Ep #277: How to Nail Your Running Form

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’ve never felt athletic but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, your fat running coach. I help fat women over 40 to start running, feel confident, and change their lives. I have worked with thousands of women to help them achieve their running goals and now I want to help you.

Hey runners. Okay, so I am recording this the day before I leave for a trip with Andy because he’s just an amazing human and surprised me on my birthday with a trip to Punta Cana. And I’m so excited for many reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve never gone on a surprise vacation before. And I’m so grateful to Andy for thinking it up and picking such a great place to go.

I’ve never been to the Dominican Republic, which means I’m going to add to my list of countries that I’ve gone running in, bringing the grand total to eight different countries. And I’ve actually been to more countries than that, but some of them were like day trips from when I used to travel to Europe for work a lot and, you know, we’d like fly to Poland for a meeting and then come back the same day and I couldn’t go for a run there.

That was a really fun part of my life, actually. I have visited a grand total of 17 countries so far. And I definitely have a lot more on my wish list. But anyway, I am pumped to spend a few days on the beach and maybe even do some snorkeling and see some beautiful things and go running at least once by the water. And I promise to post a ton of pictures on Instagram.

So, this week we’re actually going to talk about running form, and in particular, the type of running form that I teach to beginners. But before I do that, I want to introduce a new podcast feature. It might be weekly, it might be monthly, that is TBD. But the feature is called ask your fat running coach. And so this is basically where you get to ask me questions and then I will answer them here on the podcast. And we actually have one this week from Allison.

And Allison writes in, “Hey, Jill, I started running last month and I am loving it. Eventually I want to train for a half marathon. I’ve walked them in the past, but never run. I’m doing the intervals you teach and I run consistently five days a week, but it is not getting any easier. I’m always really sore afterwards and I’m feeling frustrated. Is this normal?”

Well, first of all, Allison, I want to say thank you so much for your question. And also congratulations on becoming a runner, I know you’re going to slay that half marathon. But let’s talk about your problem. So, soreness after running is not uncommon and there could be a few things going on here. But you didn’t actually say whether it’s your joints or your muscles that are feeling sore.

And I’m going to assume that it’s muscle soreness. But if you do have joint pain, like in your knees or your hips during or after each run, I do want you to go see a sports doctor or a physical therapist for an assessment. They’ll be able to figure out what’s going on and help you. And most joint issues are actually easily solvable with physical therapy and strength training. So if you’re having joint pain, please go see a specialist about that.

But I’m going to assume from what you describe that it’s actually just muscle soreness. And the main red flag that I see here is that you’ve been running for a month and you’re already doing five days a week. That is a lot of running for a beginner. Even if you’ve been a regular walker for a long time, just like ramping up to running five days a week is a lot.

So I strongly suggest the first thing you do is take a few like, I don’t know, maybe four or five in a row rest days immediately. Because if you’re sore after every single run, this is an indication that you’re pushing your body too far right now. And I want you to give yourself a few days off. When you start back running, I want you to change it up to just three days a week, okay?

So rest is a really important part of your training and it’s when your body repairs muscle damage, and it’s when your body gets stronger, it’s when your body makes your muscles stronger. And when you don’t take time for that, you’re going to have issues, okay? Especially if you’re new to running, you’ve got to rest. Rest is part of training.

So I want you to make sure that you always take one day off in between your runs, give those legs a chance to recover and build up that endurance. You are pushing it way too hard right now, my friend. And here’s the thing, if you don’t take time to rest as part of your training, if you keep going on this way, you are going to get injured and then you will be taking a lot of time off, okay?

So I want you to stick with three times a week. And as little as possible, don’t do it two days in a row for at least the next two months, okay? And then when you can run without having any pain afterwards, right? When you’re like, I can run three times a week and I don’t feel sore, then you can add a fourth day, okay?

Also, the other thing that I’m not sure, if you’re already doing this, awesome. But if you’re not, please start doing a warm up before you run, okay? It’s really important because it gets your muscles ready to go. And my suggested warm up is a five minute walk and then a dynamic stretching routine. And if you check my Instagram, I actually did a reel where I demonstrate my stretching routine. So you can find that on my Instagram, which is not your average runner.

And then after you run, I want you to spend like three to five minutes stretching all your major muscle groups. So spend some time on that after your run and definitely do a five minute walk and then a dynamic stretching routine to warm up. And that’s also going to help with your soreness, okay? All right, keep in touch, let me know how it goes.

