How to Avoid Muscle Strains While Running?
8 min read
Are you a runner who has neglected weight training because you are unclear how it will translate to improved running performance and injury performance? If yes, you’re not alone as our clients who are runners almost always admit to these same faults.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
80% of runner’s wrongfully attribute their injuries to external factors including shoes, orthotics, and training plans while failing to acknowledge that they have not prepared their bodies for the demands of running. Hip and hamstring injuries are the most common lower extremity injuries we see in our runners. These injuries can be tough to treat on your own as the root of the problem likely stems from something other than the painful muscle itself, leading to misguided treatment attempts. You likely strained your hip flexor or your hamstring only in part because they were weak, but let’s consider the strength & function of the surrounding muscles.
Understand Hip flexor strains
Your “hip flexors” often encompass the group of green muscles that all attach near the front of your hip. These muscles work to lift your knee up towards your chest while running.
A common yet almost always unsuspected culprit of a hip flexor strains is weak calves and poor elasticity. We are not talking about aesthetics, we are talking about the functional strength and stiffness of your calf muscles preventing injury to your hip flexor. In fact, the way your calves look is primarily due to genetics but the way your calves perform is entirely up to your training.
Your calves, made up of the gastrocnemius and soleus, are responsible for “push off”, or the propulsive force producing phase of running. If your calves cannot adequately propel your entire body weight forward with each step, your hip flexor muscles along the front of your hip are forced to undergo excessive strain in an effort to pull your leg forward during swing. Your leg should be pushed forward by your calves during swing, hence “push off'', but in the absence of strength and plyometric training, your leg is likely being pulled forward as your hip flexors are forced to compensate. This compensation increases the demand on your hip flexors, thereby contributing to your hip flexor strain. The takeaway here: weak calves due to a lack of strength & plyometric training can often lead to hip pain.
To strengthen your calves for the sake of running, consider these variations below:
Can your calves tolerate 30-60 second of these pogo variations? If not, plug these into your warm up or training routine!
Understand Hamstring strains
Your hamstring muscle group consists of 3 muscles and run from the crease of your glutes down past the back of your knee. Pain can span anywhere along these muscles in the case of injury but are often around the back of the knee or high up in the crease of your glute.
Weight training is one of the most effective ways to develop strength capacity around the rib cage, spine, and pelvis, which has a heavy influence on the workload that is on the hamstrings while running. In the absence of specific strength and proper technique, your pelvis may demonstrate excessive motion while running. This has a direct impact on your hamstrings as your hamstrings attach from the back of your pelvis to the back of your knee. Excessive motion at the spine and pelvis due to poor control & technique causes your spine to extend, or arch backwards, and your pelvis to rotate forward, or tip anteriorly. This spinal extension and forward rotation of your pelvis creates increased tension in the hamstring, as its top attachment is at the back of the pelvis. When the hamstring is in a tensioned state, it limits your ability to drive your knee up and forward for front side mechanics and limits its own ability to slow down your lower leg as it swings through, thus leading to overstriding.
The takeaway here: heavy loading via weight training will better control the position and movement of your spine and pelvis while running thereby protecting the hamstrings from excessive workload and injury.
Poor strength capacity & technique → excessive spine & pelvis motion → anterior pelvic rotation (right image) → hamstring stretched → increased workload and injury to hamstring
Takeaway
As a runner, we understand that strength & plyometric training may be a whole new world to you. If you have no idea how to begin strength training, a good place to start is to begin running on varying gradients until you get some professional guidance. Uphill running and stair running in particular can mimic lower extremity strength training, however only to a certain degree.
If you are interested in hearing about how we can bridge the gap between where you currently are and where you are trying to go, schedule a free discovery call.
References
Chu, S. K., & Rho, M. E. (2016). Hamstring Injuries in the Athlete: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Return to Play. Current sports medicine reports, 15(3), 184–190. https://doi.org/10.1249/JSR.0000000000000264
https://houstonsportsortho.com/hamstring-injuries-orthopedic-hip-specialist-sugar-land-pearland-houston-tx/
https://tommorrison.uk/blog/what-are-the-hip-flexors
