The best starting place to avoid heel striking when running is to avoid lifting the front of your foot back upon and at landing, rather learn to relax the front of your foot and let it fall to the ground so that you can actually land directly on the balls of your foot.
It turns out, cushioned running shoes are bad for your ankles! A new study finds thick cushioned running shoes with a large heel flare increases the risk for ankle injury by increasing inappropriate ankle movements at touchdown and results in higher initial joint pronation. Even worse, these shoes also caused the highest touchdown velocity of the heel, the highest vertical impact force peaks and the highest maximum vertical loading rate as compared with minimalist shoes.
One of the few ways Achilles tendon pain may arise in forefoot running is you may be landing too high up on your toes without letting your heel drop down to the ground. This directly causes Achilles injury by placing more jarring force, loading and mechanical strain on the Achiilles, and calves. To avoid this injury, you must engage a proper forefoot strike which is a much flatter foot placement, where initial ground-contact is made on the balls of the foot, then the heel drops down to the ground, which does a better job at safeguarding the Achilles as compared with toe striking and heel striking.
Outlining the center mass definition and why its position during running dramatically affects performance and injury prevention.
Collective research has found heel lifts have no preventive effect on damaging heel pressures and peak forces on the Achilles in heel strike runners. The good news is, all that may be needed to prevent heel and Achilles injury in running is to avoid heel striking altogether and adopt a forefoot strike landing because there’s consistently little to no impact at the heel, while doing more to stabilize the Achilles tendon.
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