You can’t lift your feet faster to get shorter contact time when running

Many runners know that a short ground contact time is good when running. You simply become more energy efficient the less time you have your foot on the ground. Therefore, it may seem logical that you should try to lift your feet a little faster. Unfortunately, this rarely works. You have your foot on the ground for such an extremely short time that you simply do not have time to react and lift your foot before it has already left the ground. How it works and what really determines your contact time is explained in this video.
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Fredrik Zillén has over the years helped thousands of runners to a more efficient running technique - from the slowest beginners to members of the Swedish national team in running and triathlon who have participated in the World Championships and the Olympics. Fredrik also writes articles on effective running technique for Runner's World magazine.
Following the success of Fredrik Zilléns online course in Swedish, he has now produced an updated and improved version in English. You can find it here: www.fredrikzillen.com
You find the Swedish version at: www.fredrikzillenonline.se
"Fantastic running course. Fredrik is an excellent teacher with a unique approach. I highly recommend this course to runners of all levels."
Kevin, UK
"The best money I have ever spent. Great mix of humour, practical technique and theory. It’s brilliant and I have been telling all my friends about it. I’ve knocked 30 secs off my average pace to 4:30 and at 53 I’m absolutely astonished how relaxed I feel running. It’s also really helped my cycling my adapting similar techniques and visualisation. Thanks so much.
Paul, UK
Read more testimonials here: fredrikzillenonline.newzenler...
The course in English: fredrikzillen.com
The course in Swedish: www.fredrikzillenonline.se

[@simont6439]

At 168 cadence each step lasts 357ms, so 238ms contact time is actually 66.66% or 2/3 of the time. Nerve signals travel at least 40m/s, which means from foot to brain, say 2m, is 50ms. More importantly your brain will sense the rhythm, and hence will time any muscle activation to occur at the exact needed time, hence with 0ms delay. Not that it's a good idea to try lifting your feet faster though, it's not a useful way to manipulate your technique. If you want shorter contact time, you need to increase the cadence, or run more forward on the forefoot. Latter may trigger injuries. (Not the FF-strike in itself, but "too high" a FF-strike in relation to your speed will cause injuries).

[@GTOyeti]

Thanks I was just trying to work this out. Running cadence is naturally very quick, but the time your foot is in contact with the ground is actually quite long in relation to the duration of each stride. Also this is intuitive, like most things relating to running. Zillen spends 10 minutes trying to make the opposite point. Not impressed.

[@tassko]

I liked your technical approach to describing this. Thanks. I have experience with run form and ground contact as it is one of the variables that affect cadence and heart rate especially at higher speeds. I should do more neuromuscular training.

[@Lauritz24]

Great explanation with the screen. You also have a wonderful voice and a way of speaking. Thank you!

[@SpringSnabbare]

A wonderful voice? Wow, thank you! This is a compliment I have never received before. I'm quite critical about how I speak, but mostly because English is not my first language. Maybe I should stop worrying about that now. Because I have a wonderful voice. It says so on the Internet :)

[@Quepali]

Great topics and explanations. You just got å new subscriber 🙂 I wonder, is it possible to train you body to recover faster?

[@p179]

The way to train for shorter ground contact is 2-part: Do drills like ankling or dribbling with ankles dorsiflexed while focusing on powering down into the ground. As like as you focus on those 2 things you will land directly underneath with a quick pulse down and you will bounce. So focus on staying bouncy. And yes YOU CAN keep the cue of Power Down or Down Hard even at the higher paces. Just keep those ankles dorsiflexed but still landing midfoot to toe. Go try it. Youll see. Eventually you running will learn to pull down and back with the hamstrings. Youll feel it in your hammies quite a bit at first actually

[@leonsshare]

Great channel, subscribed, like a 'driving 4 answers' for the body instead of cars I purchased a stryd footpod a few years ago but haven't used it recently, it quite accurately measures gct, I should dig it back out for my upcoming summer training

[@nordicwilly6650]

What a fantastic channel! I have been working hard on my form to be able to run again (cranky hips). You have so many form gems on here! Count me a subscriber.

[@SpringSnabbare]

Thank you! I'm doing my best :)

[@nordicwilly6650]

@@SpringSnabbare Just started your course this weekend. Its been fantastic so far, especially the arm swing lessons. I went for first run using the tips and immediately saw the difference.

[@cesarbetancur5343]

Great content! New subscriber here .

[@salmayoussef585]

Thank you for the useful video

[@liamroche1473]

Since the average vertical force on the ground has to be _g_ , the acceleration due to gravity, the only things affecting the _fraction_ of time spent on the ground is the average _force-to-mass-ratio_ (acceleration) during ground contact. With that fixed, high cadence also reduces ground contact time (because the total contact time is broken up into more smaller times).

[@malkin2947]

It’s cLled cadence! Nice editing and videographer

[@UrielShark]

Can you make a video about Stride length ? How to increase it not losing cadence and ground contact time

[@mrdavester]

I've been experimenting with driving/popping off each step rather than a more linear step drive. It seems to give me a few inches extra per step while using the same cadence physical stride length.

[@ruffeyx]

oh i like science and numbers. instantly subs!

[@kjlkathandjohn6061]

Jump higher with each step but keep the same cadence - flight horizontally is from momentum, and a higher jump will allow more flight time to make use of that momentum. If you can't feel yourself leaping quickly, you won't feel the longer soaring flight time. Jump extra high to know the sensations, then over time you will fine tune to the optimal jump height for the speed you want.

