Natural Running School

Some LOL from a historical moment some years ago.

Did you know that a hip drop in stance phase is the biggest alarm signal for possible injuries? In stance phase, your hips should be horizontal. When the hip drops, it may be related to overpronation or to a valgus knee. A lot of injuries can be a result of the hip drop. Good running form combined with enough strength will reduce the hip drop. When having a hip drop, you can also see the knee turning in, or the foot point turning out (see the straight yellow lines).

A natural running form reduces injuries. Shoes with a zero drop stimulate a natural running form. Most runners still run with the traditional shoes with a high heel drop, extra stability and support, but these things changed our running form into a heel striding form, which has a higher injury risk. I am ambassador of , an natural running shoe brand. If you want to know more about how running form is related to injuries, follow us!

If you want people to change their runing style into a natural runing style, you can to run with them :-) Same cadence, synchronic running, running drills together. Just lovely if you see how people evolve, adapt, learn and enjoy running.

Natural running is about running technique and reducing injuries, but it is also about enjoying every step you take, 'cause you feel so light. And enjoying the running, that's what you do when running in the mountains and in nature :-)

Cross project trip: I went on a bikepack recon trip for my other company and took my recording stuff with me to make photos and videos for . Office with a view, let's say.

Natural Running School updated their address.

Such a beautiful season for running in the woods 😍💓
Perfect as well to make photos and videos for the website and social media.

Uphill running is perfect strength training. Foot, calves, upperlegs and glutes.
It was a perfect morning. Sunny to start the training, bit rainy in part two of the run. Afterwards I went back to make some pictures, and woppaaah, sun came back in the end.
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Shooting day is... enjoying the sun, enjoying nature, taking shoes out en put them on again 🤩
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Studies have shown how heel striking is not the best way to run. It causes more injuries. In the 70's, the running shoe industry started developing shoes with extra cushion and a higher heel. This has lead to heel striking, wich is unnatural. The running industry spread the word to land on the heel. Studies have shown that, eventhough the cushioning was meant to reduce impact, the opposite is true. Landing on the heel increases the impact on the joints.
Holding on to heel striking is like holding on to believing the world is flat. But hey, we can't blame you. When the first ones told the others that the world was a globe and not flat, they didn't believe 'm. It's a tough process to change the conviction of the mass. That's what we try to do with Natural Runing School. Inspire and explain about what's the best way to run. Enjoy the trip! :-)
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when running in a natural way, we don't land on the heel. We land on the midfoot. Characteristics for the landing or landing close under the body, on the midfoot. The knee from the other leg is already pretty close to next to the knee from your stannce leg. That means the knee drive is already active, what shows a high cadence. Also typical is that the foot of the swinging leg is lifted well.
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Important in the stance phase is that the hip doenst drop. Good functioning of the glutes, together with an fast cadence an active knee drive avoids the hip drop. Good to know, the hp drop is among the most important causes for several injuries, i.e. ITB, shin splints, achilles problems.
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In the toe off phase it is important that immediately after leaving the ground, the knee starts the fats knee drive. We see a forward lean wich is important for a good natural runing posture. If the foot and knee are swung too late, there will be excessive rotations in hips, lower back and shoulders, wich might cause injuries.
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Running happens in the air. It's in this phase that the back chain muscles and muscles from the front (glutes, abs, hamstrings, lower back, psoas, and many more) cause a fast scissor movement with the legs. The faster this scissor movement happens, the faster you run. Without a good flight phase, you won't be able to do a decend scissor movement.The flight phase is very typical. Your flying high above the ground. This means you have a strong, elastic ground contact. It shows again the importance of the strong foot and elastic ground contact. Without that, you won't fligh high, so a good scissor movement would have been impossible. with

It's pretty weird. When we're looking for shoes, we're not looking for shoes that make us run the way we would run naturally, without shoes. Wouldn't it be more logic to wear shoes that allow or even stimulate us to run with a natural running form? That's what Natural Running School is about. We want to remind your body what your natural running form is. We want to strengthen your body (your feet, YOUR FEET!) again and we want to advice you how you can run in a natural way and with wich type of shoes. with

Natural Running School is born! Or maybe it's better to say that it's being born. The website isn't ready yet. The video's aren ready yet. But the Instagram account is. :-)
Natural Running School is about reducing running injuries by finding your natural running form again. It's about finding th natural lightness and joy of the running the way our body was meant to run. Because yes, in the passed, we created shoes that created a unnatural runing form, with an increase of injuries and a higher impact on our joints by heel striking.
We want to inspire runners all over the world to find the natural joy of running again.
Try it! with