Performance in Recreational Distance Runners: A Biomechanical Approach to Improving Running Economy

The number of people choosing to run for fitness and health has increased steadily in recent years, with the latest findings putting the figure at 7 million in England alone. Given the size of the recreational running population, it is surprising that there is a dearth of research looking at the physiology and biomechanics of this recreational distance running cohort.

This thesis compared the physiological and biomechanical performance when running overground with the same speed and comparable conditions on a treadmill. Forty participants attended two experimental sessions, not less than a week apart, and ran at their preferred 5 km pace for 5 minutes on a treadmill and overground on each occasion. There was a statistically significant difference in running economy between the overground and treadmill conditions (means: 39.11, 40.09, 42.87, 43.09 ml.kg-1.min-1 for overground 1, 2 and treadmill 1, 2 respectively; p < 0.001), but not between the biomechanical factors. When testing outside for running economy and biomechanical data, both were found to be reliable and ecologically valid.

Having established that testing overground is an acceptable method for investigating this cohort of runners, this thesis set out to determine whether there was a relationship between running economy and one or more modifiable biomechanical variables. The data showed that the strongest connection with running economy was stride length, accounting for 46-47% (p <0.001) of the variation in running economy implying that it would be possible to improve running economy by manipulating that variable.

The novel findings of this thesis are that it is reliable and ecologically valid to test for running economy and biomechanical parameters in recreational distance runners overground and that there is evidence to suggest that training to reduce stride length could lead to an improved running economy in a recreational running population, providing potential for performance enhancement.