Striking the ground on your heel and in front of the body is essentially creating a braking force, sending you backward. When you heel strike, you put excessive stress on your lower legs and knees, increasing the risk of injuries such as shin splints, stress fractures, and runner’s knee.
I feel like this conflates overstriding with heel-striking[1]. Overstriding—one’s feet land too much in front of one’s center of mass. Even consulting your own image, the runner marked as ‘mid-foot striking’ could be heel-striking without changing anything in the overall posture.[2] Though, I agree that mid-foot striking is still definitely better than heel-striking on net.
I know plenty of runners with good running technique and years of experience who are lifelong heel-strikes. Though, I’m a forefoot to midfoot striker myself.
I feel like this conflates overstriding with heel-striking[1]. Overstriding—one’s feet land too much in front of one’s center of mass. Even consulting your own image, the runner marked as ‘mid-foot striking’ could be heel-striking without changing anything in the overall posture.[2] Though, I agree that mid-foot striking is still definitely better than heel-striking on net.
Specifically, I think the claims about braking and excessive stress are false for heel-striking when decoupled from overstriding.
I know plenty of runners with good running technique and years of experience who are lifelong heel-strikes. Though, I’m a forefoot to midfoot striker myself.
Agreed, thanks! I changed the preceding paragraph to reflect this:
In general, a 10-16° forward lean should take care of both heel striking and overstriding.