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More efficient running style

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Cerrertonia Mar 2018 3:34pm, 21 Mar 2018 7,805 posts	Quote Pin Cerrertonia Eccentric heel drops as an intervention for achilles tendinopathy is one of the very few stretching/exercise type injury treatments that is fairly strongly backed by scientific studies. bjsm.bmj.com
Canute Mar 2018 4:28pm, 21 Mar 2018 1,842 posts	Quote Pin Canute The scientific evidence provides modest support for slow heel drops to help repair the Achilles. I myself do slow heel drops to condition the Achilles. During running, the Achilles experiences a hefty tug during the eccentric contraction at footfall, especially in mid and forefoot strikers, and therefore needs to be resilient. There is an inbuilt sensing mechanism in tendons (the golgi tendon organ) that acts to protect muscles from sudden potentially damaging stretching, by arresting active muscle contraction . However, it seems to me that while running there is a danger that the golgi tendon organ will minimise the amount of load taken by the muscle at footfall resulting in an excessive proportion of the load being taken by the tendon, leading to torn collagen fibres. Inflammation repairs the torn collagen fibres in a disorganized patchwork manner. The randomly arranged fibres are then in danger of tearing during subsequent footfall, causing pain . My speculative hypothesis is that slow heel drops bypass the effect of the Golgi tendon organ, resulting is a slow stretch of the tendon. This helps re-align fibres along the line of pull of the muscle, and removes misaligned fibres without wholesale ripping of fibres. Thus the damaged tendon is re-modelled so that the majority of fibres lying along the direction of pull of the muscle. However this is speculation.
Cerrertonia Mar 2018 4:56pm, 21 Mar 2018 7,808 posts	Quote Pin Cerrertonia Canute - there have been a few recent studies using shear wave elastography to look at achilles tendon structure after heel drops, with fairly inconclusive results, as I recall, but some tentative suggestions that the interaction between the calf muscles and the achilles tendon was also implicated in the healing effect.
Hills of Death (HOD) Mar 2018 11:01am, 23 Mar 2018 33,949 posts	Quote Pin Hills of Death (HOD) Just catching up and speed reading I'd be interesting to have a looooong chat about running form when we next meet (see I have something in my eye too) Dare I say it me Fenners and Glenners more or less sing off the same hymn sheet. None of us will ever be sub 3 marathoners. But do know a little bit about long distance running (maybe not Glenn x ) But form should be worked on and I think all of us do that, reduce the potential for injury, improve running therefore doing more and better results. It's not a magic bullet
GlennR Mar 2018 11:17am, 23 Mar 2018 34,540 posts	Quote Pin GlennR Well said HoD. You cheeky git. However, if by long distance you mean marathons I concede the point.
Fenners Mar 2018 11:37am, 23 Mar 2018 14,494 posts	Quote Pin Fenners I'm guilty of this, however I will still make the point. The obsession of the masses with long distance events is completely detrimental to form. Seldom do people listen however I still vehemently preach to youngsters why waste your youthfullness slogging out marathon(s) when they could be getting their form bang on by excelling at shorter events and building up slowly from 5k to 10k to HM over a number of years.
jdarun Mar 2018 11:45am, 23 Mar 2018 2,619 posts	Quote Pin jdarun FWIW I reckon that long steady runs (at a high cadence) have been highly beneficial for my running form. You can flail round a 5k with brute force (see: any parkrun) but you can't do that for 20 miles and feel comfortable at the end.
Fenners Mar 2018 11:47am, 23 Mar 2018 14,499 posts	Quote Pin Fenners But you need to build up to that over many years.
GlennR Mar 2018 11:47am, 23 Mar 2018 34,541 posts	Quote Pin GlennR If your half marathon WAVA isn’t better than your 10k then running a marathon is therapy, not athletics. Nothing wrong with that of course, but when we’re discussing running form then the point is to do the best you can.
Fenners Mar 2018 11:52am, 23 Mar 2018 14,500 posts	Quote Pin Fenners Nicely put Glenn!