Gait Retraining Adelaide
At SA Running Injury Clinic, we know that every athlete has their individual running style. There is no running style which is perfect and everyone develops a gait that feels comfortable and efficient. It is huge gamble changing this. For example, it would take a very game practitioner to alter the gait of Priscah Jeptoo who was a silver medallist in the marathon at the 2012 Olympic Games 2012. However, if you witness in the video below there would be an argument her knee is an injury waiting to happen:
Research has found that one can reduce knee pain by running with a faster step rate and smaller strides. This is called cadence. Other injuries which have shown that altering cadence helps reduce pain are:
- Anterior Exertional Lower Leg Pain
- Achilles Tendinopathy
- Calf Pain
- Shin Splints
- Knee Pain
- Patellar Tendinopathy: Runner's Knee
- Hamstring Pain
- Gluteal Pain and Tendinopathy


Sometimes injuries result from attempts to alter running gait, particularly when switching to a forefoot strike. Reducing load on structures when running is difficult and usually, results in an increased load elsewhere.
However, there is some stronger correlation between running gait and certain injuries. For example, there is some evidence that modifying running gait improves symptoms of our most common injury: Runner's Knee.
Higher step rate with smaller stride length has been found to have a number of benefits in the research. 3 fairly recent studies – Heiderscheit et al. (2011), Chumanov et al. (2012) and Hobara et al. (2012) found the following:
- Altered foot posture when the foot hits the ground
- Improved Hip position
- Buttock muscles are activated better
- Reduce load on hip and knee joints
Studies are showing increasing cadence by 5-10% helps. At the SA Running Injury Clinic, we will show you simple techniques to alter your gait. It is a lot simpler than you think.