With the mini marathon behind us and the Brighton marathon soon upon us I am starting to see an increase in running related injuries. Most common are knees, ankles and lower back.
Many physiotherapists love to try to pin particular injuries and pain down to individual muscles or muscle groups – your psoas is weak, your ITB is tight. This view, in my opinion, is far too simplistic. So much is down to technique and correct footwear. Also important is how recovery time, nutrition and adaptation to a new intense training programme is managed. I will not go into footwear or technique too much in this post; that is for another discussion but suffice is to say that I am not talking about more arch support, more heal cushioning or new footbeds.
When people come to my clinic for running injuries, I worry less about discovering the cause within an under or overused muscle group – there will also be a cause for that. My concern primarily is patient comfort and to feel better. That means tackling the pain, whilst simultaneously stimulating healing and recovery. Then, client willing, we look into your running technique and explore possible causes of the problem. Rehabilitation as well as running conditioning, preparation and warm-up cross-training exercises specific to your running injury are explored to help you to succeed and avoid future injuries. If you want to take this even further and be really thorough I offer 1:1 training. Theses exercises – more importantly – my training philosophy is something you will take with you for life and implement in all sporting and fitness areas. Longer term, if necessary, I look into and treat other underlying physical and emotional factors behind the problem such as stress and lifestyle and seek to find a lasting solution.
If you suffer or have suffered from running injurues or are just passionate about this subject, please feel free to comment and leave your feedback. Look out for my next post where I will go into greater depth on running technique and supporting exercises.