Move Better Fitness Academy
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Movement Restoration for Runners - Maintain - Improve
When you train for your sport, you like to put in the effort to achieve results, it maybe for personal achievement or entering a competition. Training can take up many hours a week to get results. Having a balanced training schedule can keep you on target, but when something goes wrong where do you turn for help? What went wrong? Pushing too hard? Are your runs just too intense? Too many competitions? The pain in the knee just started to come on when you reached the 9km mark.
A runner unfortunately has a high chance of getting a pain/ache of some sort somewhere in their running career. Running is individual, variations in running styles, different weekly training schedules and miles, stresses with work life balance can have an influence on the runner and on recovery.
Running technique is often seen as the problem? but this should be the last area you need to be concentrating on. Analysis of the runner will encompass many elements of the runner’s weekly movements from running schedule to gym training to stressors of the week and of course you the runner, where we are looking for biomechanical issues - compensations that may be a problem for you, strength, mobility, and even foot mechanics may give rise for concern.
The answer to a muscle ache/pain is not always where the site of the ache/pain is, so feeling an ache/pain in the knee would drive you to think a muscle problem around it, but a foot or a hip control problem that tested weak maybe causing a strain on that knee muscle to cause the ache/pain.
Optimising movement is probably something you have considered but not made much time for. Adding strength training into your weekly routine is essential for a runner. Knowing what to do is usually another matter. Positions and methods of strength work can be key to achieving results. Developing a routine around your abilities/compensations can help you understand how your body is working and moving. But being aware of how you move is not enough, you must then “train” your body to move better to get results. Improving is being consistent with training and development over time.
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Which, if any of these exercise would you choose to help with a knee problem and why?
So why leave running technique until last? If you do have a strength issue or compensation that needs correcting, this may have affected your running technique. Changing technique too early may cause further issues whereby, assessing your movements and integrating strength training into your weekly routine could auto correct your running technique.