Forefoot Striking on my Calf Muscles!

Heel Landing

I’ve been running most of my life and although I pay attention to my running pose, I’ve not really thought too much about the way my foot strikes the ground. I was aware that my strike was heavy and adjusted this accordingly. The soles of my trainers have for a long time revealed that I am a mild over protractor and a more recent sports shop video of my running has confirmed this and the fact that I land on the outside of my heel and roll on the ball of my foot and then push off with my toes. Perhaps this is one reason why I constantly have at least one black toe nail! Even with this knowledge, I have never thought about how my feet are supposed to land during running. However it was pointed out to me recently that I have an unusual running style and that I look almost flat footed. We discussed the reason for this and concluded that it may be due to the problems I have with my lateral ligaments. I agreed to amend my footstrike style and to try to a few training sessions landing on my toes.


Forefoot landing felt good, it felt lighter and with my centre of gravity being to the fore it felt like a more efficient way of running and more graceful than my traditional heel landing style. However it felt more like a sprinting style than one which could be maintained for a long run and after three miles I noticed my calf muscles hurting. I therefore presumed that my new running style would require me to build up my calf muscles and completed my four mile session. My second training session was supposed to be a 60 minute interval session but I had to give up after 47 minutes as my calf muscles were aching and I was worried that I might cause damage to my Achilles tendon. The result is that today I can hardly walk and need to reassess what is the ‘correct’ running style for me.

Research

A literature search indicated that there hasn’t been too many scientific studies on footstrike patterns, however there was one published in 2007 in the Journal of Strength of Conditioning (Hasegawa et al., J Strength & Cond., 2007, (21), 888-893)

The research was carried out at the 2004 Sapporro International Half Marathon in Japan. The scientists used a high speed camera to capture the running style of the athletes passing through the 15k mark. They recorded the footstrike of 248 men and 35 women and categorised them as: heel, midfoot or forefoot strikers.

The research found that:

• The vast majority (75%) of the elite runners landed on their heel;
• About one in four (24%) runners landed on the midfoot;
• Only 4 out of 283 runners landed on the forefoot;
• Those runners that landed on the forefoot did not finish in the first four positions.
• There was a higher percentage of midfoot strikers in the first 50 runners than in the second 50 and then the third 50 and so on.

These results could be interpreted as finding that:

• Faster runners are midfoot strikers; or
• Midfoot strikers are faster runners ; or
• If you run faster you will become a midfoot striker.

 However they could in no way be interpreted as indicating that I should be running on my toes to improve my performance. Furthermore by changing the landing of the foot, I predisposed myself to injury, by repeatedly landing my full body weight on my contracted calf muscle for 47 minutes. Perhaps a more gradual move towards midfoot striking will show some improvement, or as I get faster there may be an automatic gradual move towards midfoot striking but I think I’ll leave forefoot striking for sprinting and at the moment be content with hobbling around with aching calf muscles.