Despite this, it can still Nike Air Max 270 Dames be hard to see exactly what is happening in a streaming video, so what I have done here is to extract still images from my videos for four runners at a standardized moment in the gait cycle (I will be doing www.jamlikhalsavast.se more of this at different points in coming posts). The runners that you will see are four of the top five finishers in the 2010 Boston Marathon: Robert Cheruiyot (the eventual winner), Tekeste Kebede (2nd place), Meb www.marmarisco.es Keflezighi (5th place), and Ryan Hall (4th place). In the yellow singlet behind Cheruiyot you can see Deriba Merga, who rounded out the top five by finishing 3rd – I have omitted him below since he is somewhat obscured by Cheruiyot in the video.What follows is not an exhaustive analysis of running stride in these runners (I’m hardly qualified to do that), but rather an attempt to point out that even at the highest level of competition, running form is highly variable. Why is this important? The main reason in my mind is that you can find innumerable published descriptions of how best to run, or what the optimal running Nike Air Max 2017 Donne form is. Often these descriptions share key points (e.g., avoid overstriding, avoid excess vertical and horizontal motion, etc.), but they also often differ greatly in the details and it’s hard to know just what Nike Roshe Run Mujer you should be doing out on the road or trail. For this reason I’m going to take a look at three aspects of the running stride and discuss the variation seen among these four elite runners. We’ll start with one of the most hotly debated aspects of running form these days – Nike Air Vapormax Womens footstrike.Elite runners at the 2010 Boston Marathon. Top Left = Robert Cheruiyot, Top Right = Tekeste Kebede, Bottom Left = Meb Keflezighi, Bottom Right = Ryan HallIf you want to start an argument among a group of runners nowadays, all you have to do is bring up the topic of footstrike (or how it relates to shoe choice, but we’ll avoid that equally www.tobiasstiftung.de controversial topic here). A lot of runners are interested right now in the idea of adopting a more “natural” midfoot or forefoot footstrike (I’m very admittedly guilty of this myself and have been playing with Asics Gel Lyte 3 Damen chaining my form for most of this summer). Others think this change unnecessary, and don’t buy the argument that moving away from the ubiquitous heel strike will improve efficiency or reduce injury risk. It’s not my goal to settle this argument here, and I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done before we can come to a clear conclusion on the issue. Nevertheless, I like to experiment, and the evolutionary biologist in me is a bit enamored with the idea of running as our ancestors did. Maybe I’m crazy, but I’m having fun.Back to the point, the ultimate question is whether one style of footstrike is “optimal” or Nike Air Huarache Dames better than the others. Famed runner and Nike Team Coach Alberto Salazar clearly thinks that midfoot/forefoot is the way to go, and was recently quoted as saying the following about heel striking: “It’s like Nike Air Max 95 Dam having a tire with a nail in it.” He has gone so far as to recently convert two of his elite runners, Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein, from heel striking to midfoot striking, and it’s going to be very interesting to watch how these guys do going forward (Ritzenhein is running the NYC with his retooled stride this Fall). Barefoot and minimalist runners also advocate for a midfoot/forefoot footstrike, mainly due to the fact that scientists like Daniel Lieberman have shown that this is the way humans run when not raised in built up, high-tech shoes (not to mention that it’s very hard to heel strike while barefoot or in an un-Nike Air Max 90 Mujercushioned shoe). Lieberman also showed that heel striking is associated with a greater initial impact force, though how that plays out in its potential relation to injury risk remains to be seen. On the other Nike Air Max 2017 Mens side of the issue, you have the running shoe companies, who have been producing shoes for nearly 40 years that are usually designed to absorb shock associated with a heel strike. The vast majority of runners out there run in these shoes and are heel strikers, and there is some risk to moving away from a shoe style that our body has adapted to. That’s not to say that it can’t be done, but it takes time and effort, and many don’t see conclusive evidence of a benefit big enough (or any benefit at all) to justify the effort needed to change (I have variously felt this way myself in the recent past).