1. Maintain good posture
A good posture is key to help in maintaining balance and avoiding injury when running. To achieve a good posture, keep your back straight, your head up, and your shoulders level. Have your shoulders under the ears and always maintain a neutral pelvis.
Do not lean excessively backward or forward, which tends to happen as you get tired. The right posture also involves slight lean forwards, around 10 degrees. That slight lean helps the body benefits from that slight fall force, which gives you an extra speed boost.
Slumping over could cause shoulder, neck, and lower back pains. Therefore, you should always be aware of posture.
Always have your shoulders relaxed and squared and not rounded because that causes tightening on the chest, restricting breathing. Do not shrug the close to the ears. To help maintain that posture, squeeze the shoulder blades together on the back, and allow them to drop.
You should also avoid side-to-side swinging of your arms because they cross over the chest. It increases your chances of slouching, which restricts effective breathing.
2. Engage your core
Engaging the core when running helps decrease the possibility of sustaining injury. It does that by creating a ring of the musculature around the spine, which keeps the spine from extending or flexing too far or bending so far on one side.
Running, especially on sloppy terrain, exerts a lot of pressure on your back muscles and spine, which could result in back pains. Engaging the core helps reduce that strain and pressure.
Engaging your core as you run positions the pelvis correctly, which promotes freedom of movement in the legs and provides a good foundation to support not only your spine but also the rest of the upper body.
To engage your core, breathe in and out, and slowly suck in your navel towards the spine. Hold that position, and ensure you continue breathing.
3. Keep your chin up
Most of the time, when running, especially when we get tired, we tend to bend our heads. However, you should have your chin up and your neck in a neutral and relaxed position because it helps you maintain good speed.
You should aim your gaze around 15-20 feet ahead of you always. Having your chin up prevents any pressure and strain build upon the neck and shoulder muscles, which could later cause pains.
4. Stand tall
Standing tall means that you do not bend at your hips but instead bend at your ankles. Standing tall helps you prevent slouching, which could not only cause back pain but also affect your breathing.
Standing tall also helps you achieve an effective stride because your legs’ muscles have attained their optimal length, enabling them to produce maximum energy.
It also helps minimize rotation at your torso, minimizing energy waste and keeping you going for longer.
5. Maintain 90-degree bend in the elbow
Always have your elbows bent with your arms swinging back and forth from your shoulders. Letting your arms fall on your side wastes a lot of energy you would have used to run.
You should move your elbows back to the level of your hips, and your hands should not move forward past the level of your chin. As you swing your hands back and forth, they should almost graze your hips.
6. Land between your heel and mid-foot
How you land on your foot when you run not only helps maintain your speed but also determines the pressure on your legs and your back. There are a lot of controversies on which part of the foot you should land on.
Landing on the heel is a technique that a lot of people use, and experts connect it to overstriding. However it is not optimal, and potentially dangerous; experts say that it has a braking effect because you exert all the weight of your body on the leg, halting momentum.
Exerting all the weight on the leg could also cause you future problems in the knees, hips, and spine.
Another landing technique is toe striking, which applies mostly to sprinters. Unlike in heel striking, where the force rides up the knees and hips, the ankle absorbs all the force in toe striking.
Mid-foot striking is an much more preferable landing technique that means that you land with the part of the foot between the heel and toes and is most recommended for long-distance runners. That helps maintain your speed and minimize the stress and strain on your ankles, knees, and hips.
It also helps improve your movement, control, and balance. Landing between the heel and the mid food has the benefit of not over-striding, maintaining good speed, and helps reduce the strain and stress on your ankles, knees, and hips.
To maintain that landing position, use quality shoes that do not have a raised heel because that encourages landing on your heel.
