Landing under you means your foot touches down close beneath your hips instead of reaching out in front of them. The further ahead of your hips the foot lands, the bigger the braking force on each step, so this is the landing position to aim for when you fix overstriding. From the side, a camera can read where your foot lands relative to your body and your shin angle at contact.
Why it matters
Treat "under you" as "close to under your hips", not directly below them. Even good landings sit a little ahead of your centre of mass. In one lab study, recreational runners' heels touched down about 9 cm ahead of it at their normal step rate and about 7 cm ahead at a 10% higher step rate. The goal is closer, not zero.
the foot arriving just in front of your hips, not out at the end of a reach.
Know what the position changes. In lab runners, a foot landing further ahead of the hip went with a bigger braking force, and a foot further ahead of the knee went with a higher impact peak. In another study, how far the heel landed ahead of the centre of mass was one of the main kinematic predictors of braking force and loading.
each step rolling you forward instead of stopping you.
How to land under you
Don't reach with your foot. A landing far out in front usually comes with the knee straightening ahead of you just before contact. Let the foot come down from the swing on a softly bent knee instead.
the foot dropping under your knee, not swinging out to grab the ground.
If you land well ahead, take slightly quicker, shorter steps at the same pace. Raising step rate 5 to 10% above your own normal moved runners' heels closer to the centre of mass and lowered braking. Use your own baseline, as in the Cadence lesson, not a fixed number.
a slightly quicker rhythm with no change in speed.
Compare yourself at the same speed. Running speed was one of the main predictors of braking and impact in one study, so a faster run will look and load differently. Judge your landing at your usual easy pace each time.
the same easy effort on every check.
Check the stack
Freeze the video just after contact, as the shoe starts to squash. Picture a vertical line up from your outer ankle bone. If it falls within your pelvis, your foot landed under you. If it falls in front of your pelvis, you reached.
ankle and hips roughly stacked in that frame.
Allow for lean and foot strike. The ankle-line check doesn't account for how far your trunk leans, which shifts your real centre of mass, and it is less useful if you land midfoot or forefoot. Treat it as a quick screen, not a measurement.
checking the whole picture, not one line.
Use your shin as a second check, not the main one. In the same frame, a knee directly above or slightly ahead of the ankle is fine. A knee behind the ankle means the foot is out in front. In one study, shin angle didn't make it into any model predicting braking and loading, while heel-to-body distance and step length did, so go by where the foot is first.
your knee over or just ahead of your foot as you load it.
Change one small thing at a time and stop if something new hurts. The step-rate evidence is mostly short-term lab results, and we found no study showing that moving your landing prevents injury. Practise on easy runs and get checked if a new pain appears.
a small adjustment, not a new running style.
Feel it
Your foot lands just in front of your hips on a softly bent knee, and each step feels like it carries you forward rather than catching you. At the same pace, steps feel a little quicker and shorter. Feel is a poor judge of where your foot really lands, so confirm it on side-on video.
Fix-its
- The ankle line falls in front of your pelvis Raise your step rate 5% above your own normal at the same pace, then 10% if the landing hasn't moved closer.
- Your knee straightens and reaches out just before landing Shorten the step and let the foot come down under a softly bent knee rather than extending to meet the ground.
- Your shin looks fine but your foot is still well ahead of your hips Go by the foot-to-hip position. Shin angle alone can miss it, so fix the step length first.
- You compare videos at different speeds Film every check at the same easy pace, ideally on a treadmill, so speed isn't what changed.
- You switched to landing on your toes to "get under" yourself Which part of the foot lands first is a separate change from where it lands. Work on position with step rate, and read the Footstrike Facts lesson before changing strike.
Drill
- Baseline film: run on a treadmill at your easy pace for 6 to 10 minutes to settle in, then film side-on with the phone at hip height set to 120 fps or higher. Freeze 3 to 5 contacts per leg just after landing and note the ankle line and knee-over-ankle position.
- Count your steps for 60 seconds at that pace. Run short segments within easy runs to a metronome set 5% above that count, keeping the treadmill speed the same.
- Re-film at the same speed and step rate and compare the same frames with your baseline. If the foot still lands well ahead, repeat with the metronome 10% above baseline.
- Once the new landing looks settled on video, run parts of easy runs without the metronome and re-film to check it holds.
Sources
- Souza — An Evidence-Based Videotaped Running Biomechanics Analysis, Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am (2016)
- Heiderscheit et al. — Effects of Step Rate Manipulation on Joint Mechanics during Running, Med Sci Sports Exerc (2011)
- Lieberman et al. — Effects of stride frequency and foot position at landing on braking force, hip torque, impact peak force and the metabolic cost of running, J Exp Biol (2015)
- Wille et al. — Ability of Sagittal Kinematic Variables to Estimate Ground Reaction Forces and Joint Kinetics in Running, JOSPT (2014)
- Napier et al. — Kinematic Correlates of Kinetic Outcomes Associated With Running-Related Injury, J Appl Biomech (2019)
Last checked 2026-10-26.