About two months ago, I talked about research related to foot strike and running injuries. That research mostly focused on what part of your foot hit the ground first. Now there’s new research out that examines how hard your feet hit the ground. It turns out (not surprisingly) the harder you strike the ground, the more likely you are to get injured.

The main take away from this research was:

“Runners should take out the earbuds and pay attention to the sound of their footsteps.”

When I was running cross country in high school, I remember one day when I was feeling tired, my coach commented on my feet slapping the ground that day. My run was very loud. At the time, I didn’t think of it much, but clearly it stuck with me.

Since then, I’ve been working to quiet my footfall. I wanted to do this because it’s more peaceful to run when each step makes almost no noise (plus it makes me feel more like a ninja, but that’s another story). The idea that you can reduce the likelihood of injury simply by listening to the sound of your feet hitting the ground, is a powerful concept. It doesn’t require other people or technology to help analyze your stride or the “right genes” for running or the latest model of running shoes.

Do you listen to your footfall? Has that changed how you run?