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RUNNING CLINIC
Running is a great way of staying fit.
As a regular runner, I want to make sure I'm running correctly
to stay injury free and, who knows, perhaps improve my performance.
So, I've come down to see Mitch and Matt
who are going to break down my running technique and give me some tips.
- Steve. - Hi, Mitch.
- Welcome to StrideUK. - Thank you.
- Do you know what's in store for you? - No. Tell me about it.
Basically, we do video gait analysis.
To humanise that, we look at running technique.
Today, we're going to be filming you from 360 degrees,
to appreciate how your body works through the process of running.
Often when we run, we don't actually realise
that running relies on a series of muscles
to help control downforce to propel yourself forward.
Video gait analysis is the ultimate way to look at your running style
to see whether we can uncover any underlying imbalances,
looking at reducing the negatives and increasing your performance.
You'll be on our treadmill for nine minutes.
You're going to be running not only in your shoes, but also barefoot.
I think it's important to see how you run in an organic-shaped form.
We're going to draw on your body.
- Are you OK, us body marking? - Yes.
- Let's get to work. - OK.
How was your run?
- That felt good. - OK.
THERE ARE SEVERAL FACTORS WHICH MAY AFFECT RUNNING GAIT
THIS VIDEO FOCUSES ON ONE EXAMPLE
AND THE CORRESPONDING CONDITIONING EXERCISE
So, Steve, we've done your analysis.
It's important at this time to introduce you to Matt.
Matt's our conditioning coach.
We're going to go through your analysis frame-by-frame
and help uncover any underlying imbalances you may have.
Matt's going to make a training programme out of it.
He's going to give you everything you need to know
to be able to look after yourself and keep you injury free.
- Over to Matt. - OK, Steve.
So, take a few moments. Have a look at yourself running.
It's not something we typically see all the time.
Is it more or less what you imagined?
My bum seems to stick out more than I thought it might.
OK. Very honest of you. Thank you for sharing. It's true.
Nothing we tell you now
is anything you need to take away and try and consciously do when you run.
What we see here is the product of your flexibility and your strength.
If something needs changing or tweaking to improve it,
we concentrate on that through conditioning and drills and stretching
and then naturally, that starts happening when you're running,
or it can lead to injuries. You said about your bottom sticking out.
It's something we can look at straightaway.
Obviously, the glute muscles at the back are what power you forwards.
It's the main form of propulsion, along with the extension and the ankle.
If we take you to toe-off on one of the legs,
how much power you manage to generate
is affected by the length of your stride behind you.
That in turn is going to be affected
by how far your leg can get back before the toe leaves the ground.
What we find in people
who spend the day sitting down for extended periods of time,
this muscle at the front of the hip does get shorter.
- Sitting down now, it's short. - Right.
When I stand up, it becomes restricted
and you can see here that if that muscle is restricted,
your leg isn't able to go back as far as it may do to get the nice long stride.
We're talking about hip flexors.
You can see the 90 degree line which is created by the red lines there.
We kind of like to see runners
work towards having your leg at that 90 degrees.
So the lower leg, if the heel can move any closer towards that red line,
then we associate that with extra efficiency.
With regards to your shoulders, there is a little bit of tenseness there.
There's a slight forwardness.
Part of your chest is obscured by the front of your shoulder.
Again, it's something we typically see with runners
and something which shows the importance of full-body gait analysis.
Again, you spend your day in what sort of position? How are you at your desk?
It's no coincidence that from there, when you start running,
you're kind of in that similar position. OK?
There's a lot of focus these days in the media
about which part of your foot hits the ground first.
There's lots of people who will reinforce
and say, "You have to land on the front, you mustn't land on the back,
it's best to land in the middle."
Here at StrideUK, what we try and show people
is it doesn't matter what part of your foot touches the ground. OK.
What's important is how far the foot is in front of you.
- OK? - Right.
Typically, when you walk,
your leg comes out and you land on the heel in front of you.
Beginning runners, they mimic the same action, a pendulum action.
But running's not the same as walking.
With running, for optimum efficiency,
we need the foot to land much closer to underneath the hips.
Some people land on the heel. Some land on the mid-foot, some on the forefoot.
There's a host of different reasons for that.
It's not something to change.
Do you have any advice on buying shoes?
If we only took a look at you from the ankles down,
then maybe we'd be thinking, "Look, the feet are pointing out."
"They're going to be landing on the centre. We need to build up the arch."
You'd probably, nine times out of ten,
walk away with a shoe that's going to try and help you with that.
This is a classic example of where your top priority
is actually looking at what's happening around the hips as opposed to the feet.
It's form before footwear.
That's something which we believe in very strongly here.
As a result, what you run in, we recommend here,
is what you feel comfortable in.
