How Should Your Feet Strike When Running?

You don’t want to be striking heel-first when running, and instead, you should be landing with a forefoot strike (the balls of the foot, not high up on the toes). Study after study found heel strike runners who suffered severe lower leg pain has the largest improvements in symptoms after adopting the forefoot running technique. The reason heel striking causes leg cramps when running is that it produces the highest value of the ground reaction force that the body and thick cushioned running shoes cannot absorb. Heel strike running also produces a rapid spike in impact pressure that is naturally present at landing because the action of landing heel-first facilitates an over-stride, which is reversed in forefoot running. Read more here!