been in practice at the University of Pennsylvania since 2012.
