Yes, heel striking when running is very bad. In addition to projecting unusually high amounts of damaging impacts on the leg, heel strike running also increases the risk of a hyper-extension injury to multiple sites across the leg.
At landing in heel strike running, the stance leg becomes increasingly unstable as the entire weight of the body loads onto and balances on a smaller support base (the back of the heel), while under high impact conditions. Uneven stress occurs on the leg at heel strike, while the additional strain coming from the leg’s over-compensatory efforts to maintain balance is linked to hyperextension injury.
A closer inspection of this came from a detailed study by Valenzuela et al., in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, which found that landing heel-first when running increased knee and hip excursions (a deviation from a regular pattern). The increases in knee and hip excursions was even more pronounced during the absorption phase (a phase of running where the lower leg must be as stable as possible to sufficiently absorb impact). This means landing with a heel strike when running creates an unstable support surface, causing the joints of the lower leg to move too much about their axis where the leg can no longer adequately absorb impact. This is all reversed for the better in forefoot running. Read more here!
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