What Runners Need to Know About Injuries, Part IV: Limb Stiffness
Lets review. First 2 facts, 80% of runners will be injured during their run career. 100% of these running injuries can be attributed to Loading Rate. Loading rate is physics term used to describe the speed and force our body has to handle during running. Loading rate is a 3 way balance between contact style (part 2), limb alignment (part 3), and limb stiffness. Jay Dichary is the PT running expert who has described this in his book "Runners Anatomy." Great read for health professionals and runners alike.
Limb stiffness is a funny concept to explain. Runners know this feeling and have a hard time explaining it. Remember the first time you ran a mile? 10 miles? 20 miles? That hurt so good feeling is our body adapting to stress. Another way to describe limb stiffness is hardening. Our body must adapt to the force of running and when this adaptation can keep up with the miles we are running, the body does not get injured. If there is too many miles, too fast, or a contact style/limb alignment problem the body cannot adapt fast enough and stress fracture occurs. Literally the bone splinters under the abnormal force. Musculoskeletal health can be defined as our ability to handle stress. Stress tested skeletons are happy skeletons. Limb stiffness pain is GOOD. We need this pain in order to with stand longer length runs. Osteoarthritis is attributed to a unstressed skeleton and not a over worked skeleton. Runners have BETTER arthritis problems when compared to people who have the factors leading to heart disease like obesity, diabetes, smoking, etc.
Maximum Velocity Physical Therapy is only running specialty clinic in southern Nevada. There is not another health professional in souther Nevada that can treat running limitations quite like Ron at MVPT. At MVPT running injuries are puzzles. The pieces are related to loading rate. A gait evaluation has specialized testing and video taped analysis to identify these abnormal forces. The gait analysis can also be used to identify performance limitations too BEFORE they become injuries. We at MVPT want lifelong runners who continue to reach goals. Since we have no limitations, we can be creative in how involved we are in your running progress. 1-3 visits over the course of a few weeks may be all you need to be in control of your running. Feel free to stop in and ask questions we love visitors! Please call 702-998-2900 for an appointment or "request an appointment" at out website. Happy Running!!