Thanks for the link runningfox, will be downloading the book shortly - As you mention, I think running faster naturally increases your tendancy to strike the ground less on the heel.

I played around a little last night on my short run to see what effect striking the floor with different parts of the foot had on my running style. 'heavy' heelstriking was slow and certainly not smooth, my natural style (landing slightly on the heel) I found to be most comfortable (obviously), striking on the midfoot (I struggled with this, I kept still catching my heel on the ground) I found caused me to naturally pick up my pace. And striking with the forefoot I just couldn't do! I felt like I was tiptoe'ing and I couldn't do it smoothly at all, I could feel myself slowing each time my foot hit the ground.

Conclusion I came to was that I was never meant to be a forefoot striker, and I willingly accept that my FFS technique was probably far from ideal, and that a short minute or two really isn't a good gauge, but it isn't for me. I'm a heel striker by nature and will continue to do so, but expect that as my times improve i'll be spending less time on my heels and striking closer to the midfoot.

Pedestrian, I agree that Dame Kelly did spend a lot of her professional career injured, but so do a lot of athletes and whilst Forefoot striking may well have contributed, it'd be wrong to assume her injuries stemmed from her running style.

I would be interested to try forefoot striking, particularly if I go in for a short-ish race. RF, how hard was it to adjust your natural foot posture? Did it take long?

have to admit i tried it a little again tonight, and whilst I managed it a lot better than last night, I can't help but feel like i'm 'braking' everytime my foot hits the ground!

Started reading the Gordon Pirie book, really enjoying it so far! I'm one of those people who rarely reads - wizards & goblins, or intergalatic robots simply don't do it for me, but a good read of fact and/or opinion on subjects i'm interested in always grabs me from cover to cover!

Wizards and goblins every time for me Although goblins are terrible over-pronators

HAHA! Nice one Katten

Just finished Gordon Pirie's book over a cup of coffee at work. Would recommend it to anyone - very interesting read, and whilst parts are undoubtedly a little outdated there's plenty in there to help your running regardless of your running style (though he does talk a lot about the importance of using the forefoot striking technique which he refers to as the correct running technique).

Since reading the book and various other sources on the net (and watching some youtube vids last night) i'm very much of the opinion that there's very little between running styles of heel striking and forefoot striking. I had a pre-conception of forefoot striking being pretty much running along on your tiptoes/ball of foot... obviously it's much the same technique as heel striking (i.e. foot rolling inwards) but striking the floor further forward in the foot.

The cushioning of training shoes would appear to accentuate the action of heel striking and make forefoot striking much harder. I reckon plenty of heel strikers are closer to mid-foot strikers if they ran barefoot, and as has been already said, increase of pace will naturally make you strike the ground further forward the foot. I did some 100m sprints last night (after wanting to know what times I could achieve having not ran 100m since school) and when sprinting I'm most certainly a midfoot to forefoot striker.

Enough of me waffling anyhow, I've got work to do

http://www.gordonpirie.com.

Am I doing something wrong I can't seem to download this and print it?

Help purlease

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Download menu on the right hand side of the page TT.

Under Send to a friend, Embed and Share.

Thanks Dave

I have done it.

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Me too TT.

Havn`t had a chance to read it yet.....

me neither I posted it home, so I didn't have to carry it

Until I go my good news yesterday, I was looking at other options for running, I am still going to look at it however, it looks very interesting.

Thanks for your help

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In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.

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