Running Injury Tips: Learning to Improve

I recently read some advice on-line related to specific running injuries. In almost every case the commentary started out with the suggestion to begin taking ibuprofen, icing, and resting, and then following that up with a program of stretching and strengthening exercises. While all of that can certainly help, it is not a substitute for learning to improve what we are doing. 

The common assumption is that the problem is in the tissues, or in the joints, but I want to show that the real problem is not that at all. Why will a running injury often come right back after rest? The answer is that learning occurs in the brain, not the muscles, or joints. The way we do things is the real problem.  The human nervous system, is capable of a great deal of learning. When we are injured the brain goes into protection mode. We often maintain movement patterns designed to protect us long after the need to protect is gone. But the brain always wants to organize our actions in the most pleasant, strong, efficient, and pain free way possible.  That is why we can improve by paying attention to the little things. 

Running injury tip # 1

Try running by feel, instead of just thinking in terms of technique. Pay attention to what you are doing and how the overall body pattern feels. Shift your attention back and forth between the parts and the whole. This will have at least two benefits. If you are training or running in a race remember, you can always change something, you are not just a creature of habit. There is not just one way to do things. Some little change or change in emphasis can make all the difference.  A problem that is beginning to develop can end up not being a problem with a slight shift.   

The second reason to run with awareness of the overall balance and feel of what you are doing is that if you do have a problem, and if it appears that you are courting an injury after you are done running or on the next day, then you have filed away a memory of the exact body pattern that you used the day before. That is a huge clue about how to shift your emphasis. If you are stressed in a particular area you can remember exactly how you produced this discomfort. So tip # 1 is about developing a new kind of awareness of the feeling of the details of what you are doing.

Running injury tip #2

Continue to improve your overall awareness of, alignment and form. Simply put, the better your overall skill level becomes the stronger and more injury proof you will be. Notice I have used the words skill and awareness rather than technique and form. You might be able to recite elements of good form but we really want to go beyond that and experience good form, so that we “know” what we are doing and can feel it too. 

Applying this to real and specific injuries:

Let’s talk about IT band problems.  IT band problems are caused by overuse of the lateral  hip muscles.  Let’s look at some pictures of how this might happen. The three pictures below are a powerful illustration of patterns that might contribute to IT band syndrome. These patterns could be fairly obvious or more subtle. Now we can see that our overall alignment contributes to the problems that we can develop in running. It is not the running that causes the problems, but HOW we run. The first illustration on the left below illustrates the difference between level hips and hip drop of the free leg. We call the picture of the level hips on the left being on the high point of the hip, in other words not dropping the hip. We are talking here about a specific injury, IT band problems. However, you can see that this same pattern might cause other problems, hip problems or back problems are two that come to mind. Can you see that icing and stretching can never teach these runners to improve? Can you see that strengthening if needed at all could be employed much more efficiently AFTER the learning process has been started? Strengthening alone without learning could be a very inefficient way to deal with these problems. This is why we say the problem is in the brain, not the tissues.

 

Now look at the pictures above. The man on the left has level hips in contrast to the first three pictures.  The elite woman in the picture to the right has a very good alignment. Now notice the man in the blue track suite rounding the corner. He has very good alignment through the standing leg. Not only does the free hip not drop but if anything it might be raised a little. And finally there is the picture of Hicham El Guerrouj and the magnificent power of his hips. Notice how level they look.

All of these pictures combine running injury tips # 1 and #2.  They show concepts combined with real world skill through increased sensitivity and awareness. 

I hope this article has been fun and useful. Enjoy!  But remember, it you need help with specific injuries, I would be glad to help. If you want to learn at a deeper level and are committed to doing the work to improve, then Transcendent Running lessons are for you.  To learn more click here.

To get the free e-book, The Runners Body/Mind click here.

Thanks and take care - Scott

 

The Real Cause of Running Iinjuries is Limiting Beliefs Part I

 Limiting belief #1 Running is hard.

Believing something to be hard makes it so. If we believe something is hard we tend to try harder. Trying harder means using more effort.  Using more effort than is necessary is the opposite of efficiency.  Have you ever fallen and rolled and gotten right back up without difficulty? Have you ever tripped over a rock on a trail run and hooked your back foot on the rock. If you stiffened up in order to try to avoid falling, as I have had the experience of doing in the past, you may have injured yourself.  I once pulled a hamstring that way.  But the point is that we have more subtle ways of using our own energy against ourselves. We think that more force is the answer. We have been raised to think that more effort is a virtue. We do not know how to seek the easy way, the better way. The way of ease is not known to us. It is a strange path. We can step on the earth lightly and lift from its surface easily and be connected to nature and thereby to ourselves. With each step we define ourselves. Or we can pound on the earth with each step and wonder at the hard impact we feel and how our setbacks seem to come out of nowhere.

