Minimizing Impact
More impact means more injuries. There is no point to running if all you do is hurt yourself. Nobody gets better on the sidelines.
To reduce impact in the vertical plane as much as possible, land on your mid-foot or forefoot and land underneath the body. Forefoot landing is pretty much only for sprinters because it takes a lot more energy, so I will focus on a mid-foot landing. Landing on the mid-foot is basically a flat footed landing with the balls of the feet leading just a tiny little bit ahead of the heel. This allows the load of landing to be shared between the muscles of the calf and the skeleton (the majority of people land on their heels which results in nearly all of the impact being translated into the skeleton). Landing on the heel is associated with several of the most common running injuries including shin splints and patellofemoral syndrome.
Landing underneath the body is also imperative to reducing impact in the horizontal plane. Landing in front of your centre of mass means that upon impact, you have to absorb some of your forward momentum which results in stress on the body (and going slower which will be discussed next time).
Landing directly under the centre of mass (hips) means that you can start pushing yourself forward in space as soon as you land. I find that trying to push myself forward as soon as I land is a good way to concentrate of landing in the right spot.
At this point it is extremely important to warn you of two potential problems should you begin running with a mid-foot landing. First of all, your body, primarily your calves, will not be used to this style of running, just like when you change anything else in training, start small and build slowly. The second thing is to make sure that you also land under your body. If you don't, the load on your calf will be enormous because you'll be adding the horizontal forces to the vertical ones.
The other thing you want to reduce is rotational moments. Moments are usually applied by twisting in the upper body. Basically if for example you twist your arms around your torso with each stride, you balance that out with your ankle, knee, and various muscles including your quads and core. This is all impact that isn't necessary for forward movement and can easily be avoided.
You can limit your arm movement by keeping your elbows tucked in close and allowing your hands to travel from beside your hip to about six inches in front of your armpit. Another great way to reduce moments is by keeping your hips square to your direction of travel. To check this while running, I put my hands on my hips and it becomes pretty obvious if there is a problem.
Some things to try:
A's, B's and C's. Any running coach should be able to show you these. There are probably some good youtube videos as well. They focus on certain parts of the running stride.
Strides. To do strides properly, you just take 10 or 15 of the best running strides you can at 70-95% of your max speed. They are short because your attention span is probably equally short. You can do these barefoot if you like and it is usually best to do them on a soft surface. You can do them as a warm up as often as you like.
Barefoot and minimalistic running (toe shoes or flats): these are ways to get a better feel for the ground. They are important to do on a weekly or biweekly basis, but they are also a good way to get injured. You should treat them as a drill rather than a fitness session.
Focus. On your runs, periodically spend a few minutes running as beautifully as you possibly can. You'll find that over time the technique you use most often becomes second nature.
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