It’s easy to run wrong. It takes a toll if your shoes, gait, or style aren’t right for you. Studies show that a majority of runners—as many as 65 percent—will get a related injury in a given year. When they train for a marathon, the number increases to 90 percent.
Of these 42 percent are knee injuries: there’s a reason everyone has heard of runner’s knee! Plenty of other body parts are at risk, too. 20 percent of injuries are likely to take place in the hip or pelvis, 17 percent in the foot or ankle and13 percent in the lower leg. Rebalance can help you recover from any of these, and teach you how to avoid the trouble in the first place.
The reasons for these injuries are many. You can hurt yourself running by increasing your mileage, changing the terrain or your workout regimen, or from poor choice of footwear. A lot of the time, people just buy the cheapest available option and then put an excessive number of miles on a pair of sneakers that are meant to carry about 200 miles at the maximum. Poor coaching can be a problem too, leading to simple training mistakes. Or the issue could be a muscle-skeletal imbalance (muscles too tight, for example, or a weak hip) that just doesn’t mesh with your chosen routine.
Our physical therapists at Rebalance can mitigate and defend against these injuries. Too often we look at the sites of the injuries as isolated from their context. Knee injuries, for instance, are usually a result of an imbalance above or below the knee, in the pelvis or foot. We can help pinpoint which muscles are weak, and which muscles are at the heart of your problems. We can teach you relatively simple strengthening routines—like, for example, the myrtle routine to strengthen your hips—and we can analyze your gait to see if you are holding yourself in an unhealthy fashion while running. You don’t need to continue hurting yourself to be a strong or successful runner. With a few training sessions at Rebalance, you can be both healthy and pain free.
