Is it good advice? Bad advice? Or just advice that should be reserved for specific instances?
Discuss.
Discuss.
Lifting Your Feet?
- Thread starter Last Place Jason
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When I walk, when I was normal, I had trouble picking up my feet. You could hear me scuffing on along. My mom and hubby would tell me to "pick up your feet!" Sometimes, I would toe-into something, and it would hurt. These instances were like little reminders that something was wrong with my walking-form. I can imagine the same would go for running. Not to mention it would help with the "pushing off" and blistering that takes place, but you and I differ on that thinking, per our last convo about this.
This advice did help me early on. However I think it needs to be clarified that we are talking about making subtle shifts in emphasis, as part of an overall mindset of awareness and not literally telling people to only lift their feet. We are not saying "don't push off at all" and "only lift your feet", but rather a shifting of emphasis from one to the other.
As I've progressed, it feels like I'm not focusing as much on lifting the feet, although when I hit a rocky section of trail/road it comes back to mind
. Currently, at 20 months in, I find myself thinking more about the overall architecture of my gait, adjusting my vertical alignment/posture to manage my speed, minimize friction, minimize bouncing up and down, and feeling my glutes as the primary muscle movers.
BR
As I've progressed, it feels like I'm not focusing as much on lifting the feet, although when I hit a rocky section of trail/road it comes back to mind
. Currently, at 20 months in, I find myself thinking more about the overall architecture of my gait, adjusting my vertical alignment/posture to manage my speed, minimize friction, minimize bouncing up and down, and feeling my glutes as the primary muscle movers.BR
I do agree with BF B R. Early on in one's development as a BFRunner, it means one thing, and a very important facet of BF running it is. Later on,it's a fine point that's revisited at need. I needed to revisit it after a couple of trail running face plants. I think I got from BF Ken Bob that holding one's hands higher translates into lifting the feet higher. It worked for me (after the face plants.)
For me focusing on lifting my feet messed me up for a long time. The advise of moving my arms at a high rate worked better for me because then my stride shortened and my feet lifted quickly without thinking about it.
Jim
Jim
Makes no sense to me. I'm confident my feet/legs know when to initiate the recovery phase of the gait cycle. I wouldn't worry about lifting my feet anymore than I would worry about lifting my elbow when I bring a fork to my mouth. 'Lifting your feet' is just another example of misapplying or poorly understanding basic biomechanics in the cult of barefoot running. Why are barefoot runners so much more given to these conceptual blunders?
I occasionally think about peeling my feet of the ground (weirdly, if I'm landing too heavily this seems to make me more light footed). As my feet leave the ground heel to toe in a continous movement I could see concentrating on lifting would break that flow.
Having been a chronic heel striker and foot slider when running in sneakers I definitely concentrated on lifting my feet when I started running skin to ground. After a little while (2 months?) there was enough muscle memory, for my average run, that I no longer focused on it. As I fatigued on longer runs I would occasionally remind myself to pick my feet up.
I think that early awareness helped as I never did get friction blisters.
I think that early awareness helped as I never did get friction blisters.
I'm one of the very few people I know of who insists that corrections made above the waist are the place to start, and especially arm swing. Higher cadence acheived through active arm work and passive leg motion - that's what I'm all about. And don't do anything intentional with the feet - leave the poor things alone to do the work they do best.
I've never really understood the foot lift advice, and have always felt that it's something a person could easily misinterpret, and quite possibly get hurt doing. Maybe it's a crapshoot as to who succeeds with it and who don't. There are videos at youtube, people demostrating their "foot lift technique", and they generaly don't good to me.
Regardless, I think it's bad advice unless you really have a solid understanding of how to get a person to do it correctly, and are coaching them live. I'd put the knee bend in the same category. And really, any advice involving tinkering directly with the legs/feet.
Then there's the whole speed angle, which is were Jason is really heading with this
I also like that foot peeling thing, too. And it works best (or exclusively?) when you keep the feet passive. Peel them from the ground, heel to toe, until the foot is basically dangling in the air, then let them land, "toe to heel", the same way. More like ball-to-heel, but whatever. Main thing is the heel touches down (extending the Achilles).
how long have you actually been involved in this, Lee? There was a LOT of pioneering going on for years, people experimenting, exchanging info, learning ... You just popped up at a time when a lot of the leg work had already been done for you.
"Lifting the foot" can be a good method to prevent people from crashing their foot into the ground when first taking off heavy foot coffins, but I question the usefulness in other applications. Lifting the foot requires activation of the quads, hamstrings, or hip flexors during the recovery phase, but the same motion is accomplished with elastic recoil and inertia. In other words, lifting the foot unnecessarily contracts muscles. The only time this would be needed is technical trails where the foot has to clear an obstacle.
The other problem with lifting the foot is not achieving full hip extension. This would reduce the force generated with each stride, which will slow you down and further reduce efficiency.
The idea of lifting the foot came about as a means of mitigating the problem of a heavy foot strike and to prevent pushing off. While it may still be a good cue to prevent an excessively heavy foot strike, the pushing off problem would be better corrected by not actively contracting the calf muscles immediately before the foot leaves the ground.
