Sports Sciences Commons^™

Does Footfall Pattern In Forefoot Runners Change Over A Prolonged Run?, Carl W. Jewell

Masters Theses

There has been much debate on the benefits of a forefoot versus rearfoot strike pattern in distance running in terms of performance and injury prevalence. Shock attenuation occurs more prominently in soft tissues at impact in forefoot runners compared to the passive skeletal loading in rearfoot runners. Recent studies indicate that a forefoot strike pattern may not be maintainable over long distance efforts. Therefore, this study tested the hypothesis that habitual forefoot runners could not maintain their strike pattern throughout a prolonged, intensive run.

Fourteen forefoot runners ran to voluntary exhaustion on an instrumented force treadmill (average run duration: 15.4±2.2 …