Do this. Run once with absolutely no goals except to experiment to find the easiest way to run. Try this, try that, but only listen for the easy. What is really easy for you now? Keep the effort level of the run very easy. While you are exploring, you might succeed in finding your way. Things might get so easy, so natural as to be supernatural. That is fun.

Then take this attitude into one day of daily life. See what a difference there is in adopting this attitude more deeply. Then again bring this learning back into your running. 

(part 2 will be published tomorrow)

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Running Form: How Do We Describe the Ideal Movement Flow?

Here is a word that I would like you to consider; flow!

In previous articles we explored what effortless, well aligned posture might feel like and we introduced the idea of the learning cycle as applied to running form. The learning cycle involves the idea of a growing knowledge of good alignment in running combined with efficient movement where no extra effort is expended. These first two steps lead to more awareness, particularly awareness of how we are doing what we are doing, in other words the details. Awareness continually provides us with more information which in turn leads us back into the cycle of learning. 

Some have simply described running as standing tall and falling forward, letting gravity do the work. This is a wonderful idea and it may help a lot of people let go of effort, helping them to realize what an effortless activity it can be. It is, however, an incomplete description of the running motion. And what about standing tall?  What does posture have to do with running since we aren’t standing still? It is important to be able to apply the idea of posture to action, since our posture is continually being altered as we move through the phases of running.

Let’s consider the idea of walking upright, which is unique to man. When we look at the unique stance and walking motion that humans have we should consider not a static position called posture, but the general vertical axis of the human body. Mankind has the ability to turn around this vertical axis very quickly. The ape has a forward flexed posture and cannot turn near as efficiently as a man. 

1. Try bending forward and dragging your knuckles on the ground. 
2.  Turn quickly to face 180 degrees to the rear.  
3. Now stand up, taking full advantage of your central vertical axis and see how quickly you can turn 180 degrees. 
4. Now stand and place one foot a good distance in front of the other. Can you tell that your foot was not the only thing to move?  Your knee, hip, pelvis and back also moved to allow a large forward step by one leg. 
5. Now try standing with all your weight on one leg, let's say the right leg. The other leg is still on the ground but is used only for balance. 
6. Now with all the weight on your right leg, turn your torso to the left but keep your head and eyes looking straight forward. Make sure there is no tension in the head and neck as you do this. Can you feel that there is a spiraling action taking place in your body, and you are getting taller? Your weight is arranged over the standing leg.

 Your knee on the right side straightens your ribs twist a bit to the left and you get taller. You engage every part of yourself in sequence, from to standing foot, to the knee, to the power center of the hip and the glutes, the low, mid, and upper back. It is a spiral, flowing through the core. And yet it is so smooth and so fluid, that it is really all one movement. 

Your knee on the right side straightens your ribs twist a bit to the left and you get taller. You engage every part of yourself in sequence, from to standing foot, to the knee, to the power center of the hip and the glutes, the low, mid, and upper back. It is a spiral, flowing through the core. And yet it is so smooth and so fluid, that it is really all one movement.

Your knee on the right side straightens your ribs twist a bit to the left and you get taller. You engage every part of yourself in sequence, from to standing foot, to the knee, to the power center of the hip and the glutes, the low, mid, and upper back. It is a spiral, flowing through the core. And yet it is so smooth and so fluid, that it is really all one movement.

Efficient movement flows like a wave through the body. We don't run with the feet, the legs, or any other part alone, but as a system, as a whole person.

When our running is effortful, or injurious it is usually because of a breakdown somewhere in this flow. If our awareness of the overall flow of our running is increasing, we are on the right track.

Here is a definition of flow: flow (fl) v. flowed, flow·ing, flows. v.intr. 1. a. To move or run smoothly with unbroken continuity, as in the manner characteristic of a fluid.

So, running is a matter of coordination throughout the entire person. It is a sensing of how we are made and how we can move straight forward down a track or trail. What is not obvious at first is how much skill is involved in running. All of our bones must be arranged in precise fashion so as to transmit our ground forces well through the skeleton.

Watch David Rushida’s 2012 world record and gold medal performance in the Olympic 800 meter finals. See what great coordination he had between the upper and lower body, the unbroken continuity of movement. This is a quality that rewards runners at every level whether complete novice or world champion. Perfection is difficult or impossible but improvement is available to all. The specifics of what flow means are worth years of experimentation. But the concept of flow is one of the foundations of your running success. Take this word with you today and enjoy building on this foundation.

Scott Forrester is a Student Awareness Through Movement Instructor and a Physical Therapist Assistant and ACE Certified Personal Trainer at Mountain Valley Therapy in La Grande, OR.  Please leave questions or comments here at the blog or contact him at transcendentrunningease@gmail.com