DOES HEEL STRIKING MAKE YOU SLOWER?
When analysing an athlete's biomechanics, we coaches often focus on an athlete's foot placement, after all, it is the start of the kinetic chain. There are three types of foot striking:
- Heel Striking (Also known as rear foot striking)
- Midfoot striking
- Forefoot Striking
You could add in pronation types into the equation but for this article I solely want you to focus on the contact types listed above.
The vast majority of athletes who run are heel strikers, especially (from my experience) if you start in the sport later in life. Heel striking has also gained a somewhat villainous name. Often associated with increases in running economy and dreaded injuries. Whilst these are scientifically not proven they are still popular belief.
However, what does the science say about the most important factor in race performance, your speed?
“The faster you can apply force through the ground, the quicker you will be propelled forward.” This is a very important concept for the rest of this article, so bear this in mind.
Researchers in Japan set up a camera at the 15km point of a half marathon and recorded the foot strike of 283 runners, including Olympians. Heel striking was observed in 74.9% of all runners.
Athletes were divided into groups based on their running speed. The fastest runners were passing the 15km in 45 minutes and 53 seconds. This is a pace of 3:03 per kilometre or 4:55 per mile.
It was found that ground contact time (measured from when your foot first makes contact with the ground right through to when you push off) increased significantly in heel strikers. The data is as follows:
Heel striking = 200m/s
Midfoot & Forefoot = 183m/s
In addition to this, researchers in Italy found similar results. This time in sub-elite males. Midfoot strikers showed ground contact times of 0.228s whereas heel strikers showed ground contact times of 0.242s.
Now you’re probably sat there thinking, Callum do I really need to care about milliseconds when I am racing? Honestly, probably not. It wouldn’t be the first thing I’d look to improve. Areas such as sleep and nutrition take precedence but it is certainly an area you should consider.
Let's look at an example. Let’s say you run 3 hours 29 minutes for a marathon. This is a pace of 8 minutes per mile or 4:58 per km. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, you will roughly take 36,694. This would vary slightly from person to person but let's roll with this number.
If we use the data from the Italian study and use this data here we can work out how much time you would spend in contact with the ground.
Heel Strikers (0.242 x 36,694) = 8,879.9 seconds = 2 hours and 24 minutes
Midfoot strikers (0.228 x 36,694) = 8,366.2 seconds = 2 hours 19 minutes
A difference of 5 minutes!!
Remember, “The faster you can apply force through the ground, the quicker you will be propelled forward.
There you have it, heel striking does make you slower. I recommend you work with a coach who can help you gradually improve your foot placement, however, this is certainly a “luxury” so make sure you have the basics nailed first!
Hope this helps!
Coach Wilson
