Should You Strike With Your Heel When Running? No!

Should You Strike With Your Heel When Running? No!

One of the many reasons you should not heel strike when running is because doing so does not pay off for injury prevention. Heel strike running was found to cause the foot to twist too much during stance, leading to higher rates of impact and strain across multiple sites on the lower leg. This happens because as the body-weight travels heel-to-toe after heel strike, the arch collapses too much which causes abnormal foot motions that results in insufficient impact absorption, and keeps injuries going vs forefoot running. Read more here!

Bretta Riches

"I believe the forefoot strike is the engine of endurance running..."

BSc Neurobiology; MSc Biomechanics candidate, ultra minimalist runner & founder of RunForefoot. I was a heel striker, always injured. I was inspired by the great Tirunesh Dibaba to try forefoot running. Now, I'm injury free. This is why I launched Run Forefoot, to advocate the health & performance benefits of forefoot running and to raise awareness on the dangers of heel striking, because the world needs to know.
Bretta Riches