How to running Information

Before reading this article, please understand that there is no such thing as “perfect” running form. Since everyone has different limb lengths, varying muscle fiber sizes and angles, diverse masses, and separate running distance requirements, no single athlete will run the same. But there are *characteristics* of a good runner that remain fairly constant from person to person. Allow me to introduce you to four, and include a drill to improve each.

1. Increase knee range of motion during the swing phase. This means that your right knee should be more flexed (towards your butt) when your right thigh is flexed forward during the run, as opposed to your right knee being more extended (away from butt). Same goes for the left, of course. Think of it this way - if you were swinging a weight attached to the end of a stick, you could move the weight faster with less effort if the stick were shorter. In this case, the stick is your leg, and the weight is your foot. By having your knee (the stick) more bent (or shorter), you are able to move the weight (your foot) much faster with less effort. The result will not only be a faster swing time (meaning a faster foot turnover), but also reduced fatigue in achieving the desired stride length.

Drill: Heel-to-butt kicks. During your normal run, begin to exaggerate knee flexion, touching the butt with the heel during each stride. Do 20 touches for both the right and left legs, then continue in your normal gait pattern.

2. Maintain flexible quadriceps and hip flexors. These are the muscles along the front of your thigh that act to straighten the leg. If they are tight, insufficient flexibility can inhibit your ability to fully extend the leg in the push-off phase of the running gait.

Drill: Platform stretch. Ideally, your pelvic bone should be tilted backwards when stretching the quadriceps and hip flexors. To achieve this, find a platform or elevated surface that is approximately at knee height or slightly higher. Facing away from the platform, and standing on your right leg, bend your left knee and lock your left foot, shoelaces down, onto the surface. Hold 15-30 seconds, then switch.

3. Deliberately focus on pushing backwards with each step. This will not only incorporate your gluteal and hamstring muscles in the push-off phase of the running gait, but also keep your center of gravity consistently rolling forward. Rather than focusing on using the muscles around the knee to provide the driving force, focus on running from the hips.

Drill: Lean-fall-run. Stand completely still and as tall as possible. Without bending the knees, let the entire body lean forward until you “fall” toward the ground and are forced to take your first step forward. Transition directly into a short 10-20 yard run, continuing to lean forward and push backwards with the hips.

4. Avoid excessive ankle and hip flexion. Do not bend your knees or flex your ankles excessively during the landing phase. While it may seem that this decreases joint impact forces, there is no empirical evidence that runners who bend the knees more have less injuries than runners who do not. However, there is evidence of increased time spent in contact with the ground, which decreases your elastic rebound from the ground and the overall power of each stride. You will naturally avoid excessive knee and ankle flexion if your focus on minimizing footstrike time.

Drill: Cadence counts. During your run, count the number of right footstrikes achieved in a span of 20 seconds. There should be 30 or more, indicating a cadence of 90 or higher. Increased cadence indicates decreased ground contact time.

Focus on making these changes to your gait pattern, and you will notice a marked increase in efficiency and economy. As you prepare for race season and design your weekly and monthly training plans, look into the triathlete training specials offered by Pacific Elite Fitness, at www.pacificfit.net.

Ben Greenfield runs Pacific Elite Fitness at http://www.pacificfit.net, an online portal
for personal training, triathlete coaching, and free fitness and multi-sport
advice. He resides in Liberty Lake, WA, where he works as director of sports
performance for Champion Sports Medicine, a training and testing lab for
athletes. Ben graduated from University of Idaho with bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in sports science and exercise physiology, and is certified as a
personal trainer and coach by the National Strength & Conditioning
Association. Ben also offers individualized personal training, multi-sport
coaching, training program design for athletes, lifestyle wellness and diet
advising, and corporate consulting for workplace fitness programs. To learn
more, visit http://www.pacificfit.net or e-mail Ben at elite@pacificfit.net.

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Biomechanical assessment

Running with an injury or over-training? Often it is best to go back to basics

Injuries can affect us all regardless of age, sex or ability. But can we manage or limit the number of times we get injured? We can by going back to basics.

But we are not talking about fitness levels and stretching. Instead we mean back to biomechanics.

By assessing, on a regular basis, your biomechanics you can help eliminate and prevent a number of injuries and problems that athletes suffer from. The body compensating for weak links can cause restriction that in turn can cause pain and injury.

Calf and hamstring injuries are commonly caused by a tight sciatic nerve. The muscles provide a protective spasm to the nerve during locomotion and if stretched or loaded sufficiently the muscles can spasm enough to cause themselves to tear - or cramp up - which can feel like a tear. By mobilising the nerve it releases tension in the muscles and reduces the likelihood of this event.

Tight calves
TIGHT calves can cause over pronation. The dorsi-flexion (moving the ankle upwards) is not available from the ankle joint due to the tight calves, so it has to come from the sub talar joint. It comes as part of the pronation mechanism though and so increases the amount of pronation as well. This causes shin related injuries as well as knee and Achilles problems.

Remember that tight calves are often from a tight sciatic nerve, so by mobilising the nerve, we can help with preventing and normalise these injuries.

The effects our biomechanics have on our body and the vicious circle of injury and pain it can cause is shown again when discussing your hips and pelvis which are so important to our running but generally overlooked until the athlete is in severe pain or in fact injured.

Rotated pelvis
A ROTATED pelvis can go unnoticed for many years until the compensations start to cause problems. Typically a leg length discrepancy (LLD) can result from a rotated pelvis and the leg must compensate for this. It’ll either flatten the foot (pronate it), bend the knee more, or drop the hip more. Pronation will increase the load on the leg (see ‘Tight calves’ section), and dropping the hip will increase the the spasm to the glutes / piriformis ‘prophylactically’, in other words preventatively, (and also if necessary), then we are helping to reduce all of the above.

Assess yourself
AS a result of one of the largest studies in biomechanics by Galileo Health and distributed by HumanLab Sports we can all benefit from assessing our biomechanics, in the comfort of our own home. You do not need to be a clinician as they have developed a CD ROM software program that helps you assess yourself with the software prescribing the exercises needed to remove the problems and in turn prevent or normalise the body from developing them in the future.

As part of the program is injury prevention the CD takes you through a series of core stability work educating you on how to engage your core and to engage it while doing peripheral movements, so it becomes second nature to you when running.

It finishes off with the final section on the trunk and torso exercises.

Benefits of biomechanics
SOME athletes out there might not feel the need to help prevent a problem they don’t feel they have. So let’s look briefly at some of the other benefits biomechanics has on your performance. A tight sciatic nerve or tight piriformis (hip) can affect your stride length, your knee drive and your power output.

A tight sciatic nerve can affect your quadriceps output by as much as 15 per cent. The effect of biomechanics for the professional athlete and the novice for injury prevention or performance is a must have tool. It will help you prevent injuries, enjoy your running and help with your performance.

The program used in helping address any issues you may have now or in the future is worth having. But it doesn’t stop there.

It can be used as a training guide to indicate that you may be over-training or that a new technique or training plan is causing you problems.

GO AND take a look at the website www.humanlabsports.com
and see what you think. The CD-ROM is priced at only $39.10

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