Believe it or not, it is possible to run fast without clenching every muscle in your body. Just look at some of the professionals – former marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge, for instance, often looks like he’s gliding rather than running at an astoundingly fast pace, as do the likes of track triumph Jakob Ingebrigtsen and, when he dominated the sprint domain, the legendary Usain Bolt.
These elites – among many others – have learnt how to run with slack shoulders, fluid arms and a powerful stride, all the while seeming impossibly light on their feet. It’s the art of running relaxed – and its something that all runners, including amateurs, can adopt to boost their performance, no matter how easy or hard the running effort.
‘It’s important to remain relaxed in terms of not recruiting muscles that don’t need to be recruited, because that can increase the energy you’re using for the run and cause you to fatigue and slow down more quickly,’ says Heather Milton, an exercise physiologist at NYU Langone Health’s Sports Performance Centre.
For example, lifting up your shoulders toward your ears, or tensing up your face while you run, requires more energy than when you let your upper body and jaw hang a little looser. This could affect your running form, too – if you’re running tensely and upright, without a forward lean, you’re less able to activate the glutes. As Milton explains, this can put more force through your knees, potentially leading to knee pain.
To help you perfect the art of relaxed running and reap the greatest rewards from your workouts, we consulted the experts for their top tips.
How to alter your form for relaxed running
When it comes to running in a more relaxed matter, it’s important to maintain proper running form to improve your efficiency. Although not everyone’s stride is the same, keep the following cues in mind while you’re out clocking the miles:
Keep your upper body loose
- Run with a relaxed face, jaw, hands and upper body, says Randy Accetta, Director of Education for the Road Runner’s Club of America. ‘Your eyes are not scrunched, your hands are not bunched in a fist and your arms are low – they’re crossing the top of your shorts and not up high, fighting like you’re punching something,’ he says.
Lean forward
- ‘What we want to see is a slight angle of your running – so, from your ankle through to your hips and shoulders, you’re getting progressively closer to your target and looking forward,’ says Milton. To achieve this, imagine your body in a slight diagonal line as you run forward. This will enable a greater amount of lower leg activation, better push off and greater hip extension. According to Milton, it can also reduce your risk of injury and improve your overall running performance.
Stabilise your core
- ‘The core should be a stable column on which we run and can have more effective push off,’ says Milton, who, for this reason, reiterates the importance of building core strength.
Drive forward with your feet
- What is aerobic vs anaerobic exercise.
8 tips to help you stay relaxed on the run
Beyond at bay on race day, so you dont build up tension that can cause you to run less relaxed, here are a few things you can test out in training to help you maintain that relaxed run posture. Rather than implementing all of these tips at once, try out a few of them to see which ones work best for you so you stay calm, cool and collected on the road:
1. Work on your mobility
before you start running. Try to inhale for three seconds, then exhale for six.
‘It really takes access to every joint movement in the body,’ says John Goldthorp, a personal trainer and running coach. As he explains, if you can’t freely move your joints, then you can’t make the necessary movements that you need to help you run really well. That’s why he recommends working through different planes of motion – like front to back, side to side and rotational – before you To combat this, put a pause on running while the pain persists and do some, at bay on race day, so you dont build up tension that can cause you to run less relaxed.
To do this, practice moves like the standing cat cow, side bends and rib cage and pelvic rotations, as these all work the spine and upper body through the different movement patterns. In addition, work on pronation and supination of the lower body:
- Stand parallel to a wall or chair for balance.
- Shift your weight to your right leg and make sure that the pressure in your right foot is evenly distributed between the heel, big toe and little toe of the foot. Cross your left leg behind your right so that the big toe is touching the ground.
- In a slow and controlled motion, bend your right knee while turning your body to the left. Resist the urge to turn the right leg with it and maintain a tall, upright posture.
- Rotate back to the front, straighten your right leg and rise up onto your toes.
- Bring your left leg forward so that your left thigh is parallel to the ground and your knee is bent. Use the wall or chair for balance.
- Complete 5-6 repetitions on each side.
‘If you have a limited range of motion in your hips or your ankles, then that’s going to limit the efficiency of your mechanics,’ adds Milton. ‘It can lead to other tension in your muscles due to compensatory pathways to do that same run, too.’
To address tight hips, add high knees, bum kicks, skipping and running backward to your pre-run routine. On strength training days, practice single-leg exercises that target your glutes, like lunge and deadlift variations and single-leg glute bridges.
To target any ankle mobility issues, focus on flexing your foot in different directions – in particular, dorsiflexion (toes to your shins), plantar flexion (toes down to the floor), inversion (toes toward the centre of your body) and eversion (toes away from the centre of body). Single-leg exercises, especially calf raises, can also help.
A physiotherapist or functional mobility specialist can also help you to address these areas so that you can improve your range of motion and run more fluidly.
2. Address any painful areas
As you can imagine, or might have even experienced, running with pain can hinder your ability to relax and increase your chance of develop a worse injury later down the line.
To combat this, put a pause on running while the pain persists and do some strength training to address the areas causing you bother. For example, you can target shin splints by strengthening your feet, ankles, calves and hips, and tackle pain associated with runner’s knee by strengthening your hips and inner quads.
