Running With An Injury Or Over Training?

Injuries can impact us all regardless of age, gender or ability. But can we handle or limit the amount of times we get hurt? We can by going back to basics. But we aren't talking about fitness degrees and extending. Rather we mean back to biomechanics.

By checking, on a regular basis, your biomechanics you can help remove and prevent a range of injuries and problems that athletes suffer with. The body compensating for weak links can lead to limitation that in turn can lead to pain and injury.

Calf and hamstring injuries are generally caused by a tight sciatic nerve. The muscles provide a protective spasm to the nerve during locomotion and if stretched or loaded satisfactorily the muscles can spasm sufficient to cause themselves to rip - or cramp up - which may feel like a rip. By mobilising the nerve it releases tension from the muscles and decreases the chance of this event.

Tight calves

TIGHT calves can cause over pronation. The dorsi-flexion (moving the ankle upward ) is unavailable from the ankle joint because of the tight calves, so it must come from the sub talar joint. It comes within the pronation mechanism though and thus increases the amount of pronation also. This causes shin related harms in addition to knee and Achilles issues.

Recall that tight nerves are often from a tight sciatic nerve, thus by mobilising the nerve, we can assist with preventing and normalise those harms.

The consequences our biomechanics have on our body and the vicious circle of pain and injury it may cause is shown when discussing your hips and pelvis that are so important to our running but generally overlooked until the athlete is in acute pain or actually injured.

Rotated pelvis

A ROTATED pelvis can go undetected for several years before the compensations begin to cause problems. Typically a leg length discrepancy (LLD) can result from a rotated pelvis and the leg has to compensate for it. It is going to either flatten the foot (pronate it), bend the knee more, or shed the hip longer. Pronation increases the load on the leg (see'Tight calves' section), and dropping the hip increases the strain to the glutes / piriformis'prophylactically', in other words preventatively, (as well as if necessary), then we're helping to decrease all the above.

Check yourself

AS a consequence of one of the largest studies in biomechanics by Galileo Health and distributed by HumanLab Sports we could all benefit from analyzing our biomechanics, in the comfort of our own home. You don't have to be a clinician since they've developed a CD ROM software application that can help you check yourself with the applications prescribing the exercises required to eliminate the problems and subsequently stop or normalise the body from growing them in the future.

As part of this program is injury prevention the CD takes you through a set of core stability work educating you on how to engage your heart and to engage it while performing peripheral moves, so it will become second nature for you when running.

It ends off with the last segment on the trunk and chest exercises.

Advantages of biomechanics

SOME athletes out there may not feel the need to help avoid a problem they do not feel they have. So let us look briefly at a number of the additional advantages biomechanics has on your operation. A tight plantar nerve or tight piriformis (cool ) can influence your stride length, your knee drive and your power output.

A tight plantar nerve can influence your quadriceps output by up to 15 per cent. The effect of biomechanics for the professional athlete and the newcomer for injury prevention or operation is a must have tool. It can allow you to prevent accidents, enjoy your running and assist with your performance.

The program employed in assisting address any issues you might have now or in the future is worth having. However, it does not stop there.

It may be utilised as a training manual to indicate that you might be over-training or a new technique or training program is causing you difficulties.