Overstriding means your foot lands well in front of your body's centre of mass, usually on a fairly straight knee with the shin tilted so the foot is ahead of the knee. Lab studies link landing further ahead of the body to bigger braking forces and higher impact loads, and in one prospective study of female recreational runners the runners with the biggest braking forces got injured far more often. From the side, a camera can read where your foot lands relative to your body and your knee angle at contact, which is the core of this check.
What overstriding is
Know the definition: your foot touches down well in front of your centre of mass. A simple clinic check: just after contact, draw a vertical line up from your outer ankle bone. If it falls inside your pelvis, you are not overstriding. If it falls in front of your pelvis, you are.
reaching out in front with your foot just before it lands.
Check your shin at contact. Just after landing, your knee should be directly above your ankle or slightly in front of it. If your knee is behind your ankle (shin tilted with the foot out front), that is the overstride position.
your foot arriving under your knee, not ahead of it.
Don't confuse a long stride with overstriding. A long stride is fine if the extra length happens behind you. The problem is only the reach in front of your body.
length coming from the push behind you, not the reach in front.
Land under your body
Let your foot land closer under your hips with your knee softly bent. In one lab study, recreational runners' heels landed about 9 cm ahead of the centre of mass with the knee bent about 18 degrees at contact. A small step-rate increase moved the heel closer and bent the knee a little more. Aim for the direction, not a number.
landing on a soft, slightly bent knee rather than a straight one.
If you do overstride, raise your step rate 5 to 10% above your own normal at the same pace. At +5% and +10%, runners landed with the heel closer to the body and had less braking. Keep your pace the same so the extra steps shorten your reach. This is the same rule as the Cadence lesson.
slightly quicker, shorter steps at the same speed.
Think 'shin roughly vertical as the foot lands'. One lab study suggested landing at the end of the leg swing with a relatively vertical shin, which keeps the foot close to the hip and knee.
your foot coming down under you instead of out in front.
Foot strike matters less
Don't force a forefoot or midfoot strike to fix overstriding. A review found that switching away from a heel strike does not improve running economy, does not remove impact, and has not been shown to reduce injury. Fix where your foot lands, not which part touches first.
focused on where your foot lands, not how it lands.
Change gradually and back off if something hurts. The evidence for step-rate changes is mostly short-term lab results, and no study has shown that fixing overstriding prevents injury. Make one small change at a time on easy runs, and stop and get checked if a new pain appears.
a small, comfortable change, not a new running style.
Feel it
Your foot lands closer underneath you on a softly bent knee, and each step feels less like putting on the brakes. Steps feel slightly quicker and shorter at the same pace. Running more quietly can lower impact too, but how loud your feet are is not a reliable overstriding test, so check it on video.
Fix-its
- Your foot lands well out in front of your hips Raise your step rate 5 to 10% above your own normal at the same pace, so each step lands closer under you.
- You land on a nearly straight knee Land with a soft, slightly bent knee. A +10% step rate made the knee a little more bent at contact in lab runners.
- Your knee is behind your ankle just after contact Aim for a roughly vertical shin as the foot lands; quicker, shorter steps usually bring the foot back under the knee.
- You switched to running on your toes to stop overstriding Go back to your natural foot strike and work on landing position instead. Changing strike alone hasn't been shown to reduce injury.
- You shortened your stride by slowing down Keep the same pace and add steps instead; the goal is less reach in front, not a slower run.
Drill
- Film a baseline: treadmill at your usual easy pace, phone at hip height straight to the side. Count your steps for 60 seconds and pause the video just after contact to check where your ankle is relative to your pelvis and knee.
- Set a metronome 5% above your counted step rate and run short easy segments to it at the same pace.
- If 5% feels settled and you still overstride on video, try 10% above your baseline.
- Try the cue 'run quietly' for a few segments and see on video whether your landing moves closer under you.
- Re-film from the same spot after a few weeks and compare the same freeze-frame.
Sources
- Souza — An Evidence-Based Videotaped Running Biomechanics Analysis, Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am (2016)
- Wille et al. — Ability of Sagittal Kinematic Variables to Estimate Ground Reaction Forces and Joint Kinetics in Running, JOSPT (2014)
- 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)
- Napier et al. — Kinetic risk factors of running-related injuries in female recreational runners, Scand J Med Sci Sports (2018)
- Bramah et al. — Is There a Pathological Gait Associated With Common Soft Tissue Running Injuries? Am J Sports Med (2018)
- Hamill & Gruber — Is changing footstrike pattern beneficial to runners? J Sport Health Sci (2017)
- Phan et al. — Running quietly reduces ground reaction force and vertical loading rate and alters foot strike technique, J Sports Sci (2017)
Last checked 2026-10-26.