Five Ways To Run Farther With Less Knee Pain
Often viewed as a ‘safe’ choice for getting back into shape - a recent systematic review has shown that up to 92.5% of runners experience pain from running - with the most common location being at the knee. We know we can do better than that.
In this weeks article we discuss five ways to protect your you body and experience less knee pain on your runs.
1. Change Your Running Shoes
Shoes lose their ability to absorb ground reactive forces after about 300 miles. Be sure you are changing your shoes periodically to decrease the stress transferred up tp the knee. Also transitions to shoes with wide base, flexible soles, and no heel elevation will help strengthen the intrinsic muscles of our feet for less knee/hip pain.
2. Change Your Pace
The speed of our strides can play a role into the injuries we sustain when running. Taking shorter, faster strides have been shown to decrease the number of injuries of runners over slower pace, longer stride running.
3. Loosen Your Feet/Ankles
Our feet/ankles need to be able to absorb the ground reactive forces we experience with each step. In general - a stiff foot = less shock absorption = more forces transferred to knee/hips - more pain. While a more mobile foot = more shock absorption = less force transferred to knee/hips = less pain.
4. Strengthen Your Hips
Runners spend about 60% of their time in a single leg stance when running and need to have adequate hip strength to avoid over pronating at the feet and limit knee valgus - both of which contribute to knee pain.
5. Correct Side to Side Imbalances
The #1 predictor of a future injury is a previous injury. Any trauma, no matter how big or small, causes changes that alters the way we move and increases the likelihood of suffering another injury. One of the most common movement alterations that occurs following an injury is an over-dominance from the non-injured side. In an attempt to protect the injured limb, our uninjured side will take over. These compensations create muscular imbalances which then carry over once our injury has healed and sets us up for another injury later down the line.
Correcting these side to side imbalances through unilateral training is vital to avoid knee pain on runs.
Evolve Performance Healthcare specializes in helping runners reach their goals and find sustainable pain relief through the combination of manual therapy and strength training. Dealing with knee pain on runs -send us a message to talk to one of our doctors and see if we can help.
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(503) 954-2495
hello@performancehealthcarepdx.com