Time to run or time to walk? Your body knows the answer | Hacker News Reader

Time to run or time to walk? Your body knows the answer

polar.com

212 pointsD_Guidi91 comments

There are more efficient modes of running that aren't really available when walking, and any experienced marathoner knows how to exploit this.

It took me years of occasional running before it all clicked, despite more experienced friends having shared youtube videos on the subject. I'd always been running in a fashion more like a slowed down sprint when trying to pace myself. But that's not the efficient way, the efficient way is to logically run with your knees and let your lower legs/feet come along for the ride. Lean forward enough to prevent heel striking, and this also naturally imparts forward thrust when your foot leaves the ground in response to the knee driving forward. Your calves become more like springs storing and releasing energy, without being explicitly activated.

this is the idea behind barefoot running I believe

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?

Yes, not only is it hard on your body but the energy lost in the strike you'd benefit from storing in your calf.

I don’t think the “hard on your body” part is true anymore (if it ever even was) if you use proper footwear.

"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

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.

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.

On the other, you have more time with your foot on the ground where you are pushing forward

This is very confusing to me. I always thought absorbing the shock with your calf muscle would cost more energy.

You're effectively using your calf as a spring damper. The energy stored in the spring can be released on your next step.

If you're landing heel-first, that same energy needs to be dissipated by your skeletal structure.

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

> For me mid foot is more efficient

How on Earth do you measure this kind of thing?

If you run with hr monitor you can see it on your watch. I can tell if I’m getting cold two days in advance

I am curious, any names of heel striking elite runners? I would love to see the footage.

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

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.

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".

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.

Most elite distance runners heel strike.

There's no good evidence for any of the claims made r.e. heel vs. forefoot striking.

I watched a lot of footage of Olympic runners, all seem to have fore/mid foot strike. Can you share some names of elite heel striking runners?

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).

Here is a study showing that, among a pool of elite distance runners, most are heel strikers: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31147098/

Here is a meta analysis arguing that there is no evidence that forefoot striking is superior: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-019-01238-y

Here is a paper arguing against the arguments for forefoot striking: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6189005/

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.

[1] https://news.sanfordhealth.org/orthopedics/over-striding/#:~....

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.

edit - Googled for 30 seconds and found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=andAaS6Lyc8

The first runner he talks about uses a midfoot strike, the second uses a heel strike. They're both elite marathon runners.

As I said, my conclusion from having looked into this is that this debate is folk science. It might be correct but there's no compelling evidence.

How fast your sprint is a function how much backward force there is. You don't drive "down", you drive back. Try driving down and you will see it's impossible to do with any kind of force without the heel touching the ground.

Thanks for the video. The guy in the assistance crew is in fact heel striking. It's not classical extend your leg to hit the ground and roll novice runner kind of heel striking as his leg already moves back and his knee is already bent when he hits the ground but he does hit the ground with the heel first.

I wonder if it's because of the shoes. I don't think he would do that in flats/track race shoes.

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.

> Another helpful effect is that you don't need shoes to run if you're toe-striking on a clean&smooth surface.

Yes, and your running shoes can last you a decade, instead of (half) a year.

It may be fine to do while backpacking, assuming you aren't running. The mechanics of running and walking are quite different.

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.

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).

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!

I had knee and slight back pain, anf always tried to mechanically aim at the smoothest impact (landing on foot ball, ensure enough forward momentum) yet,unless a high enough speed, I found it harder on my joints. To the point where jogging heel striking like a newb felt nicer. I'm still dumbfounded.

Might be a function of modern shoes. I can’t heel strike on old or bad quality runners

It takes months to years for bones and non muscle tissue to adapt to new stresses. Took me 1 year of regular runs to adapt to non heel strikes, but it happens eventually.

did you change your upper body posture and exercises too ?

Any tips for a non-runner about how to speed up this adaptation? I've been "walking differently" for about 18 months and still feel that the foot/ankle/calf bits may not be ready for running.

I dont think theres a magic way, just optimizing regular stimuli of intermediate (not too hard) stresses is my best guess (similar to any exercising) start doing shorter routes more frequently, then increase both parameters slowly, thats how Im doing it, it got a habit and it feels great!

Have you got some recommended videos? I'm trying to increase my distance and its mainly stubbornness that's keeping me going

Walking is the efficient mode, but only up to a certain speed.

