Helen Hall on Heel Striking and Leveraging Hills for Foot Function in Running Performance

Today’s show welcomes back running coach and biomechanist, Helen Hall. Helen is the author of “Even With Your Shoes On”. She is an endurance athlete, minimalist ultra-distance runner, 6 times Ironman and credited with being the world’s first ‘barefoot’ Iron(wo)man. Helen is the owner of the Perpetual Forward Motion School of Efficient Running, as well as a running injury clinic, using the latest movement science and gait analysis technology to help people find solutions for their pain and injuries. She appeared on episode 180 speaking on all things joint mechanics and technique in running. One of the most common things I hear (and have seen, especially in my club track years) about athletes is those who have a heavy heel strike when they run. Excessive passive forces in athletic motion is never a good thing, but it’s always important to understand binary concepts (you had a heel-strike or you didn’t) in further detail. There is a spectrum of potential foot strike positions in running, and nobody stays on their heel in gait, as we always move towards the forefoot. On the show today, Helen goes in depth on heel striking and the biomechanics of the heel in the running cycle, as well as the difference in heel striking motions in jogging versus sprinting. One of the topics I frequently enjoy covering is how the human body can interact with nature and natural features to optimize itself (which includes optimizing running technique) and Helen speaks on how one can use uphill and downhill grades to help athletes and individuals self-organize their own optimal running technique. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Inside Tracker, and Lost Empire Herbs. For 25% off of an Inside Tracker order go to info.insidetracker.com/justflysports For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:27 – Why Helen feels individuals heel strike in the first place 11:33 – Helen’s “happy medium” when it comes to socks in running 14:28 – Helen’s view on the heel bone and pronation in the initial strike in running 21:03 – How Helen would help an athlete who heel strikes in a sprint when it is not desired 29:28 – The importance of relaxation and “letting” the body move and react, versus trying to force the body into motion 38:41 – Nuances of using uphill and downhill running, what to notice, and how to integrate that into one’s stride 45:29 – How un-even surfaces can create grounds by which individuals can self-organize their stride and foot action 48:35 – How to leverage hills to optimize the function of the glutes in running “I never change somebody’s first point of contact; their bodies change their first point of contact themselves” “There can’t be a right or wrong, since there are so many people whose first point of contact is the heel, and they are not in pain” “If you land in front of the heel, then you get the eccentric loading of the Achilles and what it attaches to” “People decide they are in “this camp” or “that camp” and thereby the camps run parallel to each other and never exchange ideas” “You want to be landing, not in a pronating foot.. in the context of running… the descent is arguably a posteriorly tilted calcaneus because you are landing in a supinating foot… unless your foot is going to go “splat” immediately” “You want to land on a foot that is relaxed enough to give” “They are reaching for the step, and by reaching on the step through hip flexion, they are ending up on their heel first, and that may be giving them more control as they go through the forefoot” “In my experience, people do not go back to the heel-strike, and all you need is a slope (to correct it)” “If you want to slow down, the most natural thing in the world is to shove your foot out, and brake with your heel” “You have to be relaxed for the response in your unbelievably complex system to happen in .2 seconds” “When you go downhill on a heel strike that you don’t feel on the flat… so you get to feel what it’s doing on the flat that you didn’t know before” “If you are aware of the terrain, the brain to body connections will take care of themselves” “Even if you are an athlete who operates on a pristine soccer pitch, if you can get out in nature and operate your body and ask it to do natural things, you are going to be more resilient towards the injuries of “everything has to be perfect” “You can’t clench your glutes when you run, if you clench your glutes, you go backwards” “You know you are stacked when you have maximum head rotation” About Helen Hall Helen Hall is the author of “Even With Your Shoes On”, a comprehensive manual on teaching running in a natural manner based on the sensory capabilities of the human body. She is an endurance athlete, minimalist ultra-distance runner, 6 times Ironman and credited with being the world’s first ‘barefoot’ Iron(wo)man. She has completed “the hardest ironman in the world”, Ironman Lanzarote in 2011. Helen is the owner of the Perpetual Forward Motion School of Efficient Running, as well as a running injury clinic. She specializes in the solving of chronic pain and repetitive injuries, be they in the neck, shoulder, back, hip, knee, ankle or foot and connected to sports or not. Helen uses the latest movement science and gait analysis technology to help people find solutions for their pain and injuries. She is a cofounder of Barefoot Audio, an audio tool merging evocative coaching cues to inspirational music composed specifically with efficient running in mind. She is the author of the YMCAfit Barefoot/Efficient Running course and manual and was the coach to the inov-8 Natural Run program. Helen is qualified as an Anatomy in Motion Level 4 Practitioner, has multiple CHEK certifications, as well as certification in lymphatic therapy.