[@lasse5214]

Super video

[@kjlkathandjohn6061]

I simply use music with cadence of 180 beats per minute, and swing my arms at this rate; my feet automatically keep time with whatever my arms are doing. Arm motion to music is not a matter of brain reaction to foot strike, but is a flowing of waves.

[@kjlkathandjohn6061]

@David Rosenthal tendon recoil giving energy return can't happen if foot is too long on the ground.

[@baydet]

The experiment with screen is not fair since my brain is aware when my feet in the air and when it will hit the ground. In the screen experiment you don’t know when you need to hit the screen

[@Leonidas-eu9bb]

This is true. The leg cycle is a highly ingrained movement in or brain. At least it should be. There is no reaction. The main reason for a shorter contact time and faster runnig is MORE FORCE.

[@stluciestrength]

Great video. How would you recommend jumping rope and what about plyo metric exercises? Which ones and how would you program them? Thanks.

[@SpringSnabbare]

Rope skipping is very good for runners. There are studies where they had recreational runners jump rope for five minutes as a warm-up and a control group that did dynamic stretching for five minutes as a warm-up. After ten weeks with otherwise the same training program, those who jumped rope had significantly improved a number of parameters, which included, among other things, test runs of 3000 meters. All plyometric exercises are good for runners. For most runners, it's not that important exactly what exercises you do, but that you do them. So start with that before you start thinking about the details.

[@glywnniswells9480]

Maybe try striking the ground with less knee bend using elasticity rather than muscle

[@Lennybird91]

I want this guy to play The Doctor.

[@honza1859]

Hi. The experiment doesn't count for the fact that I know ahead of time when my first contanct with the ground will be so I can prepare in advance for it and get the foot out of the ground quickly. But such an "artificial" "unnatural" foot movement will not result in optimal running because the stride lenght will be unnaturally shortened. Eg. try to run on the spot with as fast cadence as you can, lifting feet only few inches off the ground - you get very litlle ground contact time but with no speed gain...

[@honza1859]

I have one more comment to it: If I am not able to react in such a short period of time (to lift my leg sooner) how can I push myself from the ground? - beacuase I also will not be able to react and start pushing.. I think the answer is that I have to be prepared for pushing from the ground even before I will touch the ground with my foot.

[@SpringSnabbare]

The body handles this automatically. Among other things, there is a stretch reflex in the muscles that causes them to contract when they are quickly stretched. the body's elastic structures such as muscles, tendons, fascia can also be loaded with energy much like rubber bands and you can get back up to 50 percent of the energy you store there. For example, tha achilles tendon is very good at this. If you jump forward on one leg with short contact time, it's more of a bounce instead of you landing and then actively contracting the muscles and shooting off. Bouncing is more like running works.

[@runspace]

But; as a sentient being you have the ability to predict and plan your next move (i.e. shorten your stride, quicken your lift etc.) You can't draw a causality between the app and real life GCT when running!!!

[@Leonidas-eu9bb]

Contact time is mostly the result of running speed! We DON'T run faster by shortening the contact times. Contact times get shorter by running faster! The simple formular is Velocity = contact length / contact time or Contact time = contact length / v. Obviously This doesn't t help much because now it's the question again how do we run faster? This should just show that contact time is dependent on speed but not the other way around!

[@snark799]

Moreover, my legs are different. And I can't change the contact time of different legs!!

[@mrdavester]

So its not about lifting your feet off faster. That sounds unnatural. I'm experimenting with driving off each step rather than a more linear ground contact movement. The net effect shortens my contact time, engages the rubber band effect, and gives me a couple inches of stride length per step.

[@X-KR4-V0-7A]

❤

[@runabath]

👍

[@fernandoserrano9393]

Lifting the foot faster makes you faster if you’re running downhill.

[@paperjourni8964]

I cannot figure out where this video is going somehow…

[@randomark9161]

he is basically saying u cannot consciously shorten ur ground time contact

[@tassko]

Any attempt to control ground contact consciously will likely make your ground contact time longer.

[@SpringSnabbare]

@@randomark9161 Exactly. Thanks! Maybe it would have been sufficient to just say that. Maybe I can send you my scripts in the future so you can boil it all down to one sentence without me having to complicate it with long explanations of how it works 😃

[@Ian.Does.Fitness]

Any attempt to consciously intervene into the largely subconscious activity of running will make things slower and less efficient. As you say, good cadence and drills such as skipping are probably the best way of decreasing GCT and thus increasing efficiency.​@@SpringSnabbare

[@gregorysweeting2512]

So,its a neuro mind connection movement. Got to be done to the point,where the brian accepts this movement as a normal part of your body movement.👍

[@MrTthacker98001]

Haha I was trying to lift my feet

[@SpringSnabbare]

As I say, do as you please!

[@thegearboxman]

At 6:11 landing under your centre of mass LOL. Physics dictates that this is an impossibility, otherwise you would fall flat on your face! Likewise, a forward lean will simply result in acceleration and a never-ending increase in pace until, once again, you fall flat on your face when your cadence can't keep up! Also, the numerical value of your GCT is irrelevant because it's simply a consequence of pace and, to a small extent, running form. It's irrelevant because if your cadence is high enough and you're running fast enough then a shorter GCT will naturally follow. There's far too much over-thinking on this subject.