run more efficient

Whether you have recently started running or are already a dedicated runner, running more kilometers or faster with less effort is surely one of your greatest wishes as a runner. To achieve this, not only is running training of different types enough (and here we show you up to nine different ways with which you can vary your workouts), but other factors and other types of training come into play that you must also take into account .

Let’s remember that running is not just running: these are the key points that you should not overlook to become a more efficient runner.
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Running technique training

Improving the way you run will undoubtedly make you a more efficient runner. Through running technique exercises, which should be practiced at least once a week, you can improve the impulse phase of the footprint, pushing your foot against the ground to avoid losing speed in your run. It will also help us improve our stroke, which helps to maintain a good race pace.
Functional training at home for runners: improve your running with this routine
In Vitónica
Functional training at home for runners: improve your running with this routine

Strength training in the gym

Being muscularly strong can not only ensure that we are finishers of the most demanding races, but it can also benefit us by expending less energy when running and, thanks to this, being more efficient. We are about training our lower body and our middle or core zone (which helps us maintain good posture and transmit movement from the center to our extremities) and our upper body.

Power training

Greater power in our race translates, among other things, into greater speed when running. Workouts specifically designed to improve our running power, such as jumps, plyometrics, or hill workouts, will make our running more efficient.

A lower percentage of body fat through diet

Being a lighter runner makes you a faster runner too. Or what comes to the same thing: the more you weigh, the worse performance you have in the race, as we already explained in this article. Beyond weight, a lower amount of body fat would also help us to be more efficient runners and run faster: in particular, and according to a study published in 2017, each kilogram of fat mass lost would make us gain 2.31 seconds per kilometer in short speed tests).

physical ion, including running technique here, so I did an in-depth session of physical preparation three days a week. When entering a specific training cycle (preparing a specific race), the sessions were reduced to two or just one weekly sessions. But every day, I always did some technical exercises that were included in the warm-ups of the series, hills, intervals …

Although there are many running technique exercises, here are some of the basic exercises that should be practiced weekly:

1. Walk on tiptoe. With front, inward and outward toe variants.
2. Walking on the heels. The same variants as the previous one.
3. Short jumps, barely bending the knee. Push only with the ankle, pulling more up than forward.
4. The same, raising one knee alternately with each stride. Ankle game.
5. Normal skipping. Run, raising your knees, frequently and with hardly any progress.
6. Skipping from behind. Trunk slightly forward and run touching heels on glutes.

We are going to shed a little light this time on a topic that is beginning to be very present in the world of running, it is about running technique.

The simplest definition we can make of this concept is the ability to run more efficiently. This concept derives another significant one that will be key when it comes to knowing why we work with the race technique; it is the concept of efficiency. Efficiency, in this case, is given by the ability to run faster with less effort. One becomes more efficient when at the same running speed, you need less energy cost to be able to go at that speed, or when, for the same energy cost, we can run faster.

It seems interesting then to use the running technique as another means to carry out three very clear objectives:

Improve our running speed
Reduce fatigue
Avoid injury

For this, we must know individually with which subject we are working and what are their main technical deficiencies. From there, fundamental aspects should be worked on, such as strength in the foot, muscle compaction, and the alternation of contraction-relaxation of agonist and antagonist muscles in gestures, so as not to expend more energy than we need.

In most cases in the field of popular athletics, the most important technical deficiencies usually come from:

Generalized lack of strength in the lower body
Lack of work at the level of central muscle compaction: core
Little foot activation and little control over the ankle joint when running.

Another aspect to highlight is to know the biomechanical pattern that I have to resemble. It will not be the same as a pure sprint test runner in which the main objective of the gesture is to develop the maximum possible speed regardless of the energy cost involved since the test ends in a matter of seconds and the performance is given by a fast production of strength and speed. In these cases, the speed produced will be maximum, but the energy cost used will also be maximum, so we will not extend it much in time.