Exactly how I improved my running form to run injury free forever
This week’s blog post will be a bit different than the past ones.
There are a couple of topics that can trigger a Curious Diabetic’s interest more than anything else. One is diabetes and its intersection with a plant based diet (no surprise, if you’ve read even one random post on this website!); the other one is running (looking at my homepage picture this is no surprise, either!). You could easily engage in a 5-hours conversation with The Curious Diabetic if you mention either one of these two topics, so if you’re more a small talk type of person, you’ve been warned!
Running is a big part of my identity, and I want it to do everything I can to keep running for as long as possible by minimising the risk of injury. That is why, after some tough lessons learned the hard way, I decided to do some proper fine-tuning on my running technique to run injury free for the rest of my life. I did so by enrolling in the 12 week Running School by Correre Naturale.
In this post I go over the concepts, exercises and protocols I needed to understand in order to run better. It is an occasion for me to put what I have learned in some logical order, while hopefully trigger some thoughts in any of my readers: I had no idea of many of the things I am about to present before, but now that I am aware of them, I would do any runner a disservice by keeping them for myself.
It is a post dense with information - technical at times - but sometimes a longer and more detailed format is necessary. Let’s roll.
Running VS Running Well
Running and Running Well are two different sports, belonging to two different universes.
In the first one, you suffer injuries (knee pain, joint pain, plantar fasciitis, achilles tendinitis, you name it). That is the universe where most people, me included, perceive running as a frustrating pain generator machine you just have to cope with.
A picture taken in the first universe.
In the second one, you get to enjoy every single step of every single run, especially in those days you don’t feel like lacing up the shoes at all. This is possible because a curated running form makes all the difference from a mechanical standpoint. Running can be freed from any performance-related goal and turned into a joyful, mindful, healing activity. That kind of thing that literally heals your mind while restoring your body.
I used to suck at running
Now, I have suffered from all the injuries in the catalogue and been forced to stop for more than one year, and during this period I have realized how potent a medicine running is when it comes to my mental health. I needed to find a way to make running my best friend, my best medicine, an activity I can do all the time to stay fit, spiritually and physically, without getting injured again.
With these premises, investing in the 12 week Running School - a method that according to me and thousands of fellow students and peers has no comparison in the world - was a logical step. In hindsight, it has been the best decision I’ve made in a long time and a much needed one too.
I will give you a spoiler: improving the technique over the last 12 weeks has turned running into a form of moving meditation. When performance is not involved, running now truly works better than any other stress reliever for me.
Why running injured me (and can injure you)
To understand why running form is important, and how our lifestyle can have an impact, I should first introduce the four pillars of running technique, the elements that determine whether you’ll be injured or not: Feet, Rhythm (Cadence), Breath, Posture (Relax).
Feet: the most important factor, yet the most overlooked one.
Think how much time you spend on your feet each day.
Now think how much time you dedicate to train their mobility.
Now think how much time your feet are squeezed and compressed into shoes that restrict their range of motion (elegant shoes you wear at work, and basically every pair of sneakers out there). Reading these questions may have caused some discomfort as you realized the violence you’re doing to your feet, and I feel you. Now you’ll be less surprised when you hear people complaining about pain on the joints or the fascia. What shoes do they wear? Do they keep their feet mobile? In short, is the foundation of any standing motion - walking or running - maintained in good health? Long story short: if the feet are not running-ready, running injuries pop up.Rhythm (Cadence): I can’t count how many times I went out to run just to run faster than the day before. No body awareness, no plan, just the Ego dominating the workout.
“Keep up the pace!”, “Yesterday you did 10k, so today you MUST do 11k or you lose”. And of course “If you walk even a mile during your run, you’re weak”. After all, running fast is for the go-getter, walking is for the lazy weak one. Right? Wrong. Each run must respect the body, and you can do so by running at the right rhythm for that specific workout. If yesterday you ran a “tempo” workout, or a “fartlek”, today you may as well spare your body a bit and allow some easy-pace recovery. But what is the easy pace? What is the hard pace? And when should you adopt either one of the two? That is what awareness of rhythm means. Those who can control the rhythm can recover and enjoy every run, every day, at the right pace for that day. Those who don’t control it get injured: not knowing the right pace will over stress your legs and impede recovery.
All kinds of different factors can affect rhythm: did you have a bad day at work? what was your last meal? did you have a fight with your partner? is it raining? are you stressed? did you sleep well lately?
You see that even knowing what is the right pace is not enough: you must be able to control it by considering all these extra pieces of information. This is why many people (again, me included) often run their easy day too hard. They don’t know how to account for all these factors. Consequently, their ego (“go hard or go home!”) dominates the run, and then we hear complaints that running destroys your body.Breath: so how do you know whether you’re running too fast, above the ideal pace? You know that because your breath tells you so.
A recovery run typically allows you to breathe without much struggle, in and out of the nose, at a pace where you can have a conversation with someone (the so called “conversational pace”). When your breath goes out of control and you find yourself gasping for air, that’s a sign you should slow it down. Another way to think about it: when your long run or your recovery run is not enjoyable anymore because the perceived effort is too much, then you should take back the control of your breath, which is: be back in control of your pace and of your longer term injury-free running journey.Posture (Relax): on your next run at the park have a look around and observe the other runners. If you pay attention, you’ll probably observe that many are over striding (their steps are too wide, they land on their heels and put immense pressure on their knees and tendons).
You’ll be also likely to see that many are dragging themselves through the run - their body curves forward, their arms twisting like at a dance class - rather than having the body right above their foot and elegantly keeping an upright and relaxed stance at each step.
What’s worse is that their shoes are super cushioned, so they do not perceive the pain inflicted on their body at each and every step. Now multiply this disaster for every step made during a run, for multiple runs a week, and you’ll understand where all those IT band syndromes, plantar fasciitis and knee surgeries originate from.
Fun right? Now that you have observed the other runners at the park, look at yourself, because unless you have intentionally put some attention to your technique, you’re likely doing the same mistakes, the entire repertoire! That was surely my case, at least.
One additional note on rhythm/cadence, speed and intensity
Something else that is crucial to grasp to round the circle and move on.
Rhythm/cadence is the amount of steps in a minute.
RHYTHM = STEPS / MINUTE
Speed is cadence by the length of the stride.
SPEED = RHYTHM x STRIDE LENGHT
So, I could be going at different speeds while keeping the same rhythm, the only thing changing being the lenght of the stride. I could run at a very high speed but with a very slow rhythm because my stride is too long, or a very low speed but a very high rhythm because the stride is too short. In either case, I am taxing my legs and joints, and this will lead to injury.
To speed up or slow down I can modifying the stride, and therefore the intensity, which is related to speed, not to rhythm. If I want to push it, I accelerate. If I need to take a rest, I slow it down. In any case, adapting the stride must not cause any disruption in the four pillars of the Running Technique (Posture, feet landing, relax and rhythm), which must stay untouched! If they are, there’s something wrong. A good runner (read: an injury free runner) is one that is able to modify the speed without compromising rhythm and posture.
Apologies for the explainer, but it was necessary. Let me show you what fine tuning the technique means in practical terms😁
Before the Running School: running my way to injury
Let’s start from the posture. This was my posture before the Running School, the posture that injured me.
You can clearly see four things:
my upper boy is leaning forward,
my arms are swinging significantly,
the space between my legs was pretty wide (see how distant my knees are)
the landing foot is way too far ahead - which is, over striding.
Each step I took was basically a violent hummer on the ground! Due to a too long stride, my rhythm (steps per minute) was too slow, which caused my feet to land on the tip and producing an angle of 153° between the upper and the lower body.
To make this clearer, you can see above the significant amount of space between my legs, and that I was landing my foot in a way that forced my heel and tendon to somehow adjust to keep me going. Running that way, the impact of each footstep was absorbed by the ankle, the achilles tendon, and by the knees.
Guess who was taking MRIs at the hospital and walking in an orthopaedic boot one month after that video was shot?
This is closely related to the pillars of running technique presented at the beginning of this post.
Rhythm - the steps per minute - was way too low but the speed was still relatively high because I was compensating with a longer stride. Call it an explosive mix!
And of course my ego was not ok with “running slower” - decrease the length of the stride -, something only weak people do. This basically turned each step into a jump forward, compromising my upper body posture too, as you can see from the picture below.
Once again, my attempt to be fast despite a low rhythm/cadence produced a very pronounced angle in my torso, causing my arms to swing even more backwards. The arm swing not only being an unnecessary waste of energy, but also the cause of back pain.
After the Running School: Running my way to happiness
Now you know how screwed up I was, and you also know why my ankle got fractured, why I got the IT band syndrome and why I spent the most part of the last two years in and out of MRI rooms and orthopaedic studios.
But fortunately I had the good idea of joining the Running School to fix my technique (and avoid many more hospital visits, a great way to save money and time, if you ask me).
I won’t go over the details of the program, but I will tell you the kind of exercises and drills involved to produce the results I present below.
The key drills to improve your technique
Strengthen the feet
First, we worked on strengthening the feet. These small mobility drills are essential to ensure that your lower body is trained, strong and ready to absorb the stress of running in a sustainable way. By the way, all of the benefits of these exercises go to waste if one then forces their foot into a shoe that compresses it all day long. Ever since I transitioned to barefoot shoes one year ago, my feet have regained their strength and range of motion. I had no pain to my fascia ever since.
