Dan Lieberman on Running Form

Harvard’s Daniel Lieberman is one of the stars in Chris McDougall’s book, Born To Run. In the book, Chris describes Dr. Lieberman’s anthropological theory that humans ability to run long distances (while maintaining their body temperature) allowed us to chase down animals that, for short distances, are much faster than we are. He also details Lieberman’s research into running mechanics and running form, including the famous study that demonstrated how barefoot running puts less force through your joints and can be better/safer for you.

Well, thanks to Pete Larson at www.runblogger.com (who turned me onto the following video), and thanks to Tuck at http://yelling-stop.blogspot.com/ (from whom Pete found it), I’m happy to share this video of Dan sharing his top 5 tips for better running.

All I would add (and I’m about to release something that describes this) is that “Don’t overdo it” isn’t a useful message, because the only way you know if you’ve over-done it, is when you’ve done too much and it’s over! 😉

In other words, better to come up with a plan for what you ARE going to do, rather than make an admonition about what you shouldn’t do, since us humans are as bad at following “don’t do this” rules as we may be as good at chasing down an antelope.