Do they have running spikes for people that heel strike?

Question

or do they sell products to reduce heel striking?

Answer 1

I don't heel strike...

Your body isn't actually designed to heel strike.  Your ankles and knees act as shock absorbers if you run biomechanically correct.

"ChiRunning" is a terrific book on proper running form. I read the first half of this and found it very helpful. It is fairly inexpensive and a fairly easy read.

Watch a child run, age 7 or younger. Kids run with perfect running form. They haven't been told any c**p from someone that doesn't know their butt from their forehead (i.e. pump your arms, stride out, etc.) and they live relatively stress-free lives. Old habits die hard and this takes focus.

Step 1: Plum Line

We learn to walk before we learn to run. And we learn to stand before we learn to walk. The same applies to chaning the way we run: we need to change the way we stand and the way we walk if we want to run with proper running form.

Find a full-length mirror. Stand with your side facing it and take note of your posture. "Connect the dots" between your ear, your shoulder, you hip, your knee, and your ankle. This line is probably not straight.

Straighten the line while looking into the mirror. You will do this by utilizing your stomach, not your butt. There should be a plum line through those 5 points, 90 degrees perpendicular to the ground. If you are find this difficult or even painful, you may want to consider seeing a chiropractor.

Practice standing and walking like this. Once you have it down, you're ready to start jogging with proper running form.

Now that you have your body aligned for maximum efficiency, all that you have to do is lean forward...

Step 2: Lean Forward

With your body aligned, simply lean forward. This will shift your center of gravity in front of your foot. Gravity will cause you to begin to fall forward.

Step 3: Pick up Your Feet

Don't let yourself fall! Pick up your feet. You are now using gravity to help propel you forward.

That's It!

That's really all there is to it. The biggest challenges are to discipline yourself to maintain proper mechanics and developing the core strength necessary to maintain your body's proper alignment.

Tip: A helpful way to remind yourself to check and maintain proper body alignment is to set your watch's countdown timer to go off every 5 minutes. This is a helpful reminder to take a second to do a self-check on your form. As running properly becomes habitual, you could increase the countdown intervals to 10, 15, 20 minutes, and so on.

Answer 2

Technically everyone Heel Strikes. A common misconception in running is when people tell you to run on your toes. All feet strike with the heel 1st as opposed to your toes 1st but not fully you either Supinate or Pronate. So you may land on the sides or the outsides of your foot and then roll in the opposite direction of where you landed. If a person who supinates looks at their feet while they are running it will look like they are running on the outsides of their feet. A person who pronates from behind it will look like they are going have their foot collapse inside.

   Now for the hard part, finding a competent shoe dealer to help you with where your foot strikes, and to see if you are a pronator or supinator and see which works best for you. There are different types of spikes but many wont carry the ones you need but most specialty runing shops will.  to be honest though there mostly made the same its just that some brands will be more suited to your foot strike.