help: Galloway running 'form' question

[dburg30]

Jeff suggests more of a shuffle short stride form to help keep injuries down, and I get that, and think I like that but I have a question. It seems like when shuffling along in a jog with short strides I must be doing something wrong as it feels with that when my forward moving foot hits midfoot that I'm sliding / stopping as opposed to flowing. any pointers on how to overcome that? I dont know how to explain it but if you 'shuffle' your walk you are putting your shoe down but still moving forward so it feels like you are loosing momentum / putting undue wear and tear on the bottom of your feet. I wear NB 860's that our local store suggested, they fit me properly and dont know it if matters or not but I wear NB 'tech' socks. Just so you know what I'm wearing. Now, I am out of shape and just getting back in to working out / running. I just dont want to get into bad habits because they are sooo hard to break. It just feels like no matter what I had on running this way my feet would slide forward every stride and just cause all kinds of blisters on a long run.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions / things to look at or try.

[lisah0711]

Congratulations on your running efforts! :

Smoothing out the transition between running and walking takes a little time but it does get easier.

Here is are links to Galloway training videos that used to be on the Run Disney site. This one is about cadence http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0pb3JDD2WA and this one is about acceleraton and glider drills http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC97nMK-Q94 If you practice these drills every week you will find those transitions smoothing out soon. There are several other Galloway videos as well that you can find with these that were done with Run Disney.

Good luck and enjoy!

[Figment1990]

I'm not a galloway expert and maybe I'm interpreting you incorrectly. However, I have studied his videos and I think he really made my running SO much more enjoyable through his form recommendations. Just make sure that you are still picking up your feet off the ground enough. I interpret Galloway's main recommendation of shuffling the feet to mean to keep your body low to the ground instead of bouncing high off of it with each step so that you don't expend too much extra energy going vertical. (Like you were jumping over things). I believe if you watch his videos you will see that his feet are coming up off the ground almost like a very very low march. I've found that with a shorter stride, and less bounce, I have much more energy to turnover my feet more quickly (cadence).

Does that make any sense at all? Good luck!

[dburg30]

yea, i'll have to study the videos.. he says just pick your feet barely off the ground and i think he says dont life your knees.. but i've seen it where it looks like you said a march almost, which would be picking up your knees! I just know there would be NO way my feet would last any distance at all doing what I was lol.. So I'm not 'getting it' somewhere..