Archives: December 2010

Running Biomechanics - insight into hip flexor function

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Comments: 1 Comment
Published on: December 20, 2020

I just got excited with this old paper by Eva Andersson and my graphic designs (not really) with Adobe Illustrator.  Below are some graphics that explain the muscle activation workings of the hip flexors during running.  Figure 1 shows muscle activation and hip range of motion during running at 4 metres per second (about a 20:50 5km run).  Please note, raw EMG does not look like my blue scribbles - it is just a schematic so back off.  As physiotherapists we love to talk about analyzing gait.  But I am not sure we really know much about it.  I often hear some brutal concepts about running that fly in the face of some pretty old research.  This post along with a million to follow will slow build some good foundations of running biomechanics literature.

Figure 2 shows when all of the hip flexors are active during the running gait cycle. (more…)

Jewels from Juker (1998). Insight into the Psoas Part One

Categories: running biomechanics
Comments: 2 Comments
Published on: December 20, 2020

Stu McGill was an author on this paper when it came out back in 1998.  At the time, I was one of Stu’s grad students putting electrodes onto anyone I could find for the price of Gyro sandwich.  I even burned (chemically and transiently) the thigh of a girlfriend at the time.  I knew how to treat the ladies.  Unfortunately, I never really picked Stu’s brain about this paper.  It was only relevant to me at the time because we were strongly questioning the necessity of double leg lifts as an exercise for the “lower abs”.  We felt they were unnecessary to recruit the lower abs and too costly because of the compressive and anterior shear component applied to the lumbar spine. Our argument was that there is no difference between the upper section of the rectus abdominis and the lower section.  I still stand by it and the paper is here ( http://ptjournal.apta.org/content/81/5/1096.full ). Regardless of my youthful oversight, I still love the paper and the ideas of sticking needles into the psoas.  It must feel awesome hence the “n” of only 5. Below are a few tidbits that will lead into future posts on psoas function. (more…)

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