The entirely free method that fast runners use to recycle more energy

The running industry is on an endless hunt for shoes that recycle more and more energy.

And we, as runners, are more than happy to bust out our wallets to buy the latest shoes.

It is a no brainer purchase because the benefit of the shoes are pretty straightforward:

strap on the shoes --> recycle more energy --> run faster

However, this practice of buying new shoes has been getting pretty expensive in recent years.

High-end shoes are over $200 in cost, they only last a limited number of miles, a new model hits the shelves every year, and there are only incremental improvements year-over-year now.

Plus, most every top-end runner already has the latest shoes now so the playing field is pretty level.

In summary, shoes have turned the quest of "energy recycling" into an expensive game of marginal advantages and diminishing returns.

It does not need to be this way.

You don't need pumped up shoes to "recycle energy."

In fact, "energy recycling" can be had entirely for free and in sums far greater than afforded by a pair of shoes.

How is that possible?

Unless you are an elite runner, you likely can become a far faster runner by building up the "energy recycling" muscles and tendons in your legs than you ever could become from buying a new pair of shoes.

There is a name for this "energy recycling" capability of your legs: Leg Spring Stiffness

(which I will call LSS from this point forward)

You may have heard me talk about this metric before. This metric is not some new-fangled number that Stryd made up.

LSS has been studied in the scientific literature for decades.

How can you build up your LSS?

Simple exercises such as hill sprints, plyometrics, drills, and interval training have been shown to build up your muscle and tendon strength, which increase your LSS.

These exercises are even easy to add into your routine! They are low stress and can typically be immediately dropped into your existing training plan.

The challenge is: which of these exercises are most effective?

To know that, you will need to start tracking your LSS.

Stryd didn't invent LSS but we did invent a way to simply and easily track LSS during every run.

All you have to do is attach the Stryd pod to the laces of your shoe to begin tracking this metric.

With this data, you can view how your LSS improves over time as you incorporate the above exercises into your training. LSS is not built overnight but these trends should begin to emerge in your data collection from your standard run training in response to just a month's worth of drills.

If you would like to start tracking your Leg Spring Stiffness to see how much energy you are recycling, you can get Stryd at the link below:

https://store.stryd.com/