THE BALL, THE SOLE OR THE ARCH OF THE FOOT?
 The
question of how to land the foot in running is not a new one
developed just recently. At the end of the 19th and the beginning
of the 20th century there were developed several different
points of views. For instance, P. Bokin in his book "Walking,
Running, Jumping And Other Kinds of Natural Motion of Humans,"
published in 1910 in St. Petersburg, Russia, discusses flat
foot landing, which he considers to be the most useable, heel
landing, useable sometimes, and toe landing, very rarely used
in running. He sincerely believed that landing on the heel
allowed the runner to have a longer step and landing on the
forefoot made the step shorter, but he didn't advise to use
heel striking because of its strong impact on the body.
Well, while not agreeing with some of his interpretations,
I would with pleasure support his opinion about the impact
on the body from heel landing. It was clear even 100 years
ago! Why at the present time people, and especially, coaches
and scientists couldn’t get it, I have no idea. Nevertheless,
the discussion around the topic of landing in running goes
on from one book to another, from one presentation to another,
from one coach to another.
If we omit from our further discussion heel landing, as an
obvious misunderstanding of the physical reality, then we’ll
be left with three major points of views on this subject.
It is, the so-called, midfoot, flat foot and forefoot landing.
Each side insists that it is the only way to land properly
in order to reduce the impact and the load on the lower legs
and muscular and tendons/ligaments systems.
Let’s look at terminology: "midfoot" landing.
It is described as landing "just behind" the ball
of the foot. Advocates of this approach consider it as an
efficient substitute for forefoot landing, allowing the runner
to reduce the load on the foot supporting tissues and making
landing softer. It sounds as an important consideration, if
we don't know the meaning of the anatomical term "midfoot".
By definition from a very serious book "Joints Structure
& Function" (Norkin S.C., P.K. Levangie, F.A. Devis
Company . Philadelphia, 1992, p. 381), midfoot consists of
five tarsalas bones, which make up the ARCH of our foot. I
don’t know how they propose to land on the arch of the
foot. I know I wouldn’t be able to do that.
"Flat foot" landing, as the term implies, means
landing on the whole area of the sole of the foot, from its
front to the rear. Again, the supporters appeal to the same
values – it is supposed to reduce impact during landing
because "smacking" the whole foot on the ground
allows the runner to distribute the load over the larger area
of support. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
For me it may sound "reasonable" only for lazy
people, who do not want to run fast, efficient and less loaded.
The last one, less loaded, which is attributed to flat foot
landing, is not really true. I would like to make some comments
here to clear up this illusion about less loading in flat
foot landing. It is caused by our perception related to our
primary orientation on our muscular sensations of loading,
which are just one part of loading of the rest of our tissues
such as tendons, ligaments, cartilages and bones, and which
are mostly out of our perception. The fact that we do not
feel any load on our muscular system doesn’t mean that
we have no load by our body weight. Please do not fall into
this trap. In physical reality our body weight is always there,
but the problem is who is taking the responsibility to carry
it. If we do feel that our muscles are working less, then
we have to think who else is doing it now. The answer is straightforward
– the rest of tissues! There is no way around the body
weight and load: somebody must carry it. The question is only:
who’ll take care of it? Would it be just one group of
"responsible" tissues, or they’ll work all
together?
Now a more valuable hint. Our body’s moving structure
consists of bones mostly, connected by muscles, tendons, and
ligaments. This is basic knowledge from anatomy. The only
way the body can move as one unit is through the use of its
muscular system. In running muscles work to keep our body
over the support in order to let it fall forward. So if we
do not place our body by using our muscular system into the
falling position through our perception of movement, the other
tissues would get overloaded without the support of muscles.
This is what happens in the acute cases of ankle sprains,
when muscles perform late and thus function wrong. The same
thing happens with flat foot landing runners, but in a long
run.
It’s good to remember that nature doesn’t gamble,
or give favors. It just acts according to its own laws, which
we have to understand and obey. We have to land on the place,
where all the tissues are ready to accept the load from the
body and then instantly allow it to be moved forward by gravity
– through falling forward. And there is only one place
that fits this requirement – the forefoot or the ball
of the foot. Sounds very simple, doesn’t it? Why not
to try it? It works!
Dr.Romanov
Pose
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