Thoughts on foot strike—which one is “best” and whether it’s a good idea to try to switch to a different one—vary widely in the running community. It’s one of those things everyone, from the president of your local running club stress fractures of the foot ultramarathoner with a book deal, seems to have a different opinion on, plus the miles to back it up. So where should you land?
We spoke with the experts to get to the bottom of the research on foot strike and what it means for runners who want to move efficiently, stay healthy, and maximize performance. Here, your guide to a runner’s foot strike.
What Happens to the Body During the Foot Strike
What to Know About Foot Stress Fracture Test running gait. It has implications for a runner’s entire kinetic chain, explains Robert Maschi, D.P.T., physical therapist, board-certified clinical specialist in orthopaedic physical therapy, and associate clinical professor at Drexel University’s Running Performance and Research Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “[How you land on your foot] is going to change the position of your joints. So, it changes how the joints get loaded with ground reaction force,” he tells Runner’s World. Ground reaction force is the force exerted on the body by the ground during contact. “Basically, when you hit the ground, the ground hits you back,” Maschi says.
There are different ground reaction forces that come into play during running, but vertical ground reaction forces are the largest forces in terms of magnitude. “That’s the one that comes back up through your body,” Maschi says. Determined by the rate of loading (how quickly the load is pushed back into the body) and the amount of loading, vertical ground reaction force can be measured in a lab setting with specialized equipment, including force plates. In the graphed measurements, researchers generally see a curve, with vertical ground reaction force reaching its peak in the middle of the stance phase. Maschi says the ideal curve is rounded in the middle, not spiking in the beginning.
“If that spike is steep, that means they’re loading their tissues really fast. The tissue doesn't like that. It tends to break down quicker when you load it at a higher rate,” Maschi says. “What we’ve found is that foot strike really has a significant impact on ground reaction force and how quickly you’re loading and the magnitude of loading.”
The 3 Types of Foot Strike
While a runner’s foot strike pattern falls within a broad spectrum, it typically lands within one of three categories: rearfoot (heel) strike, midfoot strike, and forefoot strike.
Rearfoot (Heel) Strike
found that nearly 89% of the 936 surveyed recreational marathon runners used a rearfoot strike heel strike, which occurs when a runner’s heel makes initial contact with the ground, is generally believed to be the most common strike pattern. One study published by the What Is Foot Reflexology A Part of Hearst Digital Media.
A heel strike also tends to be the most controversial; for every running coach who tries to “fix” their client’s heel strike, another believes that altering your natural foot strike pattern is ineffective or poses an increased risk of injury.
The real-world implications of heel striking are more nuanced. “It’s important to distinguish between heel striking that is considered within normal limits and heel striking that has been linked to injury. This is determined by the contact angle, which is the angle that is made between the running surface (the ground, the treadmill belt, etc.) and the bottom of the shoe,” says All About 75 Hard., assistant professor of rehabilitation and regenerative medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City and Director of Columbia RunLab.
Brough explains that a higher contact angle (think of a flexed ankle with the toes pointed up and back toward shin) is associated with greater impact forces and braking impulse, during which vertical ground reaction force quickly accelerates, drops, then accelerates again. “Greater impact forces have been linked to soft tissue and bony stress injury of the lower extremity,” she explains.
In one study conducted with the Harvard University cross-country team, including 52 runners, researchers measured the footstrike pattern of middle- and long-distance runners and compared it to their injury histories. They found that 74% of the team members experienced a moderate or severe injury each year, but runners who used a rearfoot strike pattern dealt with repetitive stress injuries stress fractures of the foot.
The rest of the gait is also a related factor, as runners who heel strike with a high contact angle tend to overstride, landing with their leg out in front of their center of mass. “If your step is longer, your knee is more extended. That’s not a good position to absorb impact,” Maschi says, as the calf muscles, Foot Supination and How to Fix It.
However, it’s important to note that rearfoot striking is a broad category, and just because you’re a heel striker doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to get injured. If, for example, you strike with a very low contact angle (that means you land still on your heel, but more toward the midfoot, with the toes not as drastically pulled up to shin), your experience and outcomes may be vastly different. “[A low contact angle] is going to minimize impact considerably. To the point where there really isn’t that much of a difference between being a heel striker and a midfoot striker,” Brough says.
