Rehab before the injury
I'm reading the Chi Running book and being bemused at how ugly I run. I decided to get a consultation on how to improve my form, to straighten up my posture.
This is what the guy told me.
My legs, particularly my right leg, splays out. I need to work on adductor muscles. He told me to quit squatting and deadlifting so much and work on building up my internal and external rotators. He wants me to do abductors as much as adductors, but showed me a stretch he calls the "reverse cobbler" where I lie down and put my feet wide apart and let my knees fall in together. Well, "let" is the wrong term. My knees splay out. That's the problem. I have to stretch the TFL.
He also says my shoulders hunch forward. Well, yes. More pec stretching. I knew that. I didn't know it was affecting my running, but it sure affects everything else, so it makes sense.
He also told me to stop doing the quad stretch where I grab my heel and bring it up behind me, and start doing lunges instead. It hurts. Therefore I should do those more often. (I understand this reasoning, but it always seems ironic when I hear it.)
He said to not count during stretches, but instead to breath. That the space between exhaling and inhaling is when the work gets done on a stretch. I don't know if I believe this, he said it in sort of a woo woo way, but I'll try it.
He told me to roll backwards on a swiss ball and massage my adhesion to break up the scar tissue. Okey dokey.
The only thing he told me that I'm going to utterly ignore is that he told me that I should quit running. Hell, no! I didn't go through that hellish operation just to LOOK good. I'm running better than ever right now. I want to iron out the wrinkles, improve it, prevent injuries before they happen. Sure, I'm old, I'm fat, I've got arthritis and asthma. But I LOVE running. I'll do the stretching, I'll run on moss & pine needles, I'll change shoes every six months, I'll fix my form. But I won't stop running while I can still walk without crutches.
This is what the guy told me.
My legs, particularly my right leg, splays out. I need to work on adductor muscles. He told me to quit squatting and deadlifting so much and work on building up my internal and external rotators. He wants me to do abductors as much as adductors, but showed me a stretch he calls the "reverse cobbler" where I lie down and put my feet wide apart and let my knees fall in together. Well, "let" is the wrong term. My knees splay out. That's the problem. I have to stretch the TFL.
He also says my shoulders hunch forward. Well, yes. More pec stretching. I knew that. I didn't know it was affecting my running, but it sure affects everything else, so it makes sense.
He also told me to stop doing the quad stretch where I grab my heel and bring it up behind me, and start doing lunges instead. It hurts. Therefore I should do those more often. (I understand this reasoning, but it always seems ironic when I hear it.)
He said to not count during stretches, but instead to breath. That the space between exhaling and inhaling is when the work gets done on a stretch. I don't know if I believe this, he said it in sort of a woo woo way, but I'll try it.
He told me to roll backwards on a swiss ball and massage my adhesion to break up the scar tissue. Okey dokey.
The only thing he told me that I'm going to utterly ignore is that he told me that I should quit running. Hell, no! I didn't go through that hellish operation just to LOOK good. I'm running better than ever right now. I want to iron out the wrinkles, improve it, prevent injuries before they happen. Sure, I'm old, I'm fat, I've got arthritis and asthma. But I LOVE running. I'll do the stretching, I'll run on moss & pine needles, I'll change shoes every six months, I'll fix my form. But I won't stop running while I can still walk without crutches.