Apparently the knee and elbow bone... funny, that's not the song that I learned! A lot of leg injuries can be traced to over-striding (i.e., when your foot touches down 10-12 inches in front of your center of gravity). This can place upwards of 3x your weight on your joints. So, how can you prevent this? First, make sure you are landing mid-foot as opposed to on your heels. However, even this won't solve all of your problems- elbow angle is also important. Wait... what... my elbow is not connected to my foot! But, there is a relationship between the rate at which you swing your arms and your foot strike... or as coach would say, "your feet follow your arms". This is why you should pump your arms more at the end of a race... just try and unsynch your arm swing and footfall (but not during a race... unless you want to slide across the finish... actually, one of my teammates did this in college and beat the girl she was neck and neck with... but that was on grass and not a street... ok, enough with that tangent). Furthermore, changes to arm swing affect where you land on your foot. Coincidentally, this is why you shouldn't run with weights, either arm or leg. #20
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