This is an exciting development! Brian Martin describes in his book a practical way of conducting your own gait analysis, in order to critique your own action. It involves the use of a video camera and treadmill, two things I was able to avail myself of last weekend!

I decided to make 4 videos of myself running. I would do 2 angles (side on and the rear) twice. One set would be using my natural action and one set using essentially my Pose action, attempting to throw in Brian’s advice as well.

I’ve posted the videos up if you are intersted, but here is what I found out.

Firstly, my natural action looks like it could kill me.

Secondly, my amended action doesn’t look much better!

It looks like I’m a natural heel striker (I knew that much) but the video really shows how much impact goes through the leg and hip when you land that way.

The rearview of my natural action also reveals that my hips twist a bit to accommodate a central foot landing position. I move as if I am running along a beam, or on a single railway track.

The slow motion portions of my amended action are encouraging, but I’m a little disappointed. It FEELS so different, and I thought it would LOOK really different. I don’t think ity does.

What I thought was a forefoot strike looks to be a mid foot strike. That’s okay with me though, because it’s alright with Brian! Says so in the book!

The biggest eye-opener here, is that I think I’m going to need to lift my knee much higher, to give myself a chance of engaging the hamstrings and glutes more in my landing action.

With all this in the kit then, it’s back to the streets. I have a lot of new knowledge and some things I know I need to practice. I’ll do another video in a month or so and see how I’m going. I’m keeping the faith and sticking with this. I’m even looking to buy some of those “minimalist” type shoes to throw into the mix as well. I’m feeling really good. The calves are used to this now, I feel lighter on my feet and I’m not as sore in the joints after running as I used to be. So it’s a tough slog but it’s working. Hopefully I’ll get a bit quicker soon!