Whether you’re lacing up your shoes for a 5K or gearing up for a longer endurance race, if you want to get faster, you have to do both longer runs and speedwork sessions to train your aerobic and anaerobic systems. But for the biggest speed gains, you should also look beyond your cardiovascular fitness and work your… posture?

“People often think of running as a lower body sport, but running is everything going on between your ears and everywhere below,” says Dr Anh Bui, a former collegiate runner, doctor of physical therapy, and biomechanics specialist.

While you probably can’t (and shouldn’t) transform your running form into the stride of, say, Olympians on the podium, you can incorporate tweaks to make your mechanics more ideal for you. And that can help you improve performance, get faster, and lower your risk of getting hurt.

“There’s high variability between everyone’s biomechanics based on how you’re structurally and genetically built,” says Bui. “The key is to optimise movement, not force idealism, and to run efficiently to maximise speed and minimise injury risk.”

Read on for more about how each part of your biomechanics, from head to toe, contributes to your speed — plus a handful of moves to add to your routine that’ll help you pick up the pace.

4 Biomechanics-Based Form Tips for Faster Running

Posture
It’s easier to maintain good posture on a short jog versus a long training run, but focusing on staying tall and keeping your shoulders from slumping is an important part of efficient running form.

Arm Swing
Your arms play a surprisingly big role in picking up your pace. Just try pumping your arms harder next time you’re huffing up a hill and see how much it helps. Here’s why: The motion of your arms and legs are linked. “And our arms act as pendulums to help balance our trunk, as forces travel up our body from our legs,” says Foster. “So, when we swing our arms in a more efficient way, our legs often follow their lead.”

While research on just how crucial the arm swing is to running mechanics is limited (most studies focus more on the lower half of the body), and results offer mixed information, most researchers agree that swinging the arms helps with vertical oscillation (or how much we move upward as we stride), side-to-side balance, and minimising rotation.

“Anecdotally, I find that arm swing drills can be a good starting place when working on increasing cadence, especially if someone is struggling to increase cadence due to poor coordination,” Foster says. Cadence, or the number of steps you take per minute, often changes depending on the speed you’re running, but experts suggest a quicker cadence can limit overstriding and help with forward momentum.

Knees
Sprinters tend to drive their knees up aggressively, about 90 degrees from the ground. That’s not sustainable over longer distances, says Bui, who says distance runners should ideally maintain more like 45 degrees of knee drive.

Why does the position of your knees matter? “Picking up your speed without appropriate knee drive will increase likelihood of overstriding, or landing with the foot far in front of your body,” Bui explains. That can slow you down and increases ground reaction forces — or forces exerted by the ground onto the body, Bui says — and ups your chances of injury.

Feet
When considering how your feet play into your form and your pace, a lot of it is about those ground reaction forces. If you reduce the time your feet come in contact with the ground, you can potentially lower the force on your body — and lessen your risk of injuries like shin splints, says Foster.

“When we look at vertical ground reaction forces (vGRF) across time, midfoot striking has a lower rate of vGRF with one smooth peak,” Bui explains. By contrast, heel striking has a longer ground contact time, leading to a higher peak force and greater load on the body. This is because your ankle dorsiflexors (when you pull your toes toward your shins) can’t efficiently absorb the impact of your foot strike, and therefore, your knee joint takes on that extra force, she adds.

Trying to pick up your cadence and adjust so you’re striking the ground with your foot underneath your body (rather than out too far in front), and potentially with your mid- or forefoot rather than heel, can help reduce those forces.

Keep in mind that your body needs time to adjust to any changes you make in your form and while your body may take on more force with a heel strike, it doesn’t always lead to more injuries or slower speeds. It’s one piece of the biomechanical puzzle.

To improve your biomechanics, working with a run-form coach or physical therapist with advanced training in motor learning or neuromuscular re-education is hugely beneficial, says Foster. “It’s easy to understand the correct biomechanics, but it’s much more challenging to implement them,” she says.

Although working with one of these pros is ideal, a few exercises you can practice on your own can help you get a jumpstart on improving biomechanics.

5 Drills to Improve Your Running Biomechanics
Here are five biomechanical drills that focus on different aspects of your form. Do them often (for a few minutes as part of your warm-up before every run, for example) to make the movements feel like second nature. Then, when you’re working to incorporate tweaks to your form into your run, don’t try to make several changes all at once; try sprinkling them into your runs slowly, thinking about a single form tweak for 30 seconds once per mile.

Just make sure not to jump in too quickly. All tweaks to your body’s biomechanics should be gradual or you risk the chance of injury, says Foster.

1. High Knee Exchange

How to do it: Stand with feet hip-width apart. Raise right knee to hip height. In a quick, explosive movement, lower right foot to floor and raise left knee high, then lower left knee and raise right knee to hip height again. Do 5 reps. Rest for 1-2 minutes, then repeat for a second set.

2. Arm Swing on the Beat

Why it works: Practicing this movement at a quick, consistent pace helps make your arm swing more efficient.

How to do it: Set a metronome app (like Metronome Beats) to a beats per minute that feels in sync with your running cadence; 180 bpm is ideal but dial it back if that feels too quick. Sitting on the edge of a chair or standing with feet hip-width apart, pump arms forward and back to the beat, starting with 10-15 seconds. Do 3-5 sets, resting for about 10-20 second between sets.

3. Pogo Jump

Why it works: The plyometric motion of this jump helps prep your tendons to store and release energy quickly. Start by doing the move with both legs, then progress to one leg at a time, recommends Bui.

How to do it: Stand with feet hip-width apart. Keeping legs straight, push off the floor from the ball of feet and swing arms up to jump as high as you can. As soon as you land, jump again. Do 5 reps, jumping as quickly as you can (and minimising your feet’s contact with the floor). Rest for 1-2 minutes, then repeat for a second set.

4. Drop Box Jump

Why it works: This quick movement increases tendon capacity, trains your body to absorb load as you make contact with the ground, and decreases the time your feet stay in contact with the ground.

How to do it: Stand on the edge of a step or box about a foot tall. With right foot leading, step both feet down to floor. As soon as left foot hits floor, jump up explosively, pushing off floor with both feet. Repeat for 5 steps. Then repeat with left foot leading the step down. Do 2 sets.

5. Alternating Bounding

Why it works: This move is really just running, with exaggerated motions that mimic ideal sprinting form — and helps develop speed, power, and explosiveness.

How to do it: On a track or long patch of ground, jog forward with as long a stride as possible. As you move, raise the front knee as high as possible while lifting the back foot (keeping leg straight) behind you. Continue for 10 reps total. Rest for 1-2 minutes, then repeat for a second set.

READ MORE ON: biomechanics running form