I recently sprained my ankle and couldn't run (or walk). Once I could hobble around I put on my hiking boots which have some extreme ankle support and walked the dog around the neighborhood.

I was quite astonished that my stride was quite low energy. That is, I already knew approximately how many calories my watch reported if I walked (in my running shoes) the dog on a given route vs running that route. Apparently I had learned a much more efficient stride in the boot over the years, so I was able to walk the route in the usual time but by burning 20% fewer calories and at lower heart rate. I do a lot of backpacking so am used to long distance walking in those boots, but didn't know I used a different stride to do so.

This is all per my Apple Watch so take the measurements with a grain of salt. But at least it was like:like.

> You’ve probably seen it on TV multiple times. Exhausted, depleted of energy, and barely capable of taking another step, elite race walkers collapse as soon as they reach the finish line.

I'm not sure if I have unusual TV habits or if the author is overestimating the amount of watch time and coverage race walking gets.

I have never witnessed race waling in my life, not even in passing. I am aware it exists and have seen clips of it, but I've never actually seen a race live, nor do I know anyone who has.

I've never even heard of race walking before, let along watched it on TV.

My understanding is that its MUCH more popular in the UK

Race walking is an Olympic sport. Not very common day to day, but I'm sure most people have at least seen videos of it at some point.

I agree, which makes it pretty flimsy as proof of the premise. "You've probably seen someone look really tired after race walking. On the other hand, this guy did pushups at the end of a marathon. Ergo, race walking is harder than marathon running."

Seems like the target audience is runners? I barely run to catch a train and I've definitely caught this on EuroSport or the Olympics more than a couple of times in my lifetime.

Tangential, how do organisers check if walkers didnt run at all?

Here in Germany, back in the 90s, racewalking was sometimes broadcast at night on Eurosport, along with other weirdo sports like Australian Football.

Probably an age thing.

Back in the day - before the internet - there wasn’t much choice of what to watch. I saw a lot of walking races on TV in my youth (in the UK) but haven’t seen one in the last 10-15 years.

For someone who is trying to return to regular walking/running, I find a mix of both works well for me. Stretch and start walking faster to warm your body up, run until your heart/legs don't want to go anymore, resume walking to recover and then run again and so on. I find that doing this creates less resistance in my mind because I'm more attentive/easy going with my body and the overall session is less punishing - that makes going for that next session psychologically that much more easier, which is the key to maintaining a regular schedule, atleast for people like me who do not "love" exercising.

PS: also, I bought a smartwatch that shows the stats etc which is kind of a fun target to meet/improve upon - not sure if this "gamification" is a good idea or how long until the novelty wears off but its fun for now.

I second this. There's another psychological aspect to me. Training the "let's resume" action of your brain is very important. And doing this alternating smooth to harder is one good way.

There's a training program by a former Olympian that uses alternating blocks of running and walking:

https://medium.com/runners-life/how-to-start-running-using-j...

I've had good success with this strategy - it breaks up the monotony of long runs, and overall pacing is accomplished by changing interval duration instead of trying to maintain a precise fixed speed over the entire run.

Unfortunately, I've had no success convincing other beginners to try this method, as the predominant wisdom is that you have to run over the entire duration, and beginners almost always go far faster than they should.

Couch to 5K (C25K) is another run/walk training program, which is very popular here in the UK. Even the NHS (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/couch-to-5k-week-by-we...) promotes it.

I started with a C25K plan in November 2020 and ran my first half marathon in October 2021. I'm looking at marathons now, it's changed my level of fitness far more than I could imagine.

I did a few 4 hour marathons in my early 20s, and in December I decided I was going to train for another one, after doing very little cardio for a long time. The run/walk approach has been great for me. I run for as long as I can, then walk 100m, run 400m… until I think I’m done. I’m getting through 10k in just over an hour now, and when I started I was struggling to mostly walk 5k.

I often did that. It's a nice feeling when you just walk-as-pause after a good run then when you're still warm and rested you feel the desire to resume the run :)

I may start long jogging sessions to see if I can break the 20km threshold. Any advices?

