And guess what…
99.9% of runners who come into my clinic have significant deficits in strength.
They are Weak.
Now, some runners might be able to run 100km ultra marathons, 'so how can they be weak' I hear you ask (you might not ask, if so, just keep reading anyway).
Well, from over 10 years of listening to runners, (yes, I do have regular nightmares) they all love to run and not do very much else. This often includes not warming up properly either but that's another email in itself.
The issue with running is that some muscles do a lot of work all of the time and some don't do very much all of the time.
Your body will ALWAYS choose the path of least resistance.
And in case you were wondering, when it comes to managing an injury this is NOT a good thing.
We know from research that a high percentage of knee pain is from overuse and that it is quite normal for both injured and non injured runners to have the same running gait over the last mile of a marathon.
So why does this matter? Well if you are weak (and injured) from the very start of the race, you spend more time irritating the knee than those who get weak (from fatigue) near the end of the race (non injured).
In order to break the injury cycle and become a better, happier runner, you MUST identify your weakness, train it and finally compete to your strengths.
