Fast runners land badly all the time… so let’s practice absorption.
Not because they’re weak. Because running fitness and landing capacity are two different qualities, and almost nobody trains the second one.
Here’s what I look for when someone lands:
→ Where do the hips go? Backward is an escalator. Down is an elevator.
→ Does the knee travel past the toes? If it can’t, the ankle is blocked and the load has to go somewhere else.
→ How much room does the ankle actually have? Dorsiflexion is what buys you time to decelerate.
You can’t return energy you can’t absorb first. That’s why jumping straight into depth jumps and bounding usually feels awful — the tissue is being asked to give back something it never learned to take.
The progression:
1. Knee forward, toes up, load the heel. No jump. Learn the shape.
2. Same pattern, reaching a weight toward the floor. Hold the shape under load.
3. Small jump. Land in the shape you just practiced.
Then you earn the complicated stuff.
Start where you are, not where the internet tells you to be.
Comment “Do Better” to apply to the do better running program for me to help you where you’re at 🫡
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Do Better Fitness
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👨🏼🎓BS Exercise Science
💥Injury Recovery + Prevention for BEGINNER RUNNERS in 90 days or less💥
08/28/2026
Here’s what’s coming in the next 9 slides:
↳ Why sitting culture is behind this pattern
↳ Why your upper body works overtime while your hip stays quiet
↳ How to tell the difference between quad-dominance and glute activation
↳ The OTHER glute most coaches never talk about
↳ The one symptom you should never ignore — even when nothing hurts
↳ Why fixing one gait pattern fixes two others
↳ The one drill that changes everything
↳ The 4-exercise strength routine backed by EMG data
If your runs feel harder than they should — but nothing actually hurts — read every plate.
Quick self-test — the couch stretch check-in:
Kneel in front of a couch. Put one shin up along the seat back, top of the foot flat on the couch. Squeeze the glute of the back leg and try to bring your torso vertical.
Can’t get upright without your lower back arching? Your hip flexors are locked, and your glute has forgotten how to keep the pelvis stacked.
60 seconds each side, once a day. That single stretch — done consistently — starts unlocking the whole chain.
Try this the next time you run:
Notice your arms. If you feel like you’re WORKING them — muscling them front to back, pumping to keep momentum — your lower body isn’t holding up its end.
Efficient running arms feel LAZY. They swing themselves. Because the hip drive underneath them is doing the actual work.
If your arms feel busy and your hips feel quiet, that’s the signal. Your trunk is compensating (core not engaged) for the hinge you don’t have.
Ever wonder why your calves feel like rocks after every run — even after stretching, foam rolling, massage?
They’re not tight because they’re weak. They’re tight because they’ve been doing your glutes’ job for years.
No amount of stretching fixes an overloaded muscle. You have to redistribute the work upstream. Wake the glutes. Give the calves back their actual role — ankle spring, not primary propulsion.
Then watch how quickly the “tight calf” problem quiets down.
The single-leg mirror test:
Stand in front of a mirror on one leg. Just balance for 10 seconds. Watch your pelvis — does the non-standing side stay level, or does it drop?
A quick note on the research: Bramah 2018 found i
Week 1 of 16. CIM, sub 3:30.
Ran tempo this week in the ANTA Sports C202 7, testing it against my usual tempo shoe, the Brooks Running Hyperion Max 2. More responsive, lighter than expected. Not calling it a verdict off one session, but it’s earned a second look.
If you wanna try them out… link in my bio 🫡
Honest part: I had an easy run on the schedule and just didn’t do it. Not a pattern, not spiraling over it. Real fix is getting easy runs done early in the day instead of leaving them for whenever I find time, since whenever-I-find-time is exactly when they get skipped.
One week in. Onward. 👊
CIM training block journey
Running mechanics explained… day 49 🫡
Two of these four runners had the right stride… but that’s not enough to make sure you’re running efficient.
Friday I asked which stride was the most efficient. Here’s the answer:
→ Runner 4 — stride too short. All that energy went up instead of forward. Lots of bounce, not much distance covered.
→ Runner 2 — stride too long. Foot lands out in front, and every step puts the brakes on before it moves you forward.
→ Runners 1 and 3 — stride length was fine. That’s the point. Look above the waist and you’ll see what’s actually going wrong.
Because your arms and torso are also very important to push you forward. When they are not used efficiently, your legs produce force and your body sends it somewhere other than straight ahead.
This is why “am I a heel striker or a midfoot striker” is the least useful question you can ask about your running. It’s a detail. What matters is whether your whole body is working in the same direction.
And you don’t fix that by thinking about it mid-run. You build it off the run — strength and movement patterns that teach your body to work as one piece instead of a set of parts.
Comment DO BETTER and I’ll walk you through what the Do Better Running Program actually looks like.
Only real runners will get this one.
Four strides. One of them is holding up better than the rest.
Some things to look at:
→ Is there a lot of air, but not much forward?
→ Is the foot landing way out in front?
→ Is the hip doing its job, or is something else covering for it?
That’s all you get. Which one looks strongest to you, and what gave it away?
Let me know in the comments 👇 and send this to the runner who thinks they already know — I want to see who’s actually right.