Back in the day, I think most of us looked to solutions like "lifting your feet" because the predominant biomechanical information we found dealt with "jogging" gait or was one of the branded methods (Pose, Chi, Evolution, etc.). We could use some stuff from the latter, but we still had to blaze new ground.
Today, we have a wealth of people doing legitimate biomechanical research on what we would call "natural" running gait. That research is suggesting we were right some of the time and wrong some of the time. As a teacher of this stuff, it's important to get it as right as possible based on what we have. In the case of "lifting the foot", it's becoming increasingly clear we were wrong.
The other problem with lifting the foot is not achieving full hip extension. This would reduce the force generated with each stride, which will slow you down and further reduce efficiency.
The idea of lifting the foot came about as a means of mitigating the problem of a heavy foot strike and to prevent pushing off. While it may still be a good cue to prevent an excessively heavy foot strike, the pushing off problem would be better corrected by not actively contracting the calf muscles immediately before the foot leaves the ground.
Back in the day, I think most of us looked to solutions like "lifting your feet" because the predominant biomechanical information we found dealt with "jogging" gait or was one of the branded methods (Pose, Chi, Evolution, etc.). We could use some stuff from the latter, but we still had to blaze new ground.
Today, we have a wealth of people doing legitimate biomechanical research on what we would call "natural" running gait. That research is suggesting we were right some of the time and wrong some of the time. As a teacher of this stuff, it's important to get it as right as possible based on what we have. In the case of "lifting the foot", it's becoming increasingly clear we were wrong.
Well Willie, besides being a casual barefooter for some 30 years, I ran barefoot 20 years ago for a few years, just once a week or so, no problem. I ran shod 10 years ago for a couple of years, also no problem. Now I've been running barefoot for about a year and a half, almost two years except the first six months were very sporadic. Again, no form issues that I know of. So it's hard for me to understand what all the fuss is about, but perhaps I'm just lucky. I don't mean to pooh-pooh the experience of others, but so many of these concepts just make no sense to me, although I'll readily admit they seem to work as coaching cues for many runners. The danger is that, because these cues are often based on faulty understandings of biomechanics (and yes, my understanding of running biomechanics is very new and partial at best--you're right about that), they may do just as much harm as good for some runners, as was the case for Jim. I don't know what the solution is, as many have reported benefits from this stuff, so I keep registering my dissenting voice just in case there's someone out there who's new to this and falls more into Barefoot Gentile 'just run' type of runner, and is therefore someone who needs to hear that some of us do just fine, for whatever reason, without consciously manipulating every aspect of running form.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if someone is having troubles, past the normal transitional stuff, then yes, try all these different techniques, but also be aware that for some of us, just the sensory feedback of skin-to-ground and good posture are enough. No disrespect intended, but I have learned very little about running from self-identified bfr vets and gurus. Most of my knowledge has come from reading what elite runners, coaches, and academic researchers have to say about running mechanics/physiology--they've been thinking about this stuff for far longer than three years. Specifically barefoot advice that I've found useful has been mostly confined to tips about how to deal with different temp and terrain challenges, and top-of-the-foot-pain.
When I first started barefoot/minimalist about a year ago, my major problem was way too much pushing off with the calf muscles, and sometimes I would run entirely up on my toes. My whole upper body would bounce up and down, and I constantly had strains and injuries in my calves and Achilles tendons. Ah, the benefits of hindsight. "Lifting the feet" was a good cue to try and minimize the pushing-off problem. Today, I don't use "lift the feet" as often, but I think it could still be an important cue for many beginners. What would be some other good teaching cues to minimize pushing off?
It think it's great advice for someone first starting out, I know it helped me. I still remember reading where Ken Bob said "lift the foot, before it hits the ground" That is such a crazy thought when you think about it, but it works. Then as time goes on you just fall into your own style. I am sure I still lift the feet now, since I never get any blisters or abrasions, but it's without thought. I know I do "push off" when I want to sprint for a bit, or run uphill fast on concrete, again I don't suffer any blisters, which is just from years of conditioning the plantar skin.
"Pushing off" is a confusing term, too. I'd define it as a plantarflexion of the foot that's accomplished by contracting the calf muscles immediately before the foot leaves the ground. In essence, it's adding a little extra "push" to propel you forward. As we all know, the calf fatigues really fast when doing this... it's not designed to propel you forward. That's the "pushing off" we want to avoid. The easiest way to do that is to keep the calf relaxed as the body passes over the foot. Forward propulsion is accomplished with the hips (hip extension), the rest of the leg just supports the body and returns some elastic energy.
Others refer to "pushing off" as leaving the foot on the ground after your body passes over the foot and try pulling it up prematurely before you reach full hip extension. Based on the biomechanics, this would appear to be wrong as it limits speed and efficiency.
NickW
Guest
A year and a halfish ago when I started bfr, the lifting the feet concept did not work for me. I could not seem to get it and felt awkward and off and it caused me some issues right out of the gate. What really helped me though was when I figured out not to push off. That was something I felt more in control of. I think it depends on the person though and their interpretation and application of an idea.