Okay friends, now we’re on to our main topic of the week, which is running form. And this is specifically running form for beginners. And particularly, if you’re fat, this is the perfect running form for you when you’re starting out.

Now, everyone’s body is different, right? From the length of your legs and your torso to the shape your feet, to the way your joints are put together, how your body fat is distributed. No two people are exactly alike, which means that there’s no perfect running form that works for every single person, okay?

And I’ve seen some pretty wacky runners in my travels, right? There are folks out there with what looks like kind of a like weird running form that you kind of wonder like how on earth they can get from point A to point B without hurting themselves. But the deal is, just because it looks odd doesn’t mean it’s wrong, because everyone’s body is different.

And if you are able to run injury free while you are breaking some of the cardinal “rules” of running forum, well, I say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But that being said, there are some general guidelines that I want to share today that I think can help you become a stronger, less injury prone runner.

And running form also is not just your legs, it’s your whole fucking body. A whole body, okay? So keep that in mind. We are going to start with the legs and we’re going to work from the ground up. So let’s dive in with feet, okay?

So first of all, how you land on your feet is really, really important. A heavy heel landing, and you know the people I’m talking about, like when you hear them walking down the hall it sounds like they’re angry at the floor, right? It’s like bang, bang, bang, their heels are jamming into the floor. If that’s how you’re running or walking, it can actually lead to shin splints as well as other injuries. And shin splints do not feel good.

So in general, the first thing I recommend is aiming to have your feet land directly underneath your hips. So when your feet are landing out in front of your body, that is when you end up with a heavy heel landing. If you let your feet land softly under your hips when you run, like imagine your foot landing almost more on the middle of your foot than on your heel.

But again, everyone’s body is different, right? But like let your foot land underneath your hips instead of slightly out in front of your body when you run. This means you’re going to be taking shorter steps and you’re going to be moving your legs faster, but it is going to result in a much lighter landing, it allows your leg muscles to do the shock absorption rather than your knee joints.

And this running form is very important if you’re a beginner, but it is especially important if you’re fat, all right? Because extra weight can mean extra impact to your joints. Now, that’s actually not necessarily a bad thing because that impact also causes your bones to get stronger. But when you’re first starting out and you might not have like the musculature that’s going to protect your knees, a heavy heel landing can be very jarring.

So it’s super important for you to work on your running form and your landing, all right? Soft landing, directly under your hips and that is going to help you avoid the dreaded shin splints as well, right? So short stride, in my Run Your Best Life coaching group I actually call this Corgi running because when you think about corgis and they take these tiny little steps, and then they’re also really, really fast runners.

That’s what we call it in our group, Run Your Best Life, we call it Corgi running. But it is a shorter stride, it is a faster foot turnover. And it is really going to help you land softly on your feet.

Now, one way to know if you’re landing with your feet under your hips is when you’re running, you just tuck your chin and look straight down at your feet. And if you can see your toes peeking out in front of your body while you’re running, you’re doing great. If you can see your entire foot, including your heel, you’re landing too far in front.

So if that’s the case, shorten your stride, literally just take shorter steps. And it may take a little practice, it might feel a little unnatural at first. But when you get used to taking those shorter steps, you build up lots of strength in your calves, which really assists you as you start running longer and longer distances. And again, it helps you avoid shin splints and knee pain.

So the other thing that I want to mention about your feet, and you’re going to want to keep them low to the ground with each step. So a lot of times we think about like Olympic sprinters and they’re just taking these enormous steps and they’re getting all this air underneath them. And it looks fun, it looks amazing, but it uses a lot of energy, okay?

This is sprinting form, I’m teaching you a more relaxed beginner’s running form, some people might even refer to it as jogging. And you can graduate to a more advanced running form as you build endurance and strength. But for right now, I want you to focus on what I’m teaching you today. And so keeping your feet low to the ground, imagine you’re just sort of gliding over the ground with each step.

It’s going to keep you more efficient, right? It uses less energy, because when you’re thinking about bounding forward, propelling yourself in the upward direction doesn’t move you any forward, it moves you up, right? So I want you to conserve your resources for that forward motion by keeping your feet low to the ground. You’re going to be able to go farther, you’ll feel better and, again, you’re going to have less injuries. So that’s your feet and your legs, right, and your stride.

Now let’s talk a little bit about your torso and your head. So when you’re running, I know this is going to sound obvious, but we forget sometimes when we’re running and we’re getting tired. When you’re running I want you to keep your body upright, okay?

