How to Run (SAFER, FASTER, WITHOUT PAIN!)

Run like an athlete (and build ripped athletic muscle!)

are you running your way right into bad knees a bad lower back in Achilles tanus we’re going to find out why that is and most importantly I’m going to tell you what to do to fix [Music] it what’s up guys Jeff Cavalier athleen x. com today we’re going to talk about running now even you guys that have the athenex program that do our burst training you know what a role running plays in our high-intensity interval training and you know that we feel that the long distance Marathon type running not the best not the most conducive to building muscle or preserving muscle at that matter but at the same time guys there’s another adverse effect from that and even from running fast and that is running can do damage to your joints especially if you’re not concentrating on where you’re Landing when you’re running so in this video what I wanted to do is talk to you guys about the different Landing positions and what they mean and what they could be doing to the rest of your body so with that said the three places that you’re generally Landing when you run are either on your heel now there’s lots of evidence that look they looked at some of the top runners in the world 90% of runners run on their heels meaning when they strike the ground their heel hits first out in front of their body okay the second type of Runner is the tow Runner a lot of sprinters will claim that they run on their toes that’s a good good thing but they’re the guys that actually land out here up on their toes the third place that people could run that they often don’t it’s the most least represented of those three positions is on the midfoot the midfoot is when all toes are on the ground but you still have your heel off the ground now I want you to try a quick test whether or not you know where you run again most likely if you had to guess you’re probably a heel Runner no based on that evidence of the fact that most of people that run do run on their heels but I want you to do a quick test for me even with your shoes on I want you to pick your toes up and jump up and down a few times okay first of all not only should you have a complete lack of spring in your step but it should kind of jolt the whole lower body you should feel the jolt every time your heels hit that goes right through your heels up through your ankles into your knees and even I feel it right here my low back and hips that should tell you something that when you land on your heels you completely lack shock absorption now think about if you do that every single step when you run for miles and miles and miles there’s a lot of stress going up through your body that’s not good accumulative is going to cause a bad problem uh over a long term into your low back and the rest of your your knees and ankles on the other hand if you go up on your toes and you jump up and down on your toes I’m talking extreme toes way up here as high as you can go feels better feels a lot more springy but the fact of the matter is here we’re sort of over utilizing and over stressing our Achilles tendon right this is basically a cap phrase and if we land in that contracted position over and over and over and over again we’ve got a lot of stress on that tendon which again can lead to issues over time breakdowns of our Achilles tendon in terms of tended eyes so if we were to ideally want to be someplace where we wanted to land it would be right there on the balls of your feet and any way that has done again our burst training workouts where we Advocate jumping rope you’re you’re right there guys in the balls of your feet you have the perfect combination of shock absorption and spring cuz as you land you can absorb that blow and then you can propulse yourself right back up off of your feet so now let’s look at that in terms of running when we run guys if we know that the ideal place to be is here on the balls of our feet you’re going to need to make sure that you don’t have your heel too far out in front of your body as a matter of fact when you put your heel out in front of your body you’re pushing off of the back leg and you’re putting the brakes out with the front leg think about that as this heel hits the ground is basically saying whoa hold on a second stop decelerate and then you do it all over again where this one’s saying whoa go Jeff go right this is pushing this is stopping it’s actually contradictory to what you’re actually trying to do so we don’t want that and again that heel into the ground causes a big Force to go right up through that leg and cause problems so the main key is we want to make sure that when that foot lands that it’s Landing ideally underneath our hip so instead of the foot look the leg’s going to go out in front of you there’s no doubt your leg is going to pass out in front of you but where are you landing and if you can see right here as I land I land on the ball of my feet right here with my foot underneath my hip but there’s one thing I’m not doing the last piece of the puzzle here guys is you want to lean your trunk forward especially as you start to run faster you’ll see all the top sprinters are leaning like this okay they’re not just leaning towards the Finish Line they’re leaning like this throughout their run they do that to get their Center gravity more forward to allow themselves as they come down to again get that foot right up underneath their hip the last key point I lied I said the other one was the last key point the main focus you should have guys you should not have quiet glutes when you run your glutes should be actively pulling your leg back you should feel as if you’re pawing at the ground to actually Propel yourself forward it’s not a passive move it’s not this you’re not working your your hip flexors to run you’re using your glutes to drive the leg back against the ground use the friction between your foot and surface of the ground to push you to the next the next step and again when that lands it’s Landing right here boom underneath you’re Lean Forward pushing you and you go on so start concentrating on where you’re running if you’re a heel Runner you’re doing this kind of thing with your leg out in front of you no good because again you’re most likely going to cause yourself some knee problems now there is one indication here if you guys are Runners and you have a lot of knee pain and you want to get a rid of that knee pain you’re going to want to become again more of a more of a toe Runner more towards the toe midfoot would be best but get more towards the toe if you’re somebody dealing with Achilles tendinitis right now and every time you run you feel it you’re going to want to get more towards your heel now again the best part is in the middle but you’re going to have to if one thing if you can do one thing to make that feel better today it’s going to be to get more towards the heel if all of your pain is Achilles tendonitis when you run all right but the idea is we want to get you in the center where you’re supposed to be and start to ingrain that by using the right mechanics when you run all right guys I hope you found this helpful I get a lot of requests here on running type videos whether you are a long distance Runner or whether you are a sprinter doing the type of high-intensity training and running that I believe you should be doing it doesn’t matter the running mechanics are going to be the same and you’re going to want to make sure you have an eye on what you’re doing to make sure you’re not breaking down during the process of trying to get healthy if you guys want a complete program where we just don’t incorporate running but we incorporate weight training and flexibility and the right nutrition and everything combined and that’s the athletex program guys and that’s where we train athletically and where I coach you guys uh as if you’re my own athlete all right and we can get that over at ath