Running Related Injuries

Although running is one of the best ways to keep fit, as a ‘high impact’ activity, ironically it can lead to a number of injuries.

Any beginner would always be well advised to start very gradually, thereby allowing both the physiological (heart, lungs etc.) and physical (muscles, joints etc.) to become progressively used to the additional demands placed upon them. The same advice should still be true for those ‘born again’ runners (i.e. those who ‘could run for miles as a kid’). Though the mind may well ‘be willing, the body will still be weak’, due to the years of inactivity.

Though direct treatment of the injury is of course paramount, establishing the ’cause’ is vital if reoccurrence or ‘chronic’ conditions are to be avoided.

Common sense should be sufficient to minimise the risk of injury when beginning any sport. However, there are still plenty of examples of elite athletes who seem to always suffer from one type of injury or another. ‘Over-training’ is a common reason, since no matter how fit you are, if your body is constantly run down and worn out, it follows that it is much more susceptible to injury. However, if despite ‘starting gradually’, ‘training sensibly’, ‘using correct training shoes’ and ‘warming up, cooling down and stretching’, you still seem to suffer with more than your fair share of injuries, there could be another source of your problem, namely, faulty bio-mechanics  Faulty bio-mechanics can both compromise the efficiency of movement and be the cause of many sporting injuries.

Jason our Osteopath at VitaPhysical will carry out a full Bio-mechanical assessment of your condition, designed to find any areas of your body which are not working at optimum efficiency, since the further from ‘perfect’ the body is, the more ‘predisposed’ it is to injury.

Common causes of running injuries:

• Leg length discrepancies
• Genu valgum or ‘knock knees’
• Genu varum or ‘bow legs
• Poor rehabilitation following a previous injury
• Excessive pronation (rolling in of the mid foot)
• Excessive supination (running with feet pointing together)
• Faulty pelvic or spinal biomechanics

Our team at VitaPhysical have lots of experience treating runners of every level from novice marathon runners motivated by raising money for charity to world class track athletes. So if you would like to get your running injury diagnosed and treated email us or give us a call on 0191 565 8886