So.. I was reading a book called Natural Running by Danny Abshire and learned something interesting. You know how everyone nowadays wears running shoes when they go running. Well it impedes with our "natural" running form. The main purpose of the running shoe was to prevent injuries in amateur runners because of impact on very hard surfaces such as asphalt roads. The way they did this was by cushioning the heel area, thus lessening the impact. However, this made us more prone to land on our heel as we run (known as heel striking) instead of the midsection of our foot (midfoot). Not only does this decrease our running efficiency but it makes us more injury prone.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I'm taking Tae Kwon Do class Wednesday nights (don't ask me why...) and our instructor makes us run barefoot. Interestingly enough, I noticed that I mainly land on my forefoot (toe area) which is the "natural" way to sprint. Afterthat, I started paying more attention to how I run in running shoes and I should say I'm not too bad because I mainly land midfoot. However, after reading about all of the injuries, I definitely advise everyone to pay close attention to their running form.
Happy midfoot strike running :D
~Nadiya
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