Monday I’m breaking it all down — what a strong stride actually looks like, and why the rest cost you more than you think.
DO BETTER
Your legs give out before your lungs do.
Most runners answer that with more miles. It’s usually a capacity problem — you run out of ability to absorb force long before you run out of fuel.
5 movements with the highest return per minute in the gym:
→ Deadlift — teaches you to load the posterior chain instead of dumping it into your quads
→ Back squat — raw capacity under load
→ Pallof twists — trains the trunk to resist rotation, which is its job every single stride
→ Front/back lunges — split-stance strength in both directions of travel
→ Single leg RDL — running is a single-leg sport. Load it like one.
If you’re not doing these, start.
No barbell? Not comfortable loading yet? Comment PRERUN and I’ll send you 14 days free in the PRERUN app — dumbbell and bodyweight progressions to build the same patterns.
DO BETTER
I’m running CIM on December 6th, and I’m going after a PR.
16 weeks from today. And this time I’m not winging it.
Last marathon I showed up on a training block that was all over the place, made peace with it at mile 20, and had a great day anyway. But “had a great day anyway” isn’t a training strategy.
So here’s everything going into this block. Preparation, nutrition, the tools, and all of it in between
I hired a running coach.
Not because I don’t know how to build a block. I do. That’s the job.
The problem is when you coach yourself, you’re the athlete and the coach at the same time, and the athlete always wins the argument. I can look at a plan and know exactly what the right call is. Then it’s a cold Tuesday, my legs are heavy, and suddenly I’ve got a very reasonable case for cutting the session short.
Nobody’s objective about their own training. Not me, not you.
So Cesar is running my block for the next 16 weeks. He writes it, I execute it, and he’s the one telling me no when I need to hear it.
Best coaches I know all have coaches. That’s not a coincidence.
Bad sleep doesn’t just make you tired. It makes you worse at everything else you’re trying to do.
Brain fog all morning. Legs that feel heavy by mile 3 on a run that should be easy. And the one nobody talks about: when you’re underslept, your appetite goes sideways. You reach for fast sugar, you skip the real meal, and then you wonder why your fueling fell apart.
Every pillar in this block sits on top of sleep. Training, nutrition, recovery, all of it.
So here’s my actual fix, and it’s not a supplement. It’s getting off my phone.
I’m using Brick. You tap your phone to it and the apps you choose are gone until you tap back. No willpower involved, which is the point, because my willpower at 11pm is not good.
Phone out of the room. Same wake time daily. 7.5 hours minimum.
The hardest part of sleeping better was never the sleeping. It was putting the phone down.
Nutrition for this block, broken into two lanes: what I eat daily, and what fuels the actual runs.
Breakfast is the same most mornings. Chia seeds, kefir, granola. Fiber, protein, gut
Sagittal plane vs Frontal plane…
If you’re having trouble controlling your hips practice training in the frontal plane 💪
If you’re still not sure what I mean comment do better so we can chat about how I can help 🫡
Do Better 🏃♀️🏃🏃♂️
08/11/2026
How to know if you’re a Bouncer and things to look for…
If your runs feel harder than they should — this deck is for you. Read every plate. The fix is at the end.
Can you do a deep bodyweight squat with your heels flat on the ground?
If you have to lift your heels or lean your torso way forward to balance, you’re limited in ankle dorsiflexion. That’s the same range you need to let your tibia rotate forward when you run.
A limited ankle at the squat rack = a bouncing ankle on the road.
Start with wall calf stretches, ankle rocks over a foam roller, and weighted heel drops off a step. 5 minutes a day, 3 weeks. Retest the squat.
The good news for ex-sprinters: your fitness ceiling is HIGH.
The catch: your body’s default is a force pattern designed for 3-second efforts, applied to 60-minute ones.
The reframe isn’t “lose the spring” — it’s “redirect it.”
Same spring. New angle. When you find it, you’ll be one of the fastest recreational runners in your zip code.
If you played basketball, ran short-track, or did any explosive sport growing up — you might be a bouncer waiting to be redirected.
Two ways to check yourself in the wild:
Phone method: Have someone film you running toward the camera for 10 seconds at easy pace. Watch your head. If it visibly bobs up-and-down more than side-to-side, you’re a bouncer.
Watch method: Garmin, Coros, and Stryd all track vertical ratio in the running dynamics data. Pull it up after your next easy run. Anything over 8% = worth working on.
The number doesn’t lie. But the ponytail is honest too.
Ever wonder why some people can hold a conversation at 8:00 pace while you’re gasping at 9:30?
A big part of that gap isn’t fitness. It’s efficiency.
Two runners at the same VO₂ max can perform completely differently based on how well they convert energy into HORIZONTAL motion. The bouncer works harder for the same distance and burns through their aerobic ceiling faster.
Fix the bounce and you find a full pace zone of “free” fitness. Same lungs. Same legs. Just better direction.
Try this on your next run:
Every mile, do a quick “shoulder drop check.” Shrug your shoulders up to your ears and then let them fall completely. N
It’s probably not what you think… more to come 🤔
Follow for the explanation 🫡
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