Absolutely right Berlinda, the first thing I do with my athletes is work at rectifying posture and gait. The biggest issue with rotating your torso while running is using unnecessary amounts of energy, swing your arms forward and that will prevent you shoulders will not swing from side to side. Do some research into gait and posture, you will improve your time, most of us think our posture is perfect when in actual fact improving some aspects will improve time and eventually comfort. It will take time to get used to a new running style no matter how small the change.

Yeah I remember when I started out running my father told me that I bounced up and down instead of striding forward and was wasting a lot of energy!!! Take a look at this site http://kinetic-revolution.com. I stumbled across their profile on twitter and they focus heavily on technique and they don’t focus on just one aspect like foot strike which seems to be all the rage now but look at form, for lack of a better phrase as a whole body interaction. It’s mostly focused on triathletes but I’ve found some of their drills and stuff useful.

We all feel like gazelles when we run and then actually look quite different. When I saw my first action photo from a race I nearly died. I was running all skew with my left shoulder, looking more like the hunch back of Notre Dame than anything else. As Clint says above; the swaying movement costs you so much in energy that could have been used to propel you forward and slice those minutes off. At first it might feel funny but keep being conscious of it and it will be fixed in no time. There will normally be some loss of form when you get tired, but at least you will save energy at the start of the race. Maybe have your partner video you when you are running so that you can see for yourself how bad it is?