You would need much more than just long jogging sessions to go to 20km, like tempo runs, strength, power etc. My advice is to do:

1. Couch to 5K

2. Beginner 5K https://www.halhigdon.com/training-programs/5k-training/novi...

3. Beginner 10K https://www.halhigdon.com/training-programs/10k-training/nov...

4. Intermediate 10K https://www.halhigdon.com/training-programs/10k-training/int...

5. Intermediate 21K https://www.halhigdon.com/training-programs/half-marathon-tr...

I made a 17km long ago without issues (only local slowdowns) but my body was different, hence my question.

Thanks for the links.

I didn't follow any training plans to get up to the half marathon distance. Once I'd finished the C25K plan I decided to see what 10K felt like and it was ok... did a few of those and then tried 15K. At that point I figured I could do a half and entered one. Although I didn't follow a plan I do keep an eye on my GPS watch to see what pace I'm doing - if I'm planning a long run I'll hold back the pace from what I know I can run so I don't tire myself out.

I think training plans depend a lot on what you're wanting to do - I just wanted to complete the distance; I could probably do it faster with a proper training plan but I've found running without worrying about time (too much) to be enjoyable (and I have still got respectable results for my age).

Funny, when I was a boy scout I was taught alternating between running and walking by the name of "Wolfsmarsch" (wolve's march). I've been told it's supposed to be a happy compromise between moving fast and being able to keep moving for a prolonged period of time.

Interesting - I didn't know this. I just came up with this approach because I noticed that my mental resolve waned at the thought of running throughout the session without taking breaks (which is what I did during my previous failed attempts at maintaining a regular workout regime).

This concept exists also with CPUs and even cars. A slower more power efficient CPU might be worse off because it simply takes longer to do tasks. The per unit of time cost is lower but the total energy cost for a task is higher

Sometimes called race to idle: https://lwn.net/Articles/501913/

I think this is the paper I read about this a while ago. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7481300_Preferred_T...

The original article was notable for its lack of graphs or citations to the literature. Thanks for posting this link, Figure 1 of which seems to make a lot more sense than the U-shaped discussion in the original article.

In some endurance sports there is also the question of whether to use poles or not, on this subject last week I've seen these fascinating tweets:

https://twitter.com/nicgiovanelli/status/1488411562515869696

https://twitter.com/nicgiovanelli/status/1490374195326464007

running seems less efficient because you get tired sooner

The article talks about that: Running is roughly the same energy/distance, but it's more energy/time because you cover more distance per time.

the article says “walking 50km as fast as possible takes nearly double the work and energy than running a marathon, even though the distance is just 8km longer”

I wouldn't trust this website. It's based around selling a fitness product, so there's a very good chance it's biased.

https://www.polar.com/en/grit-x

Both running and walking are fitness activities that are supported by their tracking hardware. In what way do you expect them to be biased?

Nah, seems like a content marketing piece, and frankly one of the better ones I've read recently.

Yes, I meant "at normal speeds", not "as fast as possible". That's quite obviously what the statement I replied to was about.

I always felt that walking was more efficient intuitively but I'm happy to see it quantified in the article.

> First, even if you happen to hit exactly the minima of the walking cost of transport curve, you’ll be consuming nearly 80% of the energy per traveled distance as compared to running

David Goggins has entered the chat.

I wouldn't trust this website. It's based around selling a fitness product, so there's a very good chance it's biased.

https://www.polar.com/en/grit-x

What would they gain by lying to people about the relative efficiency of marathon runners versus race walkers, or ways to burn more energy when walking? How would those lies (if lies) lead to more sales for them (that's the only benefit I can imagine)?

It's basic scrutiny of an article. If a company primarily sells fitness watches, publishing articles on fitness will net them sales, whether it's true or not. The incentive to be correct isn't there, unlike more rigorous sources of information.

It's the same reason you shouldn't blindly believe the marketing words on the back of a box of cereal.

What? If a fitness company started posting absolute bullshit like "vaccines hurt running performance," I think that would reflect poorly on them and cause them to lose sales. I wear a fitness watch similar to a Polar and would abandon my brand if they started espousing health pseudoscience.

They are a well known company in the fitness space.

This is like backblaze blogging about drives or square about credit card processing.

The gain for this particular article is more sales due to more viewers on the page.

I’m guessing this content is true. The listed author has a PhD in sport science.

Please don't spam by repeating the same comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30342032

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