Should You Always Look to Perfect Your Running Style?
My leg flick has disappeared!
“You’re running differently”, remarked my partner. “Your leg is not going out to the side anymore.” She made this observation recently after seeing me running for the first time following a break with a knee issue. I was a bit dumbstruck. I hadn’t noticed!
To be fair, I am not the most observant person you will ever meet. It took seeing a video of a race many years ago to realize I did flick my left leg out significantly when running. Yet, my partner was right (she often is!). Both legs were swinging beneath the hips again in a linear fashion in a ‘proper’ running style.
While I may not be observant, I am curious. Why the change?
Tackling that leg flick thing
Once I became aware that my left leg flicked out, I debated whether I needed to do anything about it. It didn’t cause me any discomfort, and assuming that is how I had always run, it had not caused me any injury, either.
I was running well at the time, so why change something you feel is not broken? But, of course, there is that element in you that says, what if correcting your running style could make you run even faster?