Midfoot Strike
During a midfoot strike, the rearfoot and forefoot make simultaneous contact with the ground. “If someone is midfoot striking, they present with a minimal contact angle,” Brough says, which reduces the impact that the lower leg experiences with every step. Midfoot strikers also tend to land with their center of mass positioned over their foot.
You may have heard that midfoot striking is a myth, as most runners tend to favor their rearfoot or forefoot. Maschi confirms that midfoot strikers do, in fact, exist, but they’re rare. “It’s kind of a small number that are totally midfoot strikers where the foot is flat so that the inclination angle is zero when they hit the ground,” he says.
Forefoot Strike
Published: Oct 31, 2022 5:30 PM EDT sprinters, a forefoot strike occurs when the foot lands on the ball of the foot. Brough notes that this type of foot strike tends to be driven less by the runner and more by the pace of their running. “The speed of the turnover rate for sprinters is so fast. Their contact time with the ground is so short that they need to use a forefoot strike to meet that demand,” she says. “If you think about [landing on the] heel or midfoot and then pushing off, that’s slower. There’s more time that the foot is on the ground than if you’re a forefoot striker,” she says.
“The concern [with forefoot striking] lies in if this is a patient who’s had a history of metatarsal bone-y stress injuries, if they’ve had that they just cant get rid of, Brough says Colleen Brough, D.P.T plantar fasciitis Races - Places Achilles tendinosis that they just can’t get rid of,” Brough says.
With forefoot striking, there’s more impact across the foot, so if you’re experiencing frequent injuries or have in the past, that’s when you might want to evaluate it.
What to Know About Trying to Switch Your Foot Strike
While there’s some research on the efficacy of changing a runner’s foot strike to address specific injuries, the majority of the studies tend to be small. Irene Davis, Ph.D., P.T., professor at the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Southern Florida and one of the leaders in research in lower extremity mechanics during walking and running gait, addresses this in her article, Gait Retraining: Altering the Fingerprint of Gait.
“It is important to know whether the success of these small studies translates into larger study populations. Additionally, long-term follow-ups (i.e. 1 year and beyond) are needed to establish the retention and persistence of gait changes,” Davis writes.
However, she concludes that, “In terms of running, there is evidence that links mechanics with injury. This provides the justification for altering these mechanics.” In other words, while more comprehensive research is necessary, it makes sense (in some cases) for injured or injury-prone runners to work with a professional to examine and potentially adjust their gait and foot strike.
Even if you’re not struggling with injuries, minimizing braking impulse may help improve running efficiency. “We know and understand pretty clearly that the breaking impulse that happens with a more aggressive heel or forefoot strike in many runners can be inefficient. That is an inefficiency that can easily be mitigated by decreasing the contact angle and, in the case of heel striking, minimizing overstriding,” Brough says.
However, Brough cautions that midfoot striking isn’t necessarily the “gold standard” for every runner. “There’s nothing out there that says there’s one way to run that’s best for everybody,” she says. “If you are going to make a change, I implore you, listen to your body. What foot strike feels best? For example, a heel strike with a minimized contact angle feels so much better than a forced midfoot strike for some runners.”
Additionally, when it comes to changing foot strike, most physical therapists will start with investigating and addressing underlying issues that may be influencing how you land. As noted above, overstriding is often linked to heel striking. “A lot of times, we’ll use step length as an approach to change other biomechanical factors like loading and ground reaction force. And we see that, oftentimes, foot strike pattern changes as we change step length and [increase] cadence,” Maschi says.
Similarly, addressing mobility CA Notice at Collection hip flexors and ankles, What to Know About Foot Stress Fracture Test.
Lastly, it’s important to make changes gradually, as suddenly shifting the load to new joints and tissues without decreasing volume can cause new injuries. And while you can pretty easily assess your own foot strike patterns with a treadmill and an iPhone, Maschi recommends working with a physical therapist who’s trained in running biomechanics. “There are so many factors involved,” he says. “I think it’s probably best to ask for guidance.”