Stay in a Squat
Then, we invested plenty of time into releasing the mobility of the joints, especially the ankles and the knees, the two most frequently injured areas. The natural deep squat is perhaps the position I spend the most time in during the day.
If you look at children playing on the floor, they’ll keep this position with no effort.
Then you look at the average adult, and unless they’ve trained this position, they will likely be unable to keep it for more than a bunch of second without feeling pain or discomfort.
That is lost mobility. And that is where injuries come from: how can you not have pain if you train on a body that is not mobile enough?
Bottom line: if I can avoid staying sit on a chair and keep this position, I will - even when I receive weird looks from others. It is hard to describe how important this position is, and how much our lifestyle can compromise our range of motion.
Balance and proprioception
A big part of the program addressed proprioception, our ability to perceive the location and posture of our body while in action. Standing on one foot (with eyes either open or closed) will reveal how much you’ve lost this ability. I could not even stay on my foot for 10 seconds before falling. Day after day, 30 seconds at a time, I regained it, and my ankles are now able to simulate the irregularity of the ground by continuously adapting the center of balance in order to keep me standing. Again, a small and overlooked mobility drill that works to improve the stability of our body during a run.
Feet landing
In order to fix my rhythm - and in turn my posture, the way my feet land on the floor, the angle between my upper and lower body - each run had some intervals where I worked with a metronome, following a 170 bpm rhythm. This forced me to take shorter steps, decrease my stride length and rewired my body and mind to adopt an optimal cadence, the one that does not screw up your joints every time your foot hits the ground.
Functional training
You won’t run that far if your core, back and legs are not trained to keep you in balance and stable.
Squats, lunges, planks and bridges were the exercises to go.
Tibialis raises, walking backwards and calf raises were crucial additions to build bulletproof knees.
Breathing
As I said earlier, being conscious of the breath is key to understand whether or not we’re running above our current capabilities. That is why breathing through the nose is so essential: as soon as you lose control of that breath, you know you have to adjust your pace.
Relax
Finally, to fix my rigidity in the upper body I worked to relax it. This is essential to avoid pain in the back, the shoulders, the wrists and to minimise energy waste - essential in longer runs like marathons.
Run fix: Results
Now we know how screwed up I was.
We also know the kind of refinements the Running School put me under, in order to fix me.
Did it work? The hell YES it worked! I will show you how.
(Left pictures are BEFORE, right pictures are AFTER the Running School).
This is how my overall posture changed as a result of working on the rhythm (running at 170 bpm). The gap between the legs is much narrower, the body is landing right on top of the foot. No more over striding.
As a consequence, my upper body is not trying to compensate by leaning forward, keeping a very composed 170° angle, closer to the ideal. My arms are also more in line with the torso, which prevents back pain and energy dispersion.
Shorter steps mean more steps in a minute, or increased rhythm, and a consequence of the increased rhythm is that my feet land properly underneath the rest of the body, which significantly reduces the stress on my knees and on my achilles tendon.
Add to this that I am now much more aware of my breath - in and out of the nose - which allows me to easily regulate the speed of my run when I perceive it is becoming too intense.
All of these elements - the rhythm, the breath, the upper body posture, the landing of the foot and so on - are now just natural to me.
It took 12 weeks of intentional work using metronomes, running at specific intervals at specific BPMs, feet mobility drills, upper body drills, and all the rest.
At first, it felt all but natural, but now my body is able to self-regulate, keep the ideal running form and default to the right rhythm without me even thinking about it at all.
How this is improving my life
What is the consequence of this?
In the short term, I am enjoying every run! When performance is not the target, I literally end every session feeling better, more energised and relaxed, than at its start. This has been a significant benefit for my mental health.
I am also more in charge of my Ego, more able to dictate when it is necessary to slow down, to listen to the body and ignore the crying baby screaming “I want to go faster!”.
In the long term, I am more confident I can run injury free and that I can achieve ambitious running goals in a sustainable way. And because these running goals will involve other fellow diabetics like me, this brings me a level of joy, gratitude and a sense of purpose that I had lost, and that is hard to describe.
Every runner (or every person, really!), in my opinion, should join Correre Naturale’s Running School program. I am not aware of any other program of this quality, so you might as well check it out (if you’re not Italian, it’s a great chance to learn the language. Two birds with one stones!).
If you already run, it will keep you out of the hospital and elevate your running to the next level.
If you hate running, it will literally make you love it.
If you are depressed or stressed, it will give you the best medicine you can ever imagine.
In short, it will make all the difference.
