Stretches for Runners

Running and jogging is an activity that puts the body through a repetitive, high impact movement. As instinctual and natural that running is, people typically need to focus on proper technique to keep the body in a safe biomechanical posture. It is also quite common for runners (and athletes that run as part of their sport) to eventually experience lower leg, knee, hip, and/or lower back pain. Regardless if the cause of the pain(s) are from improper shoes, poor running technique, overuse, or a body imbalance, stretching can serve to prevent and rehabilitate injuries.

After years of struggling with knee pain caused by IT Band Syndrome I have re-kindled my love for running. By being consistent and focussing on injury prevention I have been jogging twice a week pain-free since my last post. Yay! The major changes I have made are my modifying my running technique, warming up my hips before the run, rolling my IT Bands on a foam roller and stretching after the run. I have also not put any pressure on myself to run longer distances than my body wants me to.

New Balance Minimus

Vibram Five Finger

There is currently a big movement towards barefoot running. The main reason for the change from highly supported/cushioned running shoes to minimal support shoes is to bring people back to running more naturally. By doing so there have been amazing success stories of decreased injury and improved performance. My brother and many of my friends have been happily sporting the Vibram Five Finger shoes and I am using the New Balance Minimus. The difference between these is that the Minimus looks more like a regular shoe with closed toes rather than having the toes individually "wrapped". I chose the Minimus because I prefer trail running and my toes will be safer from injury if I accidently stub them on rogue rocks or roots. Regardless of your choice of footwear I hope you will find the following stretches useful as a tool to improve your running experience.

Dynamic stretches for the hips:

Facing a wall, swing your leg side to side progressively increasing the height of the swing in both directions as you feel ready. Do this for approximately 30 seconds before changing to the other leg.

 Next, turn your body so that you are sideways to the wall, and swing your leg forwards and backwards progressively increasing the height of the swing. Make sure that you are keeping your upper body quite still and not feeling any sharp pains in your legs or back. If this happens you are probably trying to swing too high too soon.

Lower body static stretches:

Hamstring stretch - Keeping leg straight without locking knee, pull leg in until you feel a gentle tension in the back of your leg. A good flexibility is reflected if you can bring your leg to a right angle like in the picture.

Gluteal stretch - Cross your ankle over your other knee and pull your bottom leg in towards your chest until you feel a gentle tension in your hip/glutes. Relax head and upper body on the floor.

Body twist - Keeping both shoulders on the floor, let knees drop to one side and look towards outstretched arm in opposite direction. Deep breaths will help you relax into the twist that is meant to stretch abdominals, lower back, side hip and chest.

Hip Flexor stretch - Keeping your front knee over your ankle, tilt your pelvis under until you feel a stretch come to the front of your hip (my right hip in this picture). Reaching your arms to the sky will help to elongate the side of your body and increase the amount of stretch you feel in your hip flexor.

Quadriceps stretch - Balance on one foot and grab the ankle of the other leg pulling your foot towards to seat. Keep your knee pointing to the floor and push your hip forward to increase the stretch in the front of your thigh.

Calf stretch - Although I'm demonstrating a yoga stretch here what I'm trying to emphasise is pushing my heels towards the floor in order to stretch my calves. By bending your knees in this posture you can move the stretch lower and target your soleus and achillis tendon.

IT Band stretch - It may look like I have to pee really bad here but I'm actually feeling a pretty sweet stretch in my side hip. Most of my weight is on my front (left) foot and I am actively pushing my right hip outwards to the side. By reaching my right arm upwards I am opening up my side body and enhancing the stretch I feel through my side hip and leg.

Butterfly stretch - This stretch is for the groin and inner thigh (adductor) muscles. Sit with the soles of your feet together and push knees towards the floor. If you are quite flexible here you can use your elbows to help push your knees down and/or hinge forward from your hips bringing your stomach towards the floor.

