Backward running

Based on Wikipedia: Backward running

The Strange Logic of Moving in Reverse

Here's a counterintuitive truth about the human body: sometimes the best way forward is backward.

Running in reverse—where you travel in the direction your back faces rather than your front—sounds like a party trick or a dare you'd lose. But it turns out this peculiar form of locomotion, known variously as retro running, backward running, or retro locomotion, has captured the attention of athletes, physical therapists, and now, thanks to social media, millions of curious exercisers worldwide.

The current world record for running a marathon backward belongs to Irish athlete Conor J. Fitzgerald, who completed the 2024 Sydney Marathon in three hours, forty-one minutes, and fifty-two seconds—facing the wrong way the entire time. To put that in perspective, many people would be thrilled to finish a marathon that quickly running the normal direction.

Why Your Body Resists Going Backward

Running backward feels unnatural because it is unnatural—at least from an evolutionary standpoint. Our bodies evolved to move forward, to chase prey and flee predators, to walk toward food and away from danger. Every joint angle, every muscle attachment, every neural pathway developed over millions of years assumes you're heading in the direction you can see.

When you reverse direction, you're essentially asking your body to improvise.

The mechanics shift dramatically. In forward running, you push off with the ball of your foot—that padded area just behind your toes. Your heel acts primarily as a shock absorber when it strikes the ground. But when you run backward on flat ground or uphill, these roles flip. Your heel becomes the pushing surface, and the tibialis anterior muscle—that strip of muscle running along the front of your shin—transforms from shock absorber to prime mover.

This is the muscle you feel burning when you walk uphill for a long time. In forward running, it's relatively underworked. In backward running, it suddenly has to do heavy lifting.

The Surprising Math of Reverse Speed

Just how much slower is backward running? World record data suggests about thirty-five percent slower than moving forward. The mile record illustrates this nicely: while elite runners cover a mile in under four minutes moving forward, the best backward milers take around five minutes and thirty-six seconds.

That gap might seem large, but consider what you're asking your body to do. You're running blind, with reversed muscle patterns, using neural pathways you've rarely practiced. The fact that trained athletes can get within thirty-five percent of forward speed is remarkable.

Speed comes with practice. Experts recommend starting with backward walking—sometimes called retropedaling—and gradually increasing pace. Your body needs time to learn these unfamiliar movement patterns, to develop the coordination and proprioception (your sense of where your body is in space) required for safe reverse locomotion.

The Peculiar Safety Profile of Hills

Hills introduce an interesting twist to backward running, and the safety calculus isn't what you might expect.

Running backward uphill is actually relatively safe. The speed is naturally slower because of the added difficulty, and if you trip, you're falling toward a surface that's closer to you than it would be on flat ground. Your arms and, frankly, your buttocks can absorb the impact, keeping your head protected. The incline works in your favor.

Running backward downhill is another matter entirely.

Here, a fall means tumbling toward ground that's farther away than usual, with gravity accelerating you in an unfamiliar direction. Experienced backward runners recommend learning to drop into a backward roll before attempting downhill running—a technique that transforms an uncontrolled fall into a controlled tumble. The incline actually helps with this; rolling backward downhill is more intuitive than rolling on flat ground, which is a small consolation.

What Happens Inside Your Body

The physiological differences between forward and backward running go beyond which muscles push and which absorb impact. The movements involve different types of muscle contractions.

Muscles contract in two fundamental ways when you're moving under load. In a concentric contraction, the muscle shortens while producing force—think of your bicep when you curl a dumbbell upward. In an eccentric contraction, the muscle lengthens while producing force—like your bicep slowly lowering that same weight back down.

Backward running essentially reverses which muscles are doing which type of contraction. Your forward running's concentric movements become backward running's eccentric movements, and vice versa. This matters because both types of contraction produce distinct training benefits, which is why weightlifters carefully perform both the lifting and lowering phases of exercises.

There's also the matter of lean. Forward runners naturally lean forward, tilting their center of mass in the direction of travel. Backward runners lean backward. This shift changes how forces distribute through your muscles, tendons, and joints—subtly stressing different tissue fibers than forward running does.

The Knee Pain Connection

Perhaps the most compelling reason people take up backward running is pain relief.

Many runners develop knee problems over time—patellofemoral pain syndrome (pain around and behind the kneecap), runner's knee, various forms of tendinitis. The repetitive forward motion pounds the same structures over and over. Cartilage wears. Tendons inflame. What was once joy becomes suffering.

Backward running can reduce knee pain, partly because it reverses the direction of tissue friction. Imagine rubbing sandpaper across wood in one direction for years, then switching to rub the opposite way. The wear patterns change.

Some athletes practice what's called mixed running or alternative mixed running—alternating between forward and backward locomotion. The theory is that this balances the strain, working tissues oppositely and preventing the accumulation of unidirectional stress.

The Brain Benefits

Your brain has to work harder when you run backward.

Forward running is largely automatic for most adults. You don't think about each step; your motor cortex runs familiar programs while your conscious mind wanders to podcasts or daydreams. But backward running demands coordination that doesn't come automatically. Your brain must actively engage, processing unfamiliar movement patterns and making constant adjustments.

