That's not running, it's falling with style

Nearly all the students that I have taught over the last 4 years would have heard me say this ‘That’s not running, it’s falling with style.’ To paraphrase Woody from Toy Story running can be very untidy sometimes. If we think of it simply running is the transfer of weight from one leg to the other, the goal being to propel the body forward to cover distance. Be it for fun, for competition or just to do some exercise lots of people run, but are we running efficiently?

I get a lot of clients coming in who are regular runners, normally complaining of knee pain, and one of the things I get them to do is a single leg stance (standing on one leg). It never ceases to amaze me how difficult this seemingly simple task is. My summary of this situation is normally that if you can’t stand on one leg for a minute how are you managing to run (which is transferring weight from one leg to the other) effectively. The answer is that ‘it’s not running, it's falling with style.’

Once you build up forward momentum running can be more about catching yourself from falling over rather than propelling your body forward. Instead of when one foot hits the ground it powerfully drives the body forward to transfer the weight to the other leg, what can happen is my feet hit the ground to stop myself from falling over then I need to quickly get my other leg forward to catch myself again. Good efficient running is a joy to watch, in contrast watching someone run inefficiently leaves you wondering how they are managing to run at all.

Single leg strength is the most valuable thing for a runner because running is always a single leg activity (meaning one foot is only ever in contact with the ground at any time). The single leg dead lift is my go to exercise when it comes to improving running efficiency, but building complete single leg strength is the goal. Ryan Debell from Movement Fix has a fantastic video on the top 3 strength training exercises for runners which I have sent to many clients over the years.

I will share my personal running story in the near future (which includes a lot of ‘falling with style’). But for today if you are a runner and you would like to look at getting more efficiency out of your running come and see me at Excelsior Sports Therapy and we can work together to improve your performance. Book now.