Running is a brilliant way to improve your cardiovascular health, maintain a healthy weight or lose weight and it is also a great outdoors exercise activity you can do anywhere! Making it a fantastic option for mental health and cognitive performance too. It can be social or done alone, according to you and how you feel. Injuries (even niggles and pains) can be common though, so avoid the potential drawbacks and make the most of the benefits with the below exercise recommendations.
“Runners knee”: Musculature development through the hips and glutes, proper form with focus on landing on the ball of your foot and with your leg underneath your body as well as adequate development of the abductors and adductors will mitigate the risk of developing runners knee. Powerful glutes and efficient recruitment of this muscle can be a powerful weapon for improved endurance and power in running.
“Runner’s hunch” Running sometimes comes with a kyphotic (excessively curved spine) this leads to a pelvis that rocks underneath the the chain linkage leading to underdeveloped glutes and can often times tranfer to issues in the knees.
Strength and stability requirements:
Challenging the tissues in a lateral or rotational plane to fortify better balance in the system.
Core strength: is vital to supporting efficent movement. Core strength and hip mobility development are both important to prevent dangerous loading/ movement through the lumbar spine.
Strengthen your Glutes:
– Activating glutes prior to running to ensure they fire off properly and prevent synergistic dominance from the likes of the hip flexors.
-Then include: Hip Bridges, back extensions, cable kickbacks, donkey kicks, clams in your program
Back strengthening for optimal posture:
–Seated row, lat pulldown, barbell bent-over row, pull ups, upright rows, rear delt flys
Hip and leg strengthening:
– Deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, side-line leg raise, step ups, squats, the lunge and it’s variations, Bulgarian split squats, pull throughs
Core/ abdominal strength:
– The plank and it’s variations, dead bugs, hollow body crunch, reverse crunch, cycle crunches, oblique twists, wood chops etc
Stretches and mobility
Upper body:
– (pre-run)Cat-cows, foam roll threads, chest stretches, supine twists, supine clam rotations, (post run)passive hangs, arms in front of chest, child’s pose
Lower body:
-(pre-run)90/90 sits, prone scorpions, frogs, deep squats, (post-run) hamstring stretch, bridge, low lunge hip flexor stretch.
Step 1: mobilise and activate, Step 2: run, Step 3: cool down and stretch
If running is something you are keen to include in a balanced fitness and exercsie program then get in touch! Maybe you’re a veteran and want to be sure you can keep running right into your old age. Either way, I would love to help!