Here at Evolve Physiotherapy Swansea we do running analysis.  Our service includes taking your run/injury history, musculoskeletal screening, run technique assessment with video analysis and taking accelerometer derived data. We use all this to establish the cause of your running injury and/or technique inefficiencies so we can produce an individualised program to meet your needs.  Programs may include; altering your training, looking at implementing exercise strategies, performing manual therapy and/or making changes to your running technique. 

After many years of specialising in running, I have come to notice some common ways to prevent running injuries and improve running economy.  These include:

Resolve Old Injuries 

This actually goes for most people I see and not just runners.  I cannot tell you how many times I find signs on examination that an old injury has not fully recovered. Strength deficits, poor neuromuscular timing & activation and joint mobility restrictions are just a few.  Your body can only compensate for so long and there may come a point where these deficits/imbalances are unable to cope with the level of loading you place on your body leading you to decompensate and cause tissue damage.   

Training Variation

One of my questions to a runner is ‘tell me about your training’.  If clients don’t run with a club or have little running experience, I often get the answer ’I run 3-4 times per week for the same distance and the same pace’ (which is often too fast).  This has many implications for injury in the body, one being excessive fatigue of repeatedly running at too high an intensity.  Training well and recovering well for running requires variability in speed and distance from session to session, week to week and month to month.  If you’d like to keep it simple then follow a ‘cookie cutter’ program on the internet based on either pace or heart rate zone training. If you’d like to take your running to the next level then get a tailored program.  Dr Ramzy Ross here at Up and Running is an exercise physiologist who can test your running capacities using oxygen consumption and blood lactate tolerance during a treadmill run test and provide a tailored program.  I will myself also give guidance and education regarding your training plan during your run clinic assessment. 

Strength & Conditioning

Another question I ask is ‘Apart from running, what other exercise to strengthen your body do you do?’  The top 2 answers are:

1. Upper body weights (often just machine) and core work (often just sit ups)

2. Nothing 

When you run you transfer minimal 2.5 times your body weight from leg to leg, which requires good whole body function. To run well, fast and cope with normal training tissue stress, I believe we all need to incorporate whole body strength work and especially single leg strength development to aid force absorption and propulsion.  The extent and type to which you do will vary depending on your running goals, level of ability, age etc.  Your legs are the most important and just doing upper body and/or core will only serve to make it harder for you to run well.  After I have found the cause of a runner's injury and got them back to full running, I often recommend they continue with the single leg exercises I have prescribed.

Stop Excessive Foot Strike Patterns

There is no clear consensus about the best foot strike pattern when running in a steady state and it is not for me to go into detail about this here. However, I will say that I see a lot of recreational/inexperienced runners getting injured from an excessive and heavy heel strike with overstride or an excessive forefoot strike with little follow through contact to the heel.  These both have big implications for abnormal loading into the tissues. 

Increase Running Cadence - I’ll save this for a blog on its own! 

I’m very passionate about running and running injuries and should you want to rehabilitate an injury, injury proof your body, improve your run technique or simply want training advice then please come to see us here at Evolve Physiotherapy Swansea. 

Lee Watkins

Physiotherapist