What I did on my summer break.....

I am excited to have the opportunity to speak to some high school runner at a local running store this summer. My experience as a long time PT, and a 25+time marathoner, gives me a relatively unique perspective of running. I admit my outlook is biased, based on working with many injured runners and seeing consistent trends of imbalances and weakness. One thing I love to share with fellow runnersis the concept of doing more than just running. In fact, that is my favorite questions for an injured runner I am seeing in the clinic : what do you do besides just run?

A well rounded runner, one who is going to be less vulnerable to injury, and better able to handle to stress of intense training, needs to consistently do form drills, stretch, cross train, and work on strength training. This post will focus on the last component, strength training.
When you read the research on run related injuries you see that the knee is the most commonly injured area. Anterior knee pain is the most common injury, followed closely by lateral knee pain, or IT band syndrome. Hip weakness is a consistent finding with these injured runners. As a result, a good introduction to strength training for runners would start with hip/glute strengthening. I like to focus on strengthening the glute max, the glute medius, deep hip rotators, and the core muscles. I also like to incorporate functional movements into the warm-up before I reach for exercises which isolate specific muscle groups.

The following is a brief list of helpful exercises which can be done 2-3 times per week in the off season as cross country preparations continue. Try to focus on good form in the first month, controlling the speed and form of the movemnts, with light resistance and high repetitions.

For the young athletes tonight we will do :

Forward lunge walking x 1 minute
Backward lunges x 1 minute
Side lunges x 1 minute
Skier squats with theraband at knees x 1 minute
Heel raises x 1 minute
Sidestepping with band times 1 minute
clam with band x 1 minute each side
plank x 1 minute
deadbug times one minute

Short and sweet, but it targets muscles that when weak typically lead to injury. Many of these exercises are in video format in my older posts on this blog. Enjoy, and train smart!