Patient questions · Running
How can I improve my running form?
Answered by Dr. Q
Move Better · Portland, OR & Vancouver, WA · Updated July 2026
There is generally a mechanical ideal with running. But trying to just copy form negates how the body works. The form you make is a collection of choices based on what your body can and can't do. The useful question is where *your* form leaks power, because that part is individual. When you fix that gap, form automatically changes without you thinking about it. For most runners it traces back to one thing: pushing off the calves instead of driving from the hips. Your calf is a shock absorber, not the engine. We watch *you* move to find which link is yours, then fix that — often including getting out of shoes so cushioned they hide what your feet are doing.
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Answers come from Move Better's own approach. This is guidance, not a diagnosis — nothing here replaces a look in person.
Start with a skip
Before I change anything about how someone runs, I watch them skip. Skipping is a great template for running — it shows me how you actually create force. Most people can fall back to a decent pattern when they skip, and it makes the problem obvious: are you driving from your hips, or are you just pushing off the ground with your calves? When most people are asked where their skipping power is coming from, they will say its from the calf pushing of the ground. What they miss is that they clearly flex the hip that is not off the ground and they do so with direct proportion to the power they put in. The higher the skip, the more hip flexion. The more hip flexion, the better hip extension is. Good hip flexion elongates the muscles that extend the hip and primes them to help in the landing and push off phase of running.
Good running power comes from hip flexion — driving the knee up and forward. That’s the engine. When that’s missing, everything gets dumped into the calf.
Your calf is a shock absorber, not an engine
Here’s the piece most runners have backwards. The calf’s job is to absorb the landing — take in the energy, send it through the elastic tissue of the Achilles, and redistribute it back out. There’s a lot of free, efficient energy in that elastic recoil.
But if your calf is doing the work of generating force — pushing you forward on every stride — it can’t also be a good shock absorber. That’s when it gets overloaded.
Watch your cadence — and your shoes
Two things I look at constantly:
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Cadence. Short, quick steps keep you over your feet and let the hips do their job. Long, reaching strides pull you into heel-slamming and kill your rhythm.
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Your shoes. A lot of the runners I see are in really thick foam shoes on the roads. That foam can hide your ability to feel the ground — you lose the cadence and the hip flexion that are the real sources of running power, and the shoe papers over it until something starts to hurt. If you have a nice grassy area, take your shoes off and see how your running pattern changes.
Improving your form isn’t about forcing a “correct” posture. It’s about getting the hips generating, the calves absorbing, and the cadence quick — then letting the efficiency take care of itself.
This is general education, not a diagnosis. If you have severe or rapidly worsening symptoms — or any loss of bladder or bowel control — seek medical care right away. Otherwise, the fastest way to know what's driving your pain is to have someone watch you move.