Pronators are people too!

In today’s post I will do my best to educate you about the term “pronation” ; it’s cause and affect on the body and how best to determine if you are indeed a “pronator.”  Please note that I am not a cerified pedorthist or practicing doctor, but this information should prove to be very valuable and easy to follow.

The word “pronation” is described as

Main Entry: pro·na·tion 

Pronunciation: \prō-ˈnā-shən\

Function: noun

Etymology: pronate, from Late Latin pronatus, past participle of pronare to bend forward, from Latin pronus

Date: 1666

1 : rotation of the hand and forearm so that the palm faces backwards or downwards 2 : rotation of the medial bones in the midtarsal region of the foot inward and downward so that in walking the foot tends to come down on its inner margin — pro·nate \ˈprō-ˌnāt\ verb

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pronation

For our purposes #2 serves as the platform for our discussion, considering this is a running blog and not one about palms or forearms! Now the important thing to note here is that pronation also occurs in more than one plane.  Here are the planes broken down in basic/technical terms:

                                                                                                                                                Sagital Plane

This is the classic flat foot or low arch.  Often times you’ll see the “wet footprint test” issued in Runner’s World which instructs you to get the bottom of your feet wet and step on a sheet of paper or the ground to assist you in determining your arch height.  The more arch you see on the paper/ground the lower your arch thus making you a candidate for sagital plane pronation.

                                                                                                                                                   Frontal Plane

This type of pronation is generally again due to the anatomy of your foot.  This plane is caused by the placement of the heel in relationship to the rest of the foot.  One of the best ways to determine this pronation type is to stand on both feet about shoulder width apart and have a friend look at your heels from behind.  It is very important that you face straight ahead and take a few marching steps then stop to find your final balance resting place. If your heels have a tendency to angle outwards you are a frontal plane pronator.   Another way of describing this is “knocked knee ankles” as the ankle bones will have a tendency to lean inwards or towards one another.

                                                                                                                                                         Transverse Plane

This pronation type is often referred to as “duck footed” or lateral rotation.  This too is related to foot anatomy or the basic mechanics of someone’s stance or gait.  Generally the foot will have a tendency to break in the midline or arch and point outwards.  So, rather than the foot or toes being directed straight forward they will have a slight outwards angle.  It’s best to determine this type by following the “steps” for the Frontal Plane assessment.

* I couldn’t dig up a quality image of this type, but I hope my description gives you a clear idea.

                                                                                                                                                                    Now, why is all of this information important?  Well, determining if you are indeed a pronator is a critical piece of information best used when evaluating what types of running shoes are best for your mechanics.  I will stress that pronation while important to be considerate of is not our primary concern.  What you’re more concerned with is the degree at which the foot pronates and at what stage of your footstrike.  Pronation itself is actually a very complicated but integral component of our body’s natural movement.  We pronate as a mechanism to assist our bodies in absorbing the impact forces taken when walking/running.  Obviously running is a higher impact acitivity thus stressing the importance of determining if your degree/stage of pronation is to a severity which would benefit from slowing it down.  Long are the days of “scaring” runners with the goal of “correcting” pronation.  By saying you want to “correct” this you’re somewhat implying that something is broken or wrong…I believe that it is about improving someone’s mechanics by means of bettering the position of the foot by mean of either “slowing” down pronation or providing “stabilty” to the foot where it’s best needed.  I’ll go into more detail about “slowing” down pronation and what “stability” agents are most commonly used in another post.  All of the above assesments of pronation were also what I like to call Static or non moving.  The best possible way to determine if you are indeed a pronator and to what degree is have a professional Footstrike Analysis at a running specialty store or sports specific physical therapy facility.  They will take digital footage of your feet while running to enable them to playback your footstrikes at significantly slower speeds/frame by frame and break it down…this is too cool!  Performance Footwear in Tempe, AZ is  a great place that does this for free.

                                                                                                                                                                      The final piece I’d like to add here is that in the running industry there is a lot of talk about pronation and the need to address it.  Why?  Well, heightened degrees of pronation is one of the leading causes of most running related ailments/injuries.  So, by improving this one piece in the running puzzle it is possible to greatly decrease someone’s risk of injury.

Footstrikes: How many do you take in a mile?

Dependent on your turnover(speed) and leg length (generally a taller stature equates to a longer stride thus less footstrikes versus a shorter person with a shorter stride) you will strike the ground an average 1,300 time per mile!  Doesn’t sound like much until you start to understand how many you’ll take over longer distances!  A great way to determine your # of footrikes and even stride length is to go to a local 400m track and run around it once and count the number of unique times your feet hit the ground.

I’d highly recommend running at race pace, whatever that may be 5K to Marathon to ensure the most accurate data possible.  You will want to start running about 50meters from the start line to establish a consistent speed and only count 1 leg.  You can count both if you’d like, but doing so may impede your ability to focus on the main task at hand, which is to run comfortably…counting and running poses a realy challenge for me sometimes.  Now simply multiply your # by 2 when you’ve completed 1 lap.

Example:  135 times my left foot hit the ground x 2 = 270 footstrikes for 400m’s.  Now I multiply that by 4 which is a factor of 4 laps = 1 mile.  270 x 4 = 1080 footstrikes per mile.

Now the fun stuff!  Let’s say I maintain this turnover for all of the below distances:

5K = 3,307 footstrikes

10K = 6,614 footstrikes

1/2 Marathon = 14,040 foostrikes

Marathon = 28,080 footstrikes

Now stride length is purely a factor of the distance you cover between your contact phase(when one foot first touches the running surface) and the next time it contacts the ground again.  There are 5,280 feet/1609 meters per mile.  Since I’m more comfortable with feet (pun intended) as a measurement I’ll use that figure.  So, if you take 1,080 footstrikes per mile you divide 5,280 by 1,080 and establish that you cover 4.8 feet with each stride.  Nice stride my man!

 

A far more detailed and accurate tool for this can be found courtesy of Dean Hebert’s blog at http://coachdeanhebert.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/stride-rate-versus-stride-length-ii-improving/

So, what is the benefit to this information?  First and foremost I find it to be very helpful in bringing to light how important it is to take care of the most critical piece in this equation which is your feet.  28,080 footstrikes is no walk in the park (pun intended).  You might also utilize this data to establish your ideal cadence or leg turnover which I’ve seen some training loosely based on.  If nothing else, you can brag about how many or how few it takes you to run a race!

Running Footwear Specialist Hits the Net!

“Prescriptions for the Sole”
A virtual connoisseur of everything about running shoes.  I’m borderline obsessive about footwear and have spent over 10 years in the running specialty industry. My mission: “To be the #1 online leader in prescribing forward moving running footwear advice.”  I will strive to be the most comprehensive online running resource for everything shoes.  Have a question/comment I’d love to hear from you.  Thanks for visiting and Many Happy Miles – The Shoe Dr.