Yancy Culp explains why midfoot striking on trail runs prevents ankle sprains better than heel-first impact. Heel strikes transfer force to your tibia and fibula, rolling your ankle inward or outward. Midfoot contact lets your foot's bones and ligaments conform to uneven terrain and absorb the shock.
Approximately 15% slope.
26 bones.
33 joints.
About 107 ligaments.
19 muscles and tendons.
Foreign.
Crew. I'm out here on a Texas trail today. Pretty typical Texas trail, nice technical terrain. And I was, I was kind of bombing down this 15, approximate 15% slope. And I got to thinking about something that I'd love to relay to, to the crew out there, and that's the importance of finding your midfoot strike. I'm wearing a pair of Altra Superiors here, nice low drop. And as you're coming down the hill, or if you're on flats and you're on technical terrain, the difference in hitting your midfoot versus hitting heel first is one thing. You know, we hear a lot about the importance of hitting midfoot for proper running mechanics and so forth and so on. Not over striding, but one thing you very rarely hear. And I doubt there's any specific research on this. But I wanted to give you my own bit of advice and what I think about the whole thing. And before I go any further, I'd love to give Richard Diaz credit. You know, he's helped me along the way, really fine tune my mechanics and kind of keep them sharp. You know, a periodic meeting with him helps helps me a lot, but going to his clinics. But long story short, as I'm coming down, I'll give you some anatomy differences. When you hit heel, you got the tibia and fibula on top of the talus, and I've got a couple rocks here. I didn't move. This is exactly what I saw when I came down here. And when you come in and you hit heel first and you hit that rock, there's only one of two things that can happen. You're gonna roll the ankle ankle inwards or outwards, and it's just dramatically increases the risk of ankle sprain. When you hit midfoot, there's 26 bones in the foot.
33 joints, 107 or so ligaments, and 19 muscles and tendons. So now all of a sudden, when you hit this rock, it's about an inch and a half off the inch and a half rise. When you hit that, you have this nice big surface that can conform around that technical issue that you just hit versus the tib fib on top of the talus. Almost guaranteed you're gonna roll. There's so much that can happen down here in the midfoot when you hit to conform around that and actually puts very little stress on the tib fib talus area where your ankle sprains occur. So as I'm coming down here and I hit this rock, you know, you try to avoid them as you hit, the foot conforms, you know, very little roll of the ankle and the foot kind of wraps around that. As I hit here, you see the dramatic roll inward or the dramatic roll outward. Again, I can hit right on top of it or off to the side and that foot, again, the mid foot strike is able to conform around and it's a game changer. So on flat surfaces on your downhills, you know, until you get to just an extremely steep slope, you can attack those downhills and increasing your turnover, hitting that mid foot, we can dramatically reduce our risk of ankle sprains. So I'm coming at you today. Partner with Ben Greenfield on this, on this piece. You can check us out@yancetcamp.com or BenGreenfieldFitness.com great sources of information and training opportunities. You can actually partner with Ben and train with Ben on yancetcamp.com but give that a try. Start trying to find your midfoot. I think you'll find your mechanics improving. Get rid of that over stride again. I like the low drop. I'm not sponsored by these guys at all, but I love the the zero drop of the altras. But the zero drop of the low drop really helps you find that mid foot quicker.
Anyway, hope the information helps and you guys enjoy your next trail run with hopefully, hopefully fewer ankle sprains. Take.
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