Is heel striking bad? I am not a runner, but I've practiced heel striking while backpacking to give myself more foot-stamina. Maybe there's a better way?
In a running gait, a heal strike usually means you are hitting the ground with a straighter leg so more of the energy is going through joins instead of being absorbed by muscles and other squishier bits. This can lead to excess wear to your knees and other joints which over time (especially if you don't give yourself enough recovery and healing time after hard training periods) can lead to permanent problems.
Also, as well as the shock to your body of absorbing the impact energy this way, it is less efficient: if your more springy bits absorb the energy instead of your solid structure, then they can release some of it back in a useful direction as you push off again with that foot making it easier for you to maintain the same pace. On top of that, because the “stop” of each stride is less abrupt less energy is lost to entropy through your flesh jiggling because of inertia.
I'm pretty sure this is all different for a walking pace though, which would explain you seeing a benefit from the opposite advice. With a walking gait your forward momentum is provided & maintained by the foot rolling over the floor and pushing sideways against it, rather than striking and pushing away from it like in a sprint, with running being somewhere between (running and springing are different as much as running and walking are: a sprint is a period of acceleration or maintaining top speed, a running posture is for efficiently maintaining a cruising speed or more slowly accelerating - the mechanics, while similar, have key differences).
Personally, I would say it's not even worth worrying about unless you're an elite runner.
I've been running about 10 years now, done marathons and ultra-marathons and I've have had my fair share of injuries. Not one was down to how my foot strikes the ground. Most of my problems were weak glutes and other muscles caused by sitting too much (developer lifestyle..) and incorrect footwear (in my case, too narrow).
Also, you'll find your run differently depending on how fast you run. On my fast runs, I do run on my mid/forefoot and on my easy runs, I'll be on my heel a little more.
I will say though, that once you reach a certain point focusing a little on running form will help. Things like leaning slight forward and trying to work on your cadence.
Well, heel striking sends shocks through your spine, unless buffered via sufficiently springy shoes.
If you have strong earmuffs, consider trying them while running, and you'll hear the shock if it travels up to your neck. Switching rapidly will probably cause injury, but I haven't heard about any sizable subset of the population being unable to adapt.
Another helpful effect is that you don't need shoes to run if you're toe-striking on a clean&smooth surface.
It's a topic for running more than walking. If you're walking/hiking you aren't going to have the same kind of impact directed at your heel as a runner heel striking will.
Coaches usually say bad but even among elite it’s common. For me mid foot is more efficient but I’ve seen too many runners with what looks like terrible form clock 2:30 marathons to think there’s a universal rule
Hey just pull any yt video analyzing finishers form with stop motion frames. You won’t see it in the lead pack on long races but otherwise it seems to be roughly 20% with slight heel striking stride
Heel striking is generally considered suboptimal from an efficiency and injury risk standpoint. But there are major variations in what works best due to individual physiology and type of shoes worn. There are a few elite distance runners who have had long, successful careers with heel striking even though it's supposedly "bad".
I started running three years ago and looked into this quite a bit as I had plantar fasciitis for about 6 months this past summer. My conclusion was that there's no good evidence that foot strike matters in itself. Mostly everyone agrees that "overstriding" [1] is an issue but there's also no evidence for that. Also, not all heel strikers are driving their feet brutally into the ground. For distance running, most people naturally take quick, light steps and don't come down hard (the opposite of sprinting).
The heel strike vs. forefoot strike debate is not driven by evidence. Proponents of forefoot strike are making an argument from naturalness (some say that people run on forefeet without shoes, though this is disputed and may depend on the surface) and that, intuitively, landing on your forefoot seems like it would do less damage. Those arguments may be right but there's no solid evidence for them.
I am familiar with those studies. Still I would like to see the footage of actual elite runners heel striking. I watched quite a lot of it and haven't seen one. My suspicion is that those elite heel strikers are just midfoot strikers in shoes with pronounced heel.
As to your studies: the first one doesn't include elite runners so isn't very relevant.
The other one looks like meta analysis of other older studies. I am not arguing that heel strike is definitely wrong btw I am just yet to see an elite runner using it. My intuition is that it's mainly about striking the ground when your foot/leg already moves back. It just doesn't feel natural to do it heel first at least not to me.
I am not sure why you think sprinting is about forcefully driving your foot into the ground btw. It's the opposite. It's about lightly "brushing" the ground to "push" it horizontally behind you. See for example this footage:
https://youtu.be/RD_TtokBUKc
The heel doesn't even hit the ground. It's the same when you look at the elite 10k or marathon runners although there heel usually lands on the ground for a while, especially in marathon:
https://youtu.be/V4L113lP_54
With those new Nike shoes it almost look like heel strike because of the heel to toe drop in the shoe.
How fast you sprint is a function of how hard your feet hit the ground. They aren't "brushing" the ground at all. I didn't say the heel hits the ground while sprinting.
The risk of injury between foot strike styles is rather similar. It’s not a big deal. I would definitely emphasize individual physiology. I have seen way to many folks try to change their stride too quickly and injure themselves. Same with too much running too soon for new runners. Cadence is a better predictor of injury than foot strike style. I always encourage people to work on their turn over and get their cadence off, many novice runners overstride, which is inefficient and safe to correct with higher cadence.
Some studies suggest a lot of competitive high level runners heel strike. I am not sure if any elite runners do, I've checked quite a few and I am yet to see one.
I think it's about foot under your body not in front. You may land slightly in front but the moment there is weight on the foot it should be under your body. The other way of phrasing it is make your stride longer behind you, not in front of you. Apparently some people still heel strike just a bit when doing that but when you watch slow motion footage of them it's not immediately obvious which part of the foot hits the ground first.
For me personally heel striking is very unnatural. I needed to learn to run again after my knee surgery and anything but forefoot strike hurt a lot. Today it just feels very natural to me. I am not afraid of hurting my knees anymore, if anything Achilles tendon and muscles around ankles are things I sometimes worry about. Fortunately no serious injuries yet!
"proper footwear" is subject of controversy, I could never run without getting shin splints in any kind of athletic shoe, I could never figure out how not to heel strike...
Finally I tried barefoot shoes and cautiously increased my distance, I can finally get to that point of leaning forward and hitting mid-foot and feeling the springiness, feels way easier but now my heartrate is the bottleneck.
Tossing in a second datapoint in favor of adding some barefoot running to one's training plan.
I started running with classmates without learning proper form and had joint pain in knees and hips within the first 5 km. It never felt good and I never got faster.
I started practicing barefoot a couple times a week to work on form. After the first few (painful) lessons I managed to improve my form and I could run faster and for longer distances.
Eventually I realized I enjoyed the barefoot training sessions more than running in shoes and I (slowly) switched all my runs to barefoot shoes and sandals, though that may not be the right approach for everyone. I've done a few marathons since then and now my bottleneck seems to be free time -- I'd love to try a 50k but those longer runs eat up so much more time.
That’s just called gaining miles slowly in progression. Most everyone has injuries when gaining too many miles/week from basically zero. If you are prone to bone injuries all that switching to mid foot or especially barefoot without addressing bone density issues will likely do is trade your shin splints for those awesome metatarsal stress fractures that take forever to heal
Gaining miles slowly is excellent advice, probably the most important advice for new runners. It's a mistake I certainly made more than once both barefoot and not, though thankfully it never resulted in anything as severe as shin splints or metatarsal fractures.
These days I'm generally pretty good about listening carefully to my body and respecting my limits -- I'll stop the run or ride if something starts to feel off. It's an approach that's served reasonably well for more than a decade. Though I can afford to take things slowly because my long-term goal isn't to to set speed records but to keep running well into old(er) age.
I don't think this explanation really tracks with the parent comments, where we just never gained miles because it hurt to run, and after switching styles to mid-foot strikes, we can run as far as we want. For the record, my next injury was 'misaligned patella' because running was pretty much the only exercise I was doing and I strengthened one quad without strengthening the others, so my kneecap was being pulled out of alignment. Lesson learned, actually do a workout that targets opposing muscles, squats, leg lifts etc. Haven't run into any bone density issues yet.
Also, as well as the shock to your body of absorbing the impact energy this way, it is less efficient: if your more springy bits absorb the energy instead of your solid structure, then they can release some of it back in a useful direction as you push off again with that foot making it easier for you to maintain the same pace. On top of that, because the “stop” of each stride is less abrupt less energy is lost to entropy through your flesh jiggling because of inertia.
I'm pretty sure this is all different for a walking pace though, which would explain you seeing a benefit from the opposite advice. With a walking gait your forward momentum is provided & maintained by the foot rolling over the floor and pushing sideways against it, rather than striking and pushing away from it like in a sprint, with running being somewhere between (running and springing are different as much as running and walking are: a sprint is a period of acceleration or maintaining top speed, a running posture is for efficiently maintaining a cruising speed or more slowly accelerating - the mechanics, while similar, have key differences).