And it’s really easy to sort of slump forward a bit from the shoulders or even from the waist. Especially if your core muscles, which includes your abs, your back and your chest, if your core muscles are on the weaker side, you’re going to be tempted to slump forward because if your core is weak it’s going to be harder to keep your body upright.

So, pro tip, when you do your strength training, do a lot of core work, okay? But over time, when you’re slumping forward from your shoulders or from your waist, this can degrade your running form because you’re going to have backaches, then you’ll overcompensate in your hips, you’ll have glute problems. It compresses your chest cavity if you’re caving forward in the chest, and that squeezes your lungs and that reduces your capacity to take deep breaths, right?

So really, like the strength of your core and the ability for you to remain upright when you’re running is really, really important. So like I said, there’s a huge impact when you’re running form is such that you’re not upright. But you can help yourself stay upright in a few different ways. And, of course, one of the most important is strength training for your core, doing things like planks and dead bugs and all those kinds of fun things.

But I’m going to give you a few form tricks that are going to help you stay upright as well. And the first is to ensure your head, like you’re going to keep your chin up and rest your gaze about 20 feet ahead of you, okay? Because when your eyes are constantly looking straight down at the path or the sidewalk or whatever, that means your head and neck are going to follow. And soon you’re going to be running all hunched over, okay?

So you got to focus on looking for obstacles in the distance, instead of immediately in front of you. And if you see them in the distance, you can correct or run around them or whatever, right? It’s not like you’re just not paying attention to what’s in front of you, you’re just looking farther ahead and scanning farther ahead and planning farther ahead.

So every few minutes when you’re running, I want you to do a little bit of a form check. And if you run with your phone, you could actually program like a timer every five minutes to beep so that you know, okay, it’s time to do a form check.

But a form check looks like this, so you’re going to make sure your gaze is forward, your head and chin are up, and your shoulders are kind of pulled back. Like your shoulder blades are sort of pulled back towards each other, and your torso is upright.

And I like to imagine a string coming right off the top of my head, pulling my whole body upwards almost like a marionette, okay? So this eventually creates the habit of running that way all the time, if you keep checking in with your form and adjusting and readjusting and readjusting, right?

And oh by the way, when I say bring your shoulder blades back, I mean sort of like let your shoulders relax down. So first you like relax your shoulders down, and then you kind of pull your shoulder blades together in the back. I almost try to think of like, what if I were trying to put my shoulder blades in my back pockets? That’s one visual.

So to create that relaxed way of running you’re going to, again, you’re going to keep yourself upright, and you’re going to keep your stride short, you’re going to keep your feet low to the ground. And now let’s talk about your arms and your hands. So they’re not just along for the ride, they can actually help you. They can also hinder you when you’re running.

But your arms, like if you’re really pumping them back and forth really hard, again, like you might have seen during an Olympic sprint, this is probably going to hinder you because what it’s doing is twisting your body from side to side. And like I said, it all goes back to managing your energy.

So, we want to keep our feet low to the ground to save our energy for forward motion. And we don’t want to put a lot of energy into really pumping our arms back and forth hard because, again, that’s energy we could be using to move our legs forward.

So I want you to keep your elbows bent at a 90 degree angle, keep your hands loose, because clenching your fists takes energy, right? And allow your arms to move loosely back and forth when you run, okay? Their job is to counterbalance the opposite foot and help you ever so slightly with forward momentum. But you’re not driving yourself forward with your arms, okay? They’re just there to kind of balance you out.

Okay, so to keep your hands loose while you’re running I want you to imagine you’re holding a potato chip between your thumb and your middle finger. And you don’t want to break it because you want to eat it at the end of your run and you don’t want it to be crumbs, okay?

And so basically what that looks like is you’re either loosely touching your fingertips together or you’re kind of like just running with your hands loosely curled in, but not in a fist, okay? But just like the potato chip, for me the potato chip thing always works. So keeping your hands loose, keeping your arms bent and like gently moving forward, but not like powerfully driving forward because, again, you’re not sprinting.

So putting that all together, we’ve just gone through a lot. And so I know that putting it all together might be a little overwhelming. And I don’t know if you’ve ever gone golfing or taking a golf lesson, I did that once when I was a teenager with my mom. And there’s like 90 million things they try to teach you and you’re like, “There is no way I’m going to be able to put that all together, it is too much to remember.”

