The Best Running Style for Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type, According to Research

If you’re an avid runner, you most likely have a good suggestion of how your coaching shapes your strides. Nevertheless, fascinating new analysis reveals that your personal traits may make clear the way you run—and all you want is an easy persona check to learn how.

In an April 2024 PLoS One examine, researchers discovered that your Myers-Briggs persona sort can decide should you run in an earthbound model or in a extra springy, dynamic vogue (each of which may have an effect on your efficiency).

Right here’s what to know in regards to the Myers-Briggs persona check, what the examine authors found, and the best way to apply the findings to your personal coaching.

What’s the Myers-Briggs persona check?

Formally generally known as the Myers-Briggs Sort Indicator (MBTI) evaluation, this device is supposed that will help you perceive your persona and apply these insights to spice up their private {and professional} effectiveness, per The Myers-Briggs Firm.

The check identifies you as one among 16 MBTI persona sorts, based mostly on the next 4 classes.

Extraversion-introversion

These are reverse methods of directing and receiving power.

Individuals with extraversion get their power from the outer world of individuals and experiences—and focus their power and a spotlight outward, as nicely by actions.

When you have introversion, you gasoline up on power out of your internal world of ideas (and have a tendency to focus your consideration in that very same inward course).

Sensing-intuition

This class refers to alternative ways of taking in info.

If you happen to’re on the sensing aspect, you concentrate on what’s “actual” by taking in info out of your 5 senses.

These on the instinct aspect, alternatively, choose info by affiliation and concentrate on the chances of what may very well be.

Considering-feeling

These are reverse methods of constructing selections and coming to conclusions.

If you happen to’re within the pondering class, you’re all about goal logic, and also you attempt to analyze conditions with out getting emotionally concerned with them.

If you happen to’re within the feeling class, you like to make selections based mostly on values and weigh the human motives behind sure conditions.

Judging-perceiving

This class covers the alternative ways individuals method the surface world.

If you happen to’re on the judging aspect, you prefer to hold issues deliberate and arranged. You take pleasure in making a choice and having the closure that comes with that.

Then again, should you’re on the perceiving aspect, you like to maintain your choices open—choosing a spontaneous, adaptable life-style.

“The outcomes of this examine are actually attention-grabbing, and in my expertise as a operating coach, there are actually methods during which a runner’s persona influences how they run, prepare, and reply to teaching.” —Alexa Duckworth-Briggs, operating coach

What’s the analysis behind Myers-Briggs personalities and operating?

Within the PLoS One examine, researchers needed to grasp how your Myers-Briggs persona sort impacts your operating model. They analyzed 80 runners who accomplished randomized 50-meter operating trials at varied speeds and assessed their persona traits utilizing the MBTI check.

The outcomes confirmed that the sensing-intuition class, particularly, was related to operating model. The researchers discovered that runners who fall into the “instinct” class are inclined to deal with their legs like elastic springs, utilizing a dynamic operating kind with a stretch-shortening model.

In the meantime, those that had been on the “sensing” aspect erred towards operating in a extra earthbound vogue. These runners launched themselves ahead with every stride, relatively than upward.

“This exploratory examine affords compelling proof that persona traits, particularly sensing and instinct, are related to distinct operating biomechanics,” observe the authors within the examine. “Sensing runners, who take note of bodily realities and like sensible and particular details, are inclined to undertake a extra grounded operating kind.”

Nevertheless, there are a number of limitations of this analysis: For one, it’s a comparatively small examine, solely 80 runners. Plus, though the researchers recruited runners with various coaching backgrounds, almost 70 of them had been male and all of them recognized as Caucasian (so the examine lacked gender and racial variety).

The query of which operating model is “higher” additionally is determined by the context.

“A operating model that entails extra dynamic, elastic actions is usually related to higher efficiency in sprinting and actions requiring explosive energy,” says Alexa Duckworth-Briggs, a U.Okay. Athletics-certified operating coach for We Run, based mostly in Studying, England. “In distinction, a extra earthbound operating model is likely to be extra environment friendly over longer distances, the place conserving power is essential.”

“I see loads of worth in a examine like this. If nothing else, it should hopefully get coaches athletes in a extra holistic method. One cue actually doesn’t work for all athletes.” —Kristen Hislop, CPT

What do the examine outcomes imply for runners?

Though these examine outcomes aren’t definitive on the subject of how your persona would possibly have an effect on your operating, coaches agree that persona traits can have an effect on your general coaching.

“The outcomes of this examine are actually attention-grabbing, and in my expertise as a operating coach, there are actually methods during which a runner’s persona influences how they run, prepare, and reply to teaching,” Duckworth-Briggs says. “The try and formalize our understanding of those hyperlinks is fascinating—and will open up prospects to additional tailor a runner’s teaching to swimsuit them higher.”

For example, based mostly on the outcomes of this examine, intuitive runners would possibly discover it useful to incorporate operating drills or leaping workout routines of their coaching to develop their pure propensity for dynamic operating.

Intuitive runners may also profit from understanding how they transfer up and down when operating (known as vertical oscillation) and tuning into their operating rhythm to hone in on how a lot time their ft spend on the bottom, provides operating coach Kristen Hislop, CPT, a USAT Stage 1 licensed triathlon coach and AFAA licensed private coach.

In the meantime, a sensing runner would possibly do higher by enthusiastic about the really feel of the bottom beneath their ft.

“I typically say to consider the bottom as a treadmill with no motor,” Hislop says. “You land on it and need to get the tread shifting.”

As a result of the examine assessed operating model over 50-meter repeats (which isn’t a quite common distance outdoors of dash coaching), extra analysis is required to grasp individuals’s persona and operating model over longer distances, particularly after they’re fatigued.

Nevertheless, the outcomes could encourage runners to contemplate their very own persona sort and the way it impacts their operating, even outdoors of the sensing-intuition class.

“Extroverted runners, for instance, would possibly discover they excel in group settings and aggressive environments,” Duckworth-Briggs says. “Or a choice for pondering or feeling would possibly affect how a runner responds to suggestions from a coach or aggressive stress. These insights can show very helpful in tailoring a runner’s method to their coaching.”

Understanding an athlete’s persona profile may assist coaches higher tailor their instruction for runners.

“I see loads of worth in a examine like this,” Hislop says. “If nothing else, it should hopefully get coaches athletes in a extra holistic method. One cue actually doesn’t work for all athletes.”

If you happen to’re a runner, it’s possible you’ll discover it useful to take the Myers-Briggs persona check to be taught extra about how your persona may very well be affecting your coaching, the stress of races and competitors, aim setting, and past.

By higher understanding your persona, it’s possible you’ll discover you higher perceive your sport.