Limitations: Many of us assume that there is one right and better way to run. Deviations from that ideal are assumed to lead to injuries and decreased economy. This is still a debatable concept. Everything I write can be questioned so please do so.
Below is a video of Nicole Stevenson (www.nicolestevenson.com). Nicole is Canada’s former number 1 in the Marathon with a personal best below 2:33. Nicole is also a running coach
I wanted to highlight some probably beneficial components of her running gait. Future posts will look a deviations from this gait and how they might relate to injury. (more…)
Purpose: to provide some information about the pain experience
Why?: Understanding pain can help modify it
I don’t pretend to understand everything about pain. It is incredible complex and what we know is certainly involving. However, there is a lot of misinformation out there even from people that should know better. This article will link to a number of information sites that help explain pain. This is important because it helps you understand why things hurt. Understanding why something hurts can decrease pain but can also help you function better. Some basic concepts:
1. Pain is a perception. Signals (e.g. nociception or even pressure) come from the body and the brain creates an output that we perceive as pain. Ever heard of a soldier being shot and not feeling any pain until they were safe and out of harms way? If pain was some absolute thing that the brain has no choice to recognize than you would have no way but to feel pain any time a tissue was injured. We’ve all heard stories of people being injured but feeling nothing.
2. Your body does not have to be injured to feel pain. In fact you can lose a limb and later feel pain in that limb that no longer exists.
3. Tissue injuries (e.g. disc bulges, rotator cuff tears, tendinopathy) do not have to hurt. The body can have lots of so called “dysfunction” but this does not mean that you will feel pain. For example, 50% of people over fifty may have a rotator cuff tear but they experience no pain.
4. Emotions, beliefs, stress, past experiences etc can influence the pain that you feel. Pain is more than a punch in the arm.
5. The perception of pain can move around in your body and this does not mean that you are crazy. This is a normal finding when we experience persistent pain.
6. Pain changes how we move and how we function. Movement is often the key to resolving pain.
There is so much more than this but I will let the resources below provide better information.
Books
1. The sensitive nervous system (D Butler): a great academic reference
2. Explain Pain (Butler and Moseley): a patient’s guide to pain
Repost: I originally posted this in October 2011 but lost it in the great porn/spam database hack debacle of January 2012. Purpose: To highlight some key differences in impact loading in older runners versus younger runners
Audience: Therapists and strength coaches Purpose: Questioning a common belief with the use of simple joint mechanics and anatomy. Caveat of Ignorance: This post is probably one that is more about splitting hairs and quibbling about small details than saying anything ground breaking. This post is unlikely to change your [...]
Below are Tensioner videos for your irritated and sensitive peripheral nerves. Warning: please only do this if your knowledgeable health care provider has taught these and specifically said that you should do these exercises. Gentler “Slider” movements can be seen at a previous post here: Slider Videos
Update: I am not the first to write about this area. I found a great post by Todd Hargrove tackling the same topic and saying much the same (he does it more succintly and I address a few other areas as well). His post is here: http://www.bettermovement.org/2011/does-excessive-sitting-shorten-the-hip-flexors/ The Tight Hip [...]
Audience: Therapists and Patients Purpose: This post is video overview of the sample exercise progression I might advocate for patients (primarily runners) who present with persistent longstanding high hamstring pain. Background Runners, particularly faster runners, will often present with high hamstring tendon pain. The pain is typically felt where the [...]
Below are a number of exercises that are typically called stability exercises. While this might be true they are really movements to me. These movements can make you stronger, can calm down your pissed off nervous system and can increase your capacity to withstand stress. We typically say that they [...]
Audience: Patients Purpose: Exercise videos for patients wishing to train their trunk and hips This article is just a video series for runners to do some basic strength work. Stop worrying about the core. Just get strong during all movements. We try to build capacity to withstand load. We [...]
Audience: Runners and Therapists Purpose: A quick guide to running injury prevention. Preamble Injury prevention for runners is not rock-solidly founded in science… and may not even be possible. With runners it is more injury management. You are going to get injured and you are going to have some aches [...]
Audience: Patients and therapists Purpose: A brief argument on why attempting to lengthen your IT Band with stretching or foam rolling is a waste of time and not possible. I am in the minority when I cringe at the rampant unjustified use of the ubiquitous, seemingly harmless but actually evil [...]
Rapid Fire Overview Most of the ideas are from the work of Magnusson. I have been preaching this research for 15 years and was basically motivated because of self intentions. My flexibility is poor and I never thought that stretching the spine made any sense for low back pain prevention. [...]
Audience: Runners and therapists
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