So I want you instead to implement these things one by one. And again, I would start in the order that we taught them in this podcast, right? So you’re going to start with your feet first and implement them one by one. But actually, the first thing you’re going to want to do is start out by assessing your current form. So let’s start there.

So how you’re going to do that, there’s two main ways. And the first is if you have access to a treadmill, the easiest thing to do is to run on the treadmill and have somebody stand next to you with their phone and film you. Or set up a tripod or if there’s a bookshelf or something like that, you could set your own phone up and record yourself running.

But the filming is super helpful. And make sure that you do it in slow mo so that you can really see how your feet are landing, how your body is moving. And I want you to film yourself from a 90 degree angle, from the side, and then film yourself from directly behind so that you have a chance to see your side view and how upright you are and then you also have a chance to see from the back like what your side to side balance looks like, okay? So make sure you do that in slow mo.

So here’s what I know, of course, there are some of you out there thinking, I can feel it. “Hell no, I don’t want to see what I look like on video.” Right? And that’s the first thing that comes up a lot of times when I say to new clients, “Hey, I want you to video yourself running.”

So if you’re thinking that I just want you to know, it’s only your inner bully talking and honestly saying that you don’t want to see yourself running is kind of like an ostrich pretending he’s invisible by hiding his head in the sand. It doesn’t work because everyone else can see him, he’s not invisible.

So when you have that reaction, I just want you to know that, right, you’re just afraid of what you’re going to think about yourself when you see yourself running. And so let’s decide in advance that your inner bully is not running this show. The goal here is to become a stronger runner, and really the only way to do that is for you to have an objective, clear understanding of where you are now, so that you can make the adjustments, move forward and improve, all right?

And I promise, you look way better than you think while you’re running. You probably think you’re out there flailing around like Phoebe from friends. Or maybe you think you look like a turtle or whatever other bullshit thought your brain offers you. But I promise, you look fine. You look like a runner, okay?

And the other thing I want you to think of is that the video is kind of like a progress picture, okay? So you video yourself now and then you work on your form for the next few months and then you take another video. And you will be able to see improvements and then you get to be super proud of yourself, okay? So just go do it, I promise it’s worth it.

And if you’re a Run Your Best Life Member, that’s one of the things that you can do in our group. Like we actually have a thing where in Run Your Best Life you can actually just post a video of yourself and I will actually look at it and give you feedback.

Now, so that was all like if you have access to a treadmill and you can video yourself on a treadmill. If you don’t have access to a treadmill, you just have somebody watch you outside and film you or, again, you could get a tripod or set it up on a bench or something like that.

And again, you want to do it in slow mo. You want to get video from directly behind you, right, so you can see what your feet look like and whether you’ve got any kind of side to side leaning. And then you want it from 90 degrees so that you can see what your up and down form looks like, right? Like, are you keeping yourself upright? Are you landing with your feet directly underneath your hips, right? So you want to get two angles, and you want to do it in slow mo.

And I know this is, for some people this is like a pain in the ass, I totally get it. So just do the best you can. Worst comes to worst, have somebody else watch you and give you verbal feedback based on the instructions I’ve given you in this podcast, okay? They can help you and say like, hey, it looks like you were crunching forward a little bit from the chest, or looks like you’re landing on your heels or whatever.

Because often we don’t even notice what we’re doing when we’re running, right? And that’s why it’s so important to have this objective stuff, either video evidence or somebody else just looking at you and telling you what they see. Because, you know, the longer you run without adjusting your form, the more ingrained the bad habits get.

And especially when it comes to holding your body upright when you’re running, okay, it is super common to sort of cave in at the chest or bend over a bit from the waist. And again, that leads to back pain and hip pain and so forth. Because those really, like your glutes and your low back are the first muscles to get tired when you run because our leg muscles are super strong, okay? So it really is your core muscles, for most runners, that get tired.

So have a little patience with yourself. Pick one form item to work on for a couple of weeks. When you’ve mastered it, you get to move on to the next. And actually, that is your challenge for this week. I’m challenging you, okay?

I want you to first look at your running form either on video or having a friend give you feedback. And then actively pick one thing to work on for two weeks. Whatever it is that you decide you’re going to work on, dedicate your runs during that time to really focusing on perfecting your form in that area. And I promise you’re going to see benefits immediately, okay?

So I want to tell you a little bit about what I’m kind of obsessed with this week, and honestly every week. And that obsession is how badass the clients in Run Your Best Life are. So many of them are really rocking out there running programs this year. I’ve watched them set really big goals. And like now we’re coming to the end of the year and people are just slaying them left, right and center.

