Can You Really Improve Your Running Form?

Running.

If you’re like me, a run often goes something like this: you’re glad enough that you had the discipline to get out there and exercise, and it’s painful enough, thank you. It’s hard to think about increasing your speed or your form when even your comfortable style of running feels like quite the challenge. So can you really improve your running form, or are you destined to run like this forever?

There’s good news and bad news. The good news is simple: yes, you can change your technique and form. The bad news? It ain’t gonna be easy.

Finding the Challenge

If you’re out on your first run of the year and only plan on making it about a half a mile or so, you probably don’t have to worry about your technique too much. But as you improve and start noticing yourself completing longer distances – one mile, two miles, three miles – you start to also notice how your technique is effecting your running.

What if you don’t like the way you run? What if you usually keep your head down but want to keep it up to see all the sites? When you’re in the middle of an exhausting run, any extra exertion can feel like too much. So how do you get yourself to make a change?

You have to find the challenge beyond the challenge. After all, if you’re not in serious medical danger, you can find a way to dig deep and change the way that you run, even if it means using muscles you don’t use all that frequently.

Will it be difficult? Yes! That’s the point.

Comfort and Growth

Ultramarathon runner Dean Karnazes once said that people too often confuse comfort with happiness. When you’ve been running for a long period of time and you’re noticing yourself stuck in a funk where your form is always the same and you’re burning less calories because your body has adapted to the stress of a run, it’s time to find a little bit of discomfort.

This can mean simply running faster. You can start monitoring your time and pushing yourself to improve your speed. You can start monitoring your watch and checking your posture and form every minute or so so that you are constantly working on the new habit.

The point here is that it’s simple to change your form – simply go for it. But it’s not easy. You have to push past initial discomfort to find the happiness that comes from a run well ran.

Photo Credits: roblawton

Originally posted 2009-10-19 03:04:02.

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