Endurance Handbook

RUNNING ACTION

SECTION 3

The Endurance Runner’s Action The running action is a natural skill learned very early on in childhood. However, when you observe any class of children you will immediately notice that no two pupils appear to run identically. Differences in anatomy, height, weight and proportion all affect running action. There are also “learned” peculiarities that affect the running action such as poor deportment, development of muscles through other activities, muscular imbalance through injury or illness and lack of exercise. There are, however, basic fundamental pointers that we should be looking for when aiming to make the running action as efficient as possible (see fig 3). WEB COPY ©EVEQUE

WARMING-UP & COOLING DOWN ACTIVITIES

Neck and shoulders relaxed

Head held high, eyes focused to the front

(fig. 1)

Elbow bent between 90–100 degrees, arms pump back and forward with a very slight roll of the shoulders

Hands slightly clenched with thumbs on top

(fig. 2)

The foot should strike the ground just in front of the centre of gravity

The torso is held upright with a very slight forward lean and hips held “high”, not sitting

Rear View of Right Leg

Direction of Travel of Foot

Ankles relaxed with foot in alignment with the knee; the heel swings forward and downwards towards the ground WEB COPY ©EVEQUE The heel is pulled up towards the buttocks. How far depends on the speed the athlete is running at Knees drive straight forward and upwards to a comfortable height Foot strikes the ground on the forefoot underneath the body then drives backwards. The amount of foot extension depends on the speed the pupil is running at Athlete’s centre of gravity (fig. 3)

Supporting leg drives back until almost straight

The foot strikes slightly on the outer half of the ball of the foot and rolls across (see fig. 1). At the same time the heel drops to the ground (see fig. 2) and then lifts up as the body moves forward over it and the driving phase begins. As the leg straightens, the heel begins to rise as the foot is pulled clear of the ground. The author would like to acknowledge that this material was drawn from the work of Richard Simmonds.

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