So I’m going to shout out a few folks. And again, if I didn’t mention your name, I apologize. These are the ones that sort of came off the top of my head. There are a ton of success stories in the group. We’ll be talking about them a lot more as time goes on with this podcast.

But I wanted to mention that Robin set of 5k PR, which is something she’s been chasing for a while. Rebecca finished a half Ironman, which oh my fucking God, a half Ironman, amazing, amazing. And she told the story on one of our coaching calls in Run Your Best Life, which was so fun to hear all about that. And Cynthia finished in the top half of her age group, in not just one, but two races this month. And seriously, that is just a teeny tiny little slice of the success stories we have going on.

So one thing that I love so much about all my clients is how committed they are to their success, okay? Everybody in the group has had a setback. Some of them have had injuries. Some have had life events that just happened, right? We’ve had plenty of people who have had COVID. They’ve all had these setbacks, but they keep showing up for themselves week after week after week. And they never seem to let failure bring them down.

And so I think the reason for their success is because they don’t make failure, like failure like missing a run or having a bad run, they don’t make it mean that they’re not succeeding as a runner. They’re just like, “All right, I had a shitty run, that happens.”

So they’re really good at managing their thinking about running, because we talk a lot about thoughts in Run Your Best Life. And also they’re super committed, okay? And I think the reason for the commitment is twofold.

So first of all, I don’t know, I seem to attract some pretty badass women to this tribe. And if you’re listening to this, that means you too because it takes a shitload of courage in this world to be a runner when you don’t have a traditional runners body.

And this kind of posse of ours, we are disrupting the running and fitness world. We are creating change in the world just by going out there and running when we’re not a size six or we don’t look like someone on the cover of Runner’s World, okay?

All of us, every single woman, every single one of you, that gets out there and goes running, or cycling, or swimming, or rock climbing, right, or whatever it is. When you’re fat and you don’t fit into the norm, you are showing the world what true strength, commitment and courage is because you are willing to step up and not let other people’s opinions influence your dreams, right?

No matter how many times people say to you, you’re too fat to run, you’re going to hurt your knees, you’re going to come in last, you’re not a real runner, right? The people in Run Your Best Life, they just ignore all that bullshit. And they still show up to the start line, they still show up to the treadmill at the gym, okay?

This is what disruption of the fitness industry looks like. This is what creating a revolution looks like. And this is a big fucking deal, right? This is how change starts right here with you and me and that willingness to pursue what you want.

And so the clients that I’m seeing in Run Your Best Life, they’re all sort of displaying that mindset of like, I don’t really care if the world thinks this is a terrible idea, I’m going to do it anyway, because I want to do it. That’s it. So they’re so committed, they’re getting some amazing results, and I just want to celebrate everybody in Run Your Best Life this week because they are just bad asses.

And I mean, every single week when I get on our live video coaching calls, I’m so happy to hear about all their accomplishments and see how courageous they are. It’s like medal after medal, race after race, run after run. They’re just so awesome.

So I want to give a shout out to all of you and let all of my Run Your Best Lifers know how proud I am of each of you, and how I just can’t wait to see the incredible things that you are creating for yourselves in 2023. And how much of an example you are to the rest of the world because it only takes one person to have influence just by being themselves and by doing what they love, okay?

And if you are thinking like, “Hey, I want to be part of this badass group, they sound pretty awesome.” Well, again, the coaching group is called Run Your Best Life. And if you want to run your first half marathon, I’ll get you there. You want to run your first 5k? Got you covered. If you’re a brand new beginner, you don’t know where to start, we’ve got you covered there too, okay? It’s like a full service kind of situation. There’s so much good stuff there.

And again, the women in that group are just incredible. So if you are an incredible woman and you’re like, “Hey, I need to be there.” All of the details are over at runyourbestlife.com. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast thinking, “Hey, I’m ready to take this to the next level” or “I’m ready to start,” just go check it out, okay? Runyourbestlife.com, head over there, let me know what you think. Maybe you’ll join. I mean, obviously, you’re going to join and let’s go have some fun, okay? Runyourbestlife.com.

All right, my friends, I love you, stay safe, get your ass out there and run. And I will talk to you next week, all right? Bye.

Real quick before you go, if you enjoyed this episode you have got to check out Run Your Best Life. It’s my monthly coaching program where you will learn exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you have always wanted to be. Head on over to runyourbestlife.com to join. I would love to be a part of your journey.