Relieve Low Back Pain | Reduce Low Back Pain | Canada's Leading Authority in Human Movement | Dev Chengkalath

As discussed previously, runners put a tremendous amount of stress on their various body systems, most often their joints and soft tissues.

I’ve yet to meet a runner of any sort who hasn’t dealt with an overuse type injury yet!

So what does that mean exactly?

Well, because running is an extremely complex biomechanical action, there are many places where faults, errors or compensations can take place. Multiply these by the number of reps (in the case of running, each foot strike can be considered a rep) that can be undertaken in a short period of time.

To make matters even worse, most recreational runners start their day by sitting in their cars, buses or trains to work, sit at a desk all day, rush home in the same manner and then warm-up with some basic static stretches for a few minutes before pounding the pavement.

They spend all day inhibiting their hips and then asking those very same inhibited tissues to respond to forces that are equivalent to multiple times their body weight (which is often greater than what it should be as well!).

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way and the response is not the one that they were looking for.

What happens is that the hips don’t work properly, thus causing the body to compensate at the joints above or below.

For example, if there is a loss of hip extension, the body will create the required extension movement through the back. So for every step of your run, you’re compressing your facet joints. Multiply this by thousands of steps. Each one causing just a little bit more irritation to those joints in your back.

Or, if there is hip abductor weakness and the leg is unstable, this will cause the leg to slightly bow in or go into what we call a valgus position with every landing. If every time that type of landing irritates the tissues on the inside of the knee, think how irritated it would become if you took 2000, 3000 or more steps.

And this is why runners should really care about their hips. And that’s also why runners should get fit to run, and not the other way around.

I’ll leave you to ponder those thoughts and let that sink in.

Yours in movement.

Dev Chengkalath

As you’ll often notice, I tend to write a lot about the backside.

Call it what you want (glutes, hips, posterior chain, derriere …), but always remember how important hip function is for not only protecting or fixing your back, but also for numerous other joints and tissues in your body.

Since I’ve already written at length about how the hips impact spine health, today I want to branch out a bit into hip function and knee health.

Over the course of the last little while I’ve had quite a few clients come into the clinic with fairly sudden onset of atraumatic knee pain. Basically, the pain came on without any falls or trauma to the knee itself.

I tend to see injuries in bunches. I’ll have periods of  people with neck pain, a week of ankle sprains or a week where everyone is suffering from low back pain.

In this case, I wanted to figure out the commonality between all these people and their knee pain.

Sure enough, they were all runners.

Enjoy your run, pain free.

As I’ve written before and as I’ll write again, people should get fit to run and not the other way around.

That is GET FIT TO RUN, DON’T RUN TO GET FIT.

What’s the problem with running to get fit?

There are huge numbers of issues with the above.

The most concerning is that running is a highly repetitive, extremely high volume, high impact activity.

Think of it this way: how many foot-falls or foot strikes will you have in a 10 minute run? In a 30 minute run? In a half-marathon? Marathon?

Now think of each of those steps as a repetition.

Now add in the fact that an individual may have been completely sedentary prior to starting to run.Or may have some bio-mechanical fault or compensation.

To me, that just seems like a dangerous mix.

High volume, high impact activity with an often poorly coordinated (lacking motor control) and de-conditioned body.

That, my friends, is a sure recipe for disaster, pain and injury.

The human body is an incredible marvel of engineering. It will adapt to almost any condition or stress placed upon it, with one major caveat: only if given the opportunity to adapt.

Runners, unfortunately, tend not to take heed.

Above all else, they will keep running.

Now, if you build a strong, sturdy foundation, there’s no problem with going out for a run.

In part 2 of this blog post,  I’ll discuss why the hips and glutes are so important for runners and how just a few simple exercises can protect your knees and spine at the same time.

Yours in movement.

Dev Chengkalath