Stupid question right? My real question is how do I go fast without making my feet hurt? I do not want to give up any speed just because I’m barefoot and my premise is that there is no such thing as barefoot or shod form, there is only good and bad.
I read things like barefootandagile’s advice to Nick, “Also you are allowing your trail leg to stay on the ground and thus attempting to leverage your body over and off your foot rather than release your weight and lift your foot and lower leg.” I am sure it is great advice because barefootandagle is fast and I want to be fast.
Here is what is confusing to me. It seems like the consistent advice is, don’t land ahead of your center and get your feet off the ground and up towards your center, without pushing off, as soon as you land. The smallest ground contact time the better. It’s impossible to generate force forward without an equal and opposite force backward. So you can’t move if you don’t push. Obviously, you can’t fall forward either, at least not more than once. The only thing I can figure, is that maybe you only have a very small window where pushing is effective and if your foot is in front of or behind that window it only hinders your forward movement.
I have really been focused on watching the runners in the Olympics to look at their form, which I conjecture must be outstanding.
To me it just seems so counterintuitive to not “leverage your body over and off your foot rather than release your weight and lift your foot straight up.” It appears when you watch someone run that they roll off of their toes and that their feet remain in contact for a long time. Is that because it just looks that way, but when you are actually running it feels like you are pulling your leg straight up? Maybe this is one of the things that I have been getting wrong for a long time.
-Jim
I read things like barefootandagile’s advice to Nick, “Also you are allowing your trail leg to stay on the ground and thus attempting to leverage your body over and off your foot rather than release your weight and lift your foot and lower leg.” I am sure it is great advice because barefootandagle is fast and I want to be fast.
Here is what is confusing to me. It seems like the consistent advice is, don’t land ahead of your center and get your feet off the ground and up towards your center, without pushing off, as soon as you land. The smallest ground contact time the better. It’s impossible to generate force forward without an equal and opposite force backward. So you can’t move if you don’t push. Obviously, you can’t fall forward either, at least not more than once. The only thing I can figure, is that maybe you only have a very small window where pushing is effective and if your foot is in front of or behind that window it only hinders your forward movement.
I have really been focused on watching the runners in the Olympics to look at their form, which I conjecture must be outstanding.
To me it just seems so counterintuitive to not “leverage your body over and off your foot rather than release your weight and lift your foot straight up.” It appears when you watch someone run that they roll off of their toes and that their feet remain in contact for a long time. Is that because it just looks that way, but when you are actually running it feels like you are pulling your leg straight up? Maybe this is one of the things that I have been getting wrong for a long time.
-Jim