- Let's show you some drills. - OK.
OK? Let's go.
OK. So, Steve, the information we've seen.
We're going to focus on the fact
that you're tight in the front of your legs and quad muscles,
stretching back to there, and tight across the hip flexors,
as a result, probably, of sitting down for extended periods.
Applies to an awful lot of the population,
whether at a computer or driving.
We're going to look at a developmental stretch
which can help start changing that so that when you are running,
getting rid of the tilted back,
you'll be neutral which will help the propulsion.
Very simple exercise.
I want you to get down on one knee for the moment. Just like this.
So this stretch we're doing now is a developmental stretch.
It's not a stretch we do before a run.
For that we do a dynamic stretch, something moving.
This is a stretch I'd like you to ideally do every morning, if you can.
I try and get my clients to do it before they brush their teeth.
Stretching is all about... It's a bit of a fight
against your body doing naturally what it wants to do.
Your body will listen to the muscles and hold you in a position.
We're fighting against that.
As you've got down here, we're going to correct a few things.
First of all, tightness in the calf at the back
typically is going to mean that your foot is back behind you.
I want you on tiptoe on the back foot.
That's going to make you less stable, but running's all about instability.
That's a good position for that. 90 degrees on the ankle.
Here, we can see another typical position
where the knee takes all the pressure.
We want the foot forward so the front knee's at 90 degrees as well.
OK? Last but not least, make sure you're not kneeling on a tightrope.
People are tighter on the inside of their legs.
So, rather than balancing on a tightrope,
let's open it up as if we're on a bit more of a railway track. Fantastic.
Little details like that will change the effect of the stretch. OK.
From here... How much tension are you feeling up that back leg,
on a scale of one to ten, let's say, where ten is "I need to stop"?
- Probably about two. - OK.
The other big thing about stretches
is we need to make sure we are doing something to the body.
It's not enough to stay there and think, "This is working."
On this one-to-ten scale,
I need to make sure you're getting a six or seven up there.
The way we're going to do it is quite simply,
imagine the front of your trousers and the back of your trousers.
Remember what we saw in the video,
the front was lower than the back. We had that anterior pelvic tilt.
I want you to basically lift up the front of your trousers
by tucking your bottom underneath you.
As you're doing so,
let me know if there's any change in tension on that back leg.
- Yeah. - Yeah? The numbers are creeping up?
- What number are we on at the moment? - Probably... five.
OK. Fantastic.
So, once you've tilted as high as you can there
and started to stretch these muscles we're targeting,
if you can reach a five, fantastic. Hold that for about 10, 15 seconds.
The other reason people don't benefit from stretches
is that it's done too quickly. We need 30 seconds, 60 seconds or so.
After 15 seconds, that number should start going down.
- Has it eased off a little bit? - It's eased off.
OK. We're going to try and find a seven.
By doing that, what I want you to do is lunge forward slightly,
but without losing the tilt. Just move forward slightly.
That should pick up the stretch a little bit. Numbers going up?
- Yep. - Hold that for me.
Again, we wait for the numbers to move down from a seven to a six to a five.
- I can really feel that stretch. - Fantastic. So, give your body time.
Stretching needs to be done in a nice, quiet, patient atmosphere.
OK. We can't rush these things.
- What number are we on? - About seven.
Still there? OK. So give your body time.
Once it does go down, the last bit we can add to this stretch
to make it up to 60 seconds
is the knee that's on the ground, I want you to move the hand away from it.
So stretching up as if you're trying to touch the ceiling.
We're lifting the ribs away from the ground.
That should pick up the stretch across the hip.
- I can feel it higher. - Fantastic.
That's getting now the hip flexor as opposed to the quad muscle.
Make sure the rest of the body is relaxed. Shoulders down. Keep breathing.
The aim of stretching is to relax every muscle of your body
apart from the one which is being pulled.
Only when you've achieved those three moments
of seven gone down to five, seven gone down to five, seven to five,
do you slowly release and then you can swap over and do the other leg.
So, you've given me tips on improving my technique,
but what are the things that I should at all costs avoid when running?
Things you should definitely avoid...
There's not a lot, but there are some things
which we're fairly sure are not going to help you whatsoever.
The main cause of injury is doing too much, too soon.
Other things to make sure
is that you don't try and focus on one thing too much of the time.
A nice rule-of-thumb here which we tend to use
is not increasing anything more than five percent at a time.
Apart from that,
I think the most important thing in running is don't take it too seriously.
Don't get stressed out. Enjoy it.
IF YOU ARE RECOVERING FROM INJURY
OR HAVE A PHYSICAL DISABILITY, PHYSIOTHERAPY MAY HELP.
CONSULT YOUR GP.
FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: www.nhs.uk/running