The Six Minute Mile Holiday Gift Guide
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Optimal running form is attained through becoming a stronger, more mobile, and more efficient runner.
I’ve been coaching runners for more than 20 years. In that time, I’ve seen just about every running injury and imbalance you can imagine. While the exact causes tend to vary, I’ve noticed that many issues ultimately come down to suboptimal running form, a lack of efficiency, and poor mobility.
There has been a lot of discussion about what optimal running form is all about, and how every runner can work on improving their form. What does it entail? What does it look like? Is it the same for everyone? This article will address those points and how you can improve your form to become a stronger, more mobile, and more efficient runner.
As runners, we all have our own physical characteristics and individual motion patterns, so our optimal running form will always be unique to us as individuals. Finding your optimal running form starts with making small changes and improvements that can be replicated at any pace, not about seeking perfect movements that temporarily change your stride pattern.
I wasn’t always a poster child for good form. When I first started running, I would pound out miles with terrible form—overstriding, landing on my heels with straight knees, not engaging my core properly. It didn’t take long before I was hobbled with various aches and pains.
Determined to keep running, I started reading everything I could about efficient form. I experimented with changes like increasing my cadence, landing more softly under my center of mass, and actively driving my knees forward. While it took time and patience, these form tweaks made a world of difference. The injuries faded and my times started dropping.
Now, helping runners optimize their optimal form is one of my passions as a coach. While there’s no universally “perfect” form, there are key principles you can apply to find your optimal efficiency and injury resilience.
Here are what I consider the five core pillars of efficient running form:
To run with proper alignment, as described above, your body needs adequate mobility and neuromuscular coordination. Inflexibilities or weaknesses anywhere in the chain—like tight hip flexors or weak glute meds—make ideal form difficult to achieve.
That’s why I consider regular mobility practice one of the most vital components of optimal running form. Actively opening up your joints and coordinating muscle activation patterns trains your nervous system for efficient movement.
Some of my favorite mobility exercises include:
along with routines like these
While there are universal principles, as outlined above, finding your most efficient form ultimately requires getting to know your own body. Below are three key strategies I recommend to hone your individual form:
Be patient through this process. It takes time to override years of movement habits. But the payoff—better performance and fewer injuries—makes it well worth the effort.
For some runners, niggling form or injury issues just won’t resolve, no matter how much self-experimentation they do. If you’ve plateaued in your progress on form, consider an expert assessment.
In-person biomechanical analysis at sports performance labs can identify subtle issues through detailed measurements. Some also provide gait-retraining programs.
Another option is one-on-one coaching focused specifically on optimizing running form. A good coach trains your eye to self-analyze and gives you personalized movement and strength drills. Through collaborating with both lab experts and run coaches, I finally resolved my own lifelong injury battles.
So don’t hesitate to seek outside help if you need it! We all have our movement blindspots.
Hopefully, this gives you a solid foundation on the key principles of efficient running form and how to progress to your optimal personal form. Remember—patience and consistency are key. Keep fine-tuning your form and mobility over months and years, not days and weeks. The long-term rewards are well worth it!
Called one of the best and smartest distance running coaches in America by Runner’s World, Greg McMillan is renowned for his ability to combine the science of endurance performance with the art of real-world coaching. While getting his graduate degree in Exercise Science he created the ever-popular McMillan Running Calculator–called “The Best Running Calculator” by Outside Magazine. A National Champion runner himself, Greg coaches runners from beginners to Boston Qualifiers (15,000+ and counting!) to Olympians.
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