title: Foot strike patterns of recreational and sub-elite runners in a long-distance road race.
abstract: Although the biomechanical properties of the various types of running foot strike (rearfoot, midfoot, and forefoot) have been studied extensively in the laboratory, only a few studies have attempted to quantify the frequency of running foot strike variants among runners in competitive road races. We classified the left and right foot strike patterns of 936 distance runners, most of whom would be considered of recreational or sub-elite ability, at the 10 km point of a half-marathon/marathon road race. We classified 88.9% of runners at the 10 km point as rearfoot strikers, 3.4% as midfoot strikers, 1.8% as forefoot strikers, and 5.9% of runners exhibited discrete foot strike asymmetry. Rearfoot striking was more common among our sample of mostly recreational distance runners than has been previously reported for samples of faster runners. We also compared foot strike patterns of 286 individual marathon runners between the 10 km and 32 km race locations and observed increased frequency of rearfoot striking at 32 km. A large percentage of runners switched from midfoot and forefoot foot strikes at 10 km to rearfoot strikes at 32 km. The frequency of discrete foot strike asymmetry declined from the 10 km to the 32 km location. Among marathon runners, we found no significant relationship between foot strike patterns and race times.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, St. Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire 03102, USA. plarson@anselm.edu
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Higgins
authors.forename: Justin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kaminski
authors.forename: Tamara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Decker
authors.forename: Janine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Preble
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lyons
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McIntyre
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Normile
mesh_terms: D054874:Athletic Performance; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D003163:Competitive Behavior; D005260:Female; D005528:Foot; D005684:Gait; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011998:Recreation; D012420:Running; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis