gait analysis

“I thought it was just a long, smooth stride”: why a heel landing ahead of the hip sends every impact straight up the shin

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'I thought it was just a long, smooth stride': why a heel landing ahead of the hip sends every impact straight up the shin

That long, smooth running stride you’ve perfected? It might be an illusion masking a biomechanical disaster. When your heel lands ahead of your hip with a locked knee, every impact travels straight up your tibia—a pattern affecting up to 20% of runners and linked to shin splints, runner’s knee, and stress fractures.

I kept landing my foot way out in front of me on every run: a physio showed me I wasn’t fixing the right part of my stride at all

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I kept landing my foot way out in front of me on every run: a physio showed me I wasn't fixing the right part of my stride...

You’ve been chasing the wrong fix. While overstriding looks like a foot problem, physiotherapists now know the real culprit lives higher up—in your hips and cadence. Adjusting these two factors can reduce impact forces by up to 20% without changing your shoes or forcing an unnatural stride.