The Art of Adaptation in Running: A Real-Time Lesson in Biomechanics
I was sitting in the park today with my dog, just enjoying the afternoon, when I noticed a runner grinding through 100m reps. It was clear straight away — he was dealing with a left knee issue. His stride was off, his movement looked uncomfortable, but the determination? Unshakable.
What really caught my attention was how his body adapted in real time.
A Tactical Response to Pain
At first, he tried to run evenly — forefoot striking on both sides, maybe trying to reduce load through the knee. But as the reps went on and fatigue crept in, the strategy shifted:
Left leg locked out — acting like a stiff vault to keep rhythm
Right leg doing all the work — propulsion, load, and control
Increased forward lean — shifting effort to the hamstrings
Right foot heel striking hard — a desperate attempt to gain ground
His body was solving a problem: “How do I keep running when one leg can’t help?”
The answer was a vault-and-pull system, born out of necessity — not efficiency.
The Bigger Lesson
It reminded me how quickly tactics take over when strategy fails. Healthy athletes rely on ingrained patterns developed over time — but throw in injury, and it becomes about short-term solutions to keep moving.
These compensations are powerful — and dangerous.
The runner kept pushing, but you could see the cost mounting:
Increased asymmetry
More strain on the right side
Rising risk of secondary injury
Whether you’re a coach, physio, or scientist, this is worth reflecting on. We often obsess over data points and test results — but how often are we looking at the movement itself? How often are we checking if the tactics still support the long-term strategy?
Movement tells a story. Today I watched one unfold — and it reminded me how incredible, adaptable, and sometimes fragile the human body really is.
— Jason Weber
