Before I dive into how your posture should be when running, I want to emphasize that you should be landing with a forefoot strike, not a heel strike when running. This is because forefoot running (see here what a proper forefoot strike looks like) has been repeatedly proven to reduce all the mechanical burdens that cause nearly all running injuries! Now, as for your upper body posture when running, you should always be leaning slightly forward and never too upright. Here’s the research on why:
Conclusive evidence for this came from a study by Hsiang and Powers in the Journal of Orthopedic Sports Physical Therapy, which found that trunk posture affects knee-joint health in runners, and running too upright increased patellofemoral joint (PFJ – aka the knee) stress. PFJ stress was greatly reduced when runners added a subtle forward lean at the trunk.
The researchers outlined that the problem with running too upright is it produces an overly long stride, causing too much wasteful over-reach of the foot at landing. This causes the upper body to linger too far behind your initial foot strike position, resulting in an exaggerated gait that produces a greater braking effect and loading. This also increases mechanical work on the leg, especially the knee, since more muscle effort is needed to pull the torso up and through the next step.
The researchers underscored that the best prescription to keep your knee and your entire leg safe when running is to always make sure you’re leaning slightly forward because doing so reliably and sustainably reduces loading on the knee-joint, mechanical work on the leg, and increases the spring of gait, too. (Here’s a YouTube video I did showing why leaning forward when running was proven to be best for maintaining efficient running economy).
All in all, the best way to disentangle bad running form is to firstly make sure you’re landing on your forefoot, not your heel, and secondly, make sure you’re leaning slightly forward because both mechanical corrections have a greater influence on giving you better leg swing control (i.e preventing a high-impact over-stride), more effective reductions in net impact and better energy economy than heel strike running.
In that regard, here are more evidence-backed reasons that prove forefoot running is the best way to run.
If you’ve enjoyed my blog post, you’ll love my YouTube channel, here, where I show why forefoot running works, and why heel strike running hurts!
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