What Runners Need to Know About Running Injuries: Part III Limb Alignment
First, a quick review of the previous posts. Running injuries are directly related to LOADING RATE or how your body handles the force and speed that the ground inflicts on our body. Jay Dichary is the pioneer of this concept and I encourage you to read his book “Runners Anatomy.” He states:
Running Injuries are directly related loading rate (Part 1). Loading rate is directly related to Contact or how your body adapts to force of running (Part 4).
Contact style from part II is how the body is interacting with the ground. Limb Alignment is the focus of today’s discussion and limb stiffness will be discussed in part 4. Limb alignment has the most variability of the aspects that influence loading rate. Limb alignment is synonymous with running mechanics or even running biomechanics. Running mechanics can be described as the position your body is in when contact with the ground occurs. That position is key. Remember running is a skill. The skill of landing in a way that the big and powerful muscles do the work while minimizing ground reaction force. Running is painful when we are doing it wrong. Joint motion of the spine, hip, knee, ankle, and foot, as well as, stability of the same joints will have a huge impact on how we run. In order to handle landing force we must be able to slow down 3-5 times our body weight and we must be able to propel 1-2 times our body weight. Therefore, strength is the cornerstone for efficient running. Postural muscles hold our body in positions while big strong prime movers handle the work of running. Soft tissue injuries while running like IT Band, patellar tendon, plantar fasciaitis, and shin splints are related to the wrong tissues taking on force while the correct tissues are not working hard enough. With proper identification of the problem, proper cueing during running, and a strength program that supports efficient running, pain-free running can be restored.
At Maximum Velocity Physical Therapy we are the ONLY running specialists in Las Vegas or Henderson, NV. We offer gait analysis, that is, gait evaluation with video analysis, and can help runners return to running with no pain or assist a runner who would like to take their running to a new level. At MVPT we believe that strength training is a runner’s best friend. We offer running performance enhancement strength classes to assist an oft injured runner or help the runner reach new goals. For a limited time, we will allow you come on by and experience a class to see if it is something you can benefit from (I will casually pitch you my program though, just be aware, lol!). Please go to maxvelocityPT.com to read more about us or request an appointment for physical therapy, gait evaluation, or functional evaluation today!