This cognitive load appears to have benefits. Some research suggests that backward running develops what practitioners call "brain power along with muscle power"—improved coordination, better balance, enhanced proprioceptive awareness. You're not just exercising your body; you're exercising the neural pathways that control your body.

There's also an interesting neck effect. Because you need to look behind you to see where you're going, backward runners develop unusual patterns of neck mobility. Some run with frequent head turns; others learn to fix their gaze forward and navigate primarily by peripheral vision and feel. Over time, this can strengthen neck muscles and increase mobility, though aggressive neck movements carry their own risks of strain.

The Obvious Problem with Running Blind

Let's address the elephant in the room: you can't see where you're going.

This is the fundamental danger of backward running. Obstacles on the ground, other people, curbs, cars—all invisible. Unlike forward running, where you can spot hazards and adjust, backward running means constantly navigating the unseen.

Falling backward is also more dangerous than falling forward. When you trip running forward, you can usually catch yourself with your hands, drop into a roll, or at least angle your fall to protect vital areas. When you trip running backward, the natural protective reflexes don't apply as well. Your head is more vulnerable.

The obvious solution—turning your head around while running—works but introduces its own problems. It's awkward, it limits your speed, and sustained neck twisting can cause strain. Some practitioners develop a hybrid approach, mixing periodic glances backward with forward-fixed running on familiar, obstacle-free surfaces.

Training tumbling skills helps. Learning to drop into a backward roll, practicing exerting force backward with your arms through exercises like crab walks or planches, builds the reflexes needed to convert an uncontrolled fall into a controlled landing.

The Growing Trend

Backward walking has been used in physical therapy for years, particularly as gait training after injuries or lesions (damage to tissue or nerves). Patients relearning to walk sometimes benefit from practicing in reverse, though researchers aren't entirely certain whether the benefits come from the direction of movement itself or simply from the increased concentration and intensity the unusual movement requires.

Recently, backward locomotion has escaped the rehabilitation clinic and become something of a social trend. TikTok and other platforms have popularized backward running and walking as exercise routines, with people claiming various health benefits.

The scientific literature remains somewhat uncertain about all the claimed benefits, and there are real concerns about risk, particularly for older adults who already face balance challenges. A fall that a twenty-year-old shrugs off might break a hip for a seventy-year-old.

Still, the movement continues to grow.

The Complete Movement Picture

When you think about it, most people move through life in remarkably limited ways. We walk forward. We run forward. We sit. We stand. Occasionally we turn.

But the human body is capable of far more. Backward running adds a dimension that forward running lacks. Combine it with side-stepping—with and without crossover steps, in both directions—and you've covered the essential dimensions of human movement on a flat plane. Add diagonal movement, curved running (like the bends of a long track), and you approach the full range of what your locomotor system can do.

This is why many sports require backward movement. Football referees and rugby officials routinely run backward so they can keep watching the play while moving. They're not doing it for fitness; they're doing it because their job requires maintaining visual contact while repositioning. But in the process, they develop capabilities that most people never build.

The Unexpected Benefits

Beyond the physical mechanics, backward running offers some surprising psychological advantages.

There's a reduction in fear related to movement—which sounds paradoxical for an activity where you can't see where you're going. But learning to move confidently in reverse builds a kind of physical self-trust that transfers to other activities. If you can run backward without panic, ordinary forward running feels more secure.

The activity is also, almost inherently, more reserved than forward running. You can't sprint backward with the same abandon you might running forward; the unfamiliarity forces a measure of caution. For some people, this makes it a gentler entry point into running than the all-out forward variety.

And there's simple enjoyment. Backward running is weird. It feels strange. It looks funny. There's an element of play, of doing something unconventional, that can make exercise feel less like medicine and more like exploration. The general enjoyment resulting from entertaining activities like these shouldn't be underestimated—fun is a powerful motivator.

In Popular Culture

Backward running has occasionally surfaced in entertainment. In 2012, an Australian comedy film called Reverse Runner was released, executive produced by Stephen Herek (who directed The Mighty Ducks) and directed by Lachlan Ryan and Jarrod Theodore. The premise apparently found enough humor in reverse locomotion to support a feature-length film.

The following year, the band Atoms for Peace—a supergroup featuring Radiohead's Thom Yorke—released a song called "Reverse Running" as part of their debut album Amok. Whether the song has anything to do with the actual practice of running backward or simply uses it as metaphor is left to the listener.

Should You Try It?

If you're curious about backward running, start small. Backward walking is the sensible entry point—it's easy enough that almost anyone can do it, and it begins training the neural pathways and muscles you'll need for faster movement.

Choose a safe environment: a track, an empty field, a long straight stretch with no obstacles. Consider having a spotter, someone who can warn you of hazards you can't see. And if you're going to run, learn to fall first—practice dropping into a backward roll on a soft surface until the movement becomes instinctive.

The thirty-five percent speed penalty means backward running isn't replacing forward running for most purposes. It's a supplement, a way to balance your body's development, train different muscles, challenge your brain, and maybe—just maybe—give your knees a break from the relentless forward pounding they've endured all your life.

Sometimes the path to better movement really does lead backward.