It is important that you think not just about lifting the toes
when performing this action, but decreasing the angle of the foot from the front of the
leg - doing this allows your hamstring to work with greater efficiency pulling your
heel up and therefore decreasing the time a stride takes.
Often when a runner has poor or tired running technique the foot follows a large
arc when coming up towards the backside. Our aim here is to pull it straight up, fast.
In doing so we reach the same final position as the arced motion, just quicker.
Coaches can often be heard working on running technique by telling athletes to lift their knees higher,
particularly when coaching sprinters. This is because it allows for the greatest range of
movement - and hence a longer stride length. This is very important, but will prove to
be counter-productive if the lift of the knee comes above a position where the leg is
parallel to the ground.
For the same reason as it is important to lift your knees high, extending your
leg out straight allows for the greatest stride length possible. It should be remembered here
that we are concentrating on moving the whole body straight down the track, you foot should
move perpendicularly to the direction you are running - any lateral movement will cause
a wastage of energy.
Finally, we come to clawing back. This may sound like a strange thing to do as
it shortens your stride slightly and you are trying to make your foot move in the opposite
direction to which you are running. It is however important for two reasons, firstly, if
your foot were to land in front of your centre of gravity, it would act as a brake on your body - commonly refered to as over striding.
Secondly, by starting to claw back you are preparing to contact with the ground and get into
the next stride as soon as possible. One of the primary things that differentiates Michael
Johnson with most of his competitors is that he spends far less time with his foot in contact
with the ground.
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