‘Strength training is a great way to make sure that your body is ready for the run,’ says Milton.
3. Add strides to your training
Race time predictor and training pace calculator different paces – like your easy, marathon, half marathon, 10K, 5K, and mile pace – while relaxed. He recommends first introducing strides toward the middle or second half of an easy run.
‘Like any new stimulus, you’ll want to introduce things gradually both in terms of how many repetitions you do and how fast you’re running them,’ he explains. This may mean running four reps of 20-second strides with 40 to 60 seconds of walking recovery in between, then progressing from there.
‘When you’re running very fast, the rules are still the same – if the joints can move freely [not tensed up], then you are going to be most efficient,’ adds Goldthorp.
4. Practice a dynamic warm-up
Every runner should implement a tried-and-tested pre-race ritual – and this should include a dynamic warm-up.
No matter whether he’s preparing for a marathon or a big track session, Accetta says that he always practices his pre-workout ritual – involving jogging, going to the loo and doing some drills, dynamic stretches and strides – and recommends that other runners do the same. This can help you to keep your nerves and stress levels at bay on race day, so you don’t build up tension that can cause you to run less relaxed.
‘A dynamic warm-up is essentially designed to progressively activate the muscles that you want to be active when you’re running,’ adds Milton. ‘It also increases your body temperature, which assists in delivering more oxygen more readily to your muscles and better prepares you mentally for the run.’
This also enables you to progress from slow, controlled movements that increase your body temperature to higher-intensity movements that are a similar level to your running pace. This can lower your rate of perceived exertion (RPE) and help you to remain calm, compared to when you don’t warm up.
When it comes to starting the run itself, Goldthorp suggest taking a few minutes to gradually progress from a slow walk to a brisk walk and then to a light jog. ‘I always think to myself, I’m not really going to hit my ‘training pace’ for probably about 15 minutes, so don’t rush it,’ he says.
This will help you to find your rhythm and ease into the run more effectivelynot only help you ease into the run better, but it can help you find your rhythm more easily and allows you to remain relaxed as you adjust from not running to running slowly to running at a quick clip. Just remember to keep that loose feeling through each progression.
Research supports this advice, too. A study published in the International Journal of Environmental and Public Health showed that doing a dynamic warm-up, including five minutes of dynamic stretching and 10 minutes of running, decreased RPE during a running to exhaustion test and improved running economy. Runners in the study practiced a dynamic version of the quad stretch, hamstring stretch, forward lunge, side lunge and knee hugs.
5. Complete a quick self-scan
Before you head out for a run, Goldthorp advises that you take note of where you typically hold tension in your body. Do you clench your jaw or shrug your shoulders, for instance?
‘Scan your body,’ he says. ‘If you notice tension, see if you can let it go and see if you can soften that area. If it helps, you can also visualise that area of your body flowing like water.’
Then, when you’re on the run, Milton says that you should check for specific body cues. For example, make sure that you’re bringing your arms back directly behind you and letting them swing by your hips, rather than keeping your shoulders stiff, which causes your arms to swing across your torso.
6. Take a deep breath
Taking a few deep breaths is a great way to help you transition from work, school or other activities into a workout. If you don’t allow for a transition period in between activities, then Goldthorp says that you might be at risk of bringing heightened levels of tension and stress to the run. This is why he recommends taking at least 90 seconds to Published: 21 November 2024 before you start running. Try to inhale for three seconds, then exhale for six.
According to Milton, if you’ve previously experienced an injury or are afraid of becoming injured, then you might start guarding, which is when you tense up out of fear of being injured or re-injured. To avoid this, she also suggests that you shift your attention to breathing to help you relax.
on race day, Milton says that you should check your splits to make sure that youre As Goldthorp says, the key is to practice running short bouts at, too, when you start to feel tension build. Bring your focus back to your inhales and exhales to help you find calm.
7. Remember your training
Race day nerves have a unique way of sneaking up on you, especially when you want to perform at your best – and those nerves can easily lead to more tension in the body. This is why it’s important to consult your race-day checklist before you head to the start line to make sure that you have all of your essentials in order, helping you to stay relaxed.
It’s also why Milton recommends focusing on all of the things that you learned during your training, from positive self-talk to maintaining a strong (yet relaxed!) running form.
If you choose to Rotate back to the front, straighten your right leg and rise up onto your toes on race day, Milton says that you should ‘check your splits to make sure that you’re How to perfect your running form, which can create a lot of undue tension’. If you are moving too quickly, try to rePublished: 21 November 2024 and make sure that it feels appropriate for your target pace.
8. Don’t be afraid to give it your all
There might be times, especially near the end of a workout or race, when we feel ready to push past our comfort zone to hit a goal time or beat an opponent. In these moments, says Accetta, it’s acceptable to push yourself – even if that means tensing up a bit.
The key is recognising when to kick things into a high gear. While you can go hard for a sprint finish, you don’t want to waste all your energy too soon. What’s more, when you do decide to pick up the pace, remember to keep your upper body loose and your jaw slack so your legs have the energy they need to achieve a faster turnover.