EDIT August 2012: For more information on stretching check out my new post Stretching Do's and Don'ts 2.0

IT Band woes

For nearly a decade now I have been dealing with chronic Iliotibial Band Syndrome. It has been a major source of frustration for me, as well as, a limiting factor in my ability to train for cardiovascular activities. When I was in high school I was training for my second degree black belt in Tae kwon do and a part of our test was to run 10 km in under an hour. During my time training for this I first started to notice pain on the lateral side (outside) of my knee. If I kept running through the pain I would find myself barely able to walk the next couple days and in considerable pain going down stairs. This pain prevented me from continuing to run and I had to modify my belt test from a 10 km run to an hour on a spin bike with my heart rate kept above 160 beats per minute. Running had always been a joy in my life and since then it became a guessing game of whether I could run for an hour or just 10 minutes before having to walk to rest of the way home. I stopped running with friends because I felt bad about having to cut their runs short and I stopped using running as a training medium because of the fear of not being able to complete them.

For those who don’t know, the Iliotibial Band (ITB) runs along the lateral side of your thigh and crosses the hip and knee joint. It can get tight and rub the femoral epicondyle on the lateral side of the knee (the bone that sticks out a little on the outer side of your knee). This rubbing can lead to inflammation and pain which is called IT Band Syndrome (ITBS). ITBS is an overuse injury and is typically treated with rest, ice, and anti-inflammatory drugs. I tried all of these as well as stretching and massaging my ITB’s and contributing muscles with little improvement.



For more information on ITBS you can check out the following article:

http://www.medicinenet.com/iliotibial_band_syndrome/article.htm

There are many factors that can contribute to ITBS. There are studies out there that say that improper running shoes, poor running technique, muscle imbalances, having wider hips (females), and leg length discrepancies will increase the risk of developing and injury. There is also a battle between beliefs about flexibility. Some think that stretching the tight muscles is helpful and some believe that less flexibility is better for runners because it helps keep the body in efficient alignment.  From my years in martial arts and ice skating I already had a pre-disposition with tight leg muscles and muscle imbalances and I certainly saw that as a detriment to my running. I started to wonder if I was cursed to never be able to run 10 km again, let alone a marathon, and I lost hope for many years.

About 6 months ago my brother began training for a marathon length run and succeeded in running over 30km a few times with nothing but a few blisters to show for it. Then horror struck and he too fell to the torments of ITBS after taking a couple weeks off and trying to run 30km again.

It was at this time I decided to read Born to Run by Chris McDougall. This is an incredible book about Chris’ real life adventure in Mexico trying to track down a barefoot runner, a secret running tribe, and determine the secret to running injury-free. I highly recommend this entertaining, inspirational, and educational novel to everyone. My brother took his advice to heart and started running in low-support toe shoes, massaging his ITB on a foam roller before and after each run, and modifying his running technique. Like me, he experienced the frustration that came with the guessing game that is ITBS. It didn’t matter how you changed up the variables, sometimes it would hurt and sometimes it wouldn’t.

I am happy to report that my brother is back in the world of running and successfully ran 10 km injury-free last week. I am motivated to fight ITBS with all I have and I too have a success story. In the last 3 days I tried running for 35 minutes twice and lasted without pain. I will keep you updated on my journey which will hopefully have a happy ending.

If you want to learn more about Chris McDougall and his book feel free to visit his website:

http://www.chrismcdougall.com/


UPDATE August 2012: After suffering an SI joint injury 5 months ago I have been around the block seeing Physiotherapists, Acupuncturists, Naturopaths, and my doctor to help me with my back pain. My back pain has been continuously diagnosed as the result of a twisted pelvis from years of sports that have caused muscle imbalances in my pelvis and spine. This in turn has affected the rest of my body and is a main culprit in my IT Band problems. As I continue to work on correcting my malaligned pelvis and spine I am noticing less knee pain and am hopeful that my IT Band issues will disappear with my back issues. Food for thought.