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  • @yoshy Right here's the long waffley version i was getting itb and piriformis soreness or runs around the 10 mile mark. Tried shoes with a bit of stability but because i thought i might be pronating but my foot was leaning on the support so i ended up with blisters in my arch. Went to a fancy big bucks run analysis lab and had a full range of motion, stability, muscle activation, running form and efficiency assessment. My pain which felt like sore itb and sciatica was just overuse of smaller abductor stabilising muscles doing the job of my larger stabilising muscles my hips and glutes which were lazy because i was so quad dominant from my cycling background and therefore weak and poorly conditioned everywhere else plus tight hip flexors from cycling. My vertical quad pushing efficiency was in the elite range but my lateral stability was in the bottom 30% because all I've done is cycle and never done any skiing or ball or racket sports that involve changes of direction mine was particularly poor. To remedy my issues i had to strengthen my posterior chain and stretch my anterior chain. 1 month of conditioning body weight pushing through the heels squats, lunges both and single leg and loads of theraband abduction exercises 2x week with anterior chain stretching every day. Then 8 weeks of 1x weekly progressively heavy compound exercises and 1x weekly theraband abduction work plus daily stretching. During that time all my running limited 1 hour zone 2 runs apart from my weekly long run that started off at 75 min adding 10 min per week with every 4th recovery week 20-30% shorter before moving up again. I'm fixed had no injuries whatsoever for 2 years i just need to stretch 2x weekly and do s&c 1x week. Addressing your imbalances with improve your running once you have the muscle memory as long as you keep up the s&c and stretching. Your form may not look that different but your body will be working more efficiently with everything firing in the right order and with their intended workload. Concentrating on form is good and i run in front of a mirror on the treadmill to be mindful of bad habits but once your tired your form will revert back to type unless the underpinning muscle memory is there. This is a still from my analysis and top right you see how much my hip to knee is falling inward but knee to ankle is good so not pronating. Single leg squats pushing through the heel was the most effective exercise to counteract this. My lack of lateral stability was the equivalent of riding a bike with rubber chainstays. I know thats a lot of info but most of it sounds like you so hopefully it will help. The heavy lifting was hard and the s&c and slow running was boring but after 3 months i had solid conditioning and endurance allowing me to jump into more volume or speed based plans without getting injured.

  • Thanks for posting this, I really appreciate it. It's nice to hear there's hope, if a little disheartening to hear how much work it took.
    I like running cos it's quick and easy and a real escape. Life is so full at the moment that I've decided I just don't have the mental space to focus on planning any structure and conditioning so am just leaving it for a bit. Maybe Feb 2022 will give it another punt.

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