Running drills for proper form

Injury due to faulty mechanics and subtle weaknesses is one of the main reasons why many people don't fully enjoy the benefits of running. Regularly incorporating running drills into your workouts, however, can help to improve your economy of movement and increase your muscle strength and endurance, thus decreasing your risk of injury. It's important to remember that maintaining proper form is key not only to allowing you to exercise for longer periods of time, but also to allowing you to get an effective workout.

At URBAN Boot Camp, we include many drills designed to help you move more effectively and efficiently, to help you achieve your desired health and fitness outcome.

Here's a great video that includes many of the movements we do, as well as their explanations so that you can practice on your own. It's best to perform these exercises as part of your warm up to limit risk of injury due to fatigue.

Have fun!

Better running

Jogging. Scurrying. Shuffling. Sprinting.

By whatever name it's applied, running is one of the most basic activities at URBAN Boot Camp and many of our more athletically-based fitness designs.

As little kids, we never gave any thought to our running. No worry about foot placement, body alignment or trunk carriage. We just chose a direction and moved towards it as fast as our little legs would go. When you watch little kids run, however, they usually have pretty good form. Children typically don't overstride, they swing their arms, they lean forward slightly and don't strike with their heels. Unfortunately, now as adults many people find that they have trouble with this simple, yet at the same time very complex activity.

During the month of July, we'll focus on running mechanics, resources for training, and any questions you may have here on the UBC blog, so feel free to comment or send us an email with your questions.

To get us started here's a quick list of basic running dos and don'ts:

1. Don't slouch. Hold your body tall and erect, but with a slight forward lean. Keep in mind that running (and walking) is actually a controlled fall forward.

2. Do keep your head level. Point your gaze out ahead of you, not up at the sky or down towards the ground. Also, think of lifting your head up off your shoulders so that you aren't shrugging.

3. Don't slap the ground as you run. This creates way more force on your joints than necessary. Your steps should be quiet and springy.

4. Do keep your arms compact at about a 90 degree angle. Avoid crossing your arms over your body or tensing your shoulders. Allow the joints to move freely.

5. Don't clench your toes. While your foot should transfer the force of your footstrike from behind your little toe towards your big toe for slight pronation, avoid maintaining your toes in a clenched position as you run.

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Happy training.
To your fitness success!

Putting on the brakes

While reaching optimal or top speed can be important, it's important to be able to STOP your momentum.

After all, imagine rushing down the freeway at 60-plus mph, pressing on your breaks, and nothing happening!

Well, you need to be able to slow down and stop yourself when performing dynamic exercises such as running, jumping, and cutting (changing direction) as well. You also need to guard against potential injuries caused by a lack of bodily control and stabilization, and allows excessive, often damaging movement.

The key to deceleration is eccentric contraction. You may know it as "the negative". During an eccentric contraction, muscles lengthen while loaded to control movement. That means when you RLH (sprint) or JS (land from a jump) as we call it in UBC, your muscles need to optimally dissipate and control the force of your stopping, directional changes and landings. In relation to the legs specifically, your hamstrings (back of thighs), need to shorten slowly, relatively speaking, while the muscles controlling the ankles stabilize the feet.

Stay tuned for more on how to improve your ability to decelerate and improve your performance at UBC.

Training for life!

Avoid running injuries

For many URBAN Boot Campers, running is an important component of long term success. Unforeseen injuries and pain can hinder exercise adherence and are often the result of overtraining or improper conditioning. A recent review of research has shown a number of muscular imbalances to be the cause of injury, most notably weak gluteals.

Research review from Exercise ETC:

"Many Running Injuries Attributed to Weak Hips"

Statistics indicate that between 65% and 80% of all recreational and competitive runners experience some type of overuse injury annually. Such injuries include patellofemoral knee pain, illiotibial band syndrome, shin splints, Achilles tendinopathy, plantar fasciitis, and stress fractures. The vast majority of such injuries, ~80% affect the lower-leg, with nearly 40% occurring at the knee. Unfortunately, science and medicine have yet to truly understand the mechanisms behind such injuries.

Researchers recently reviewed the literature over a 28 year span from 1980 to 2008 and concluded that two mechanisms appear to underlie all lower-leg injuries. First, a small number of studies implicated "atypical foot pronation mechanics." Pronation, which occurs during the stance phase of gait as the foot flattens causing internal rotation of the tibia and femur, is essential to generating energy for the next stride. However, excessive or insufficient pronation leads to poor energy production and consequently to excessive motion about the foot and knee.

Second, and more prominent, researchers uncovered a growing number of studies that suggest "inadequate hip muscle stabilization" leads to a majority of overuse injuries. Because the hip muscles, specifically the gluteus medius, minimus and maximus stabilize the leg during gait, poor strength or conditioning of these muscles results in excessive stress at and below the knee.

Recent studies have shown that improving hip muscle strength reduces the incidence of knee pain in runners. With running season in full-swing throughout the country along with races every weekend there's not a better time to encourage runners to maintain their strength training programs.

Ferber, R., et al (2009) Suspected Mechanisms in the Cause of Overuse Running Injuries: A Clinical Review. Sports Health. May/June

Next time: Exercises to strengthen the gluteal muscles.

Combat sprained ankles

Some of you may have noticed me hobbling around a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I sprained my ankle while running on a trail. Even now it's still weaker and less stable than before.

I've been working on strengthening it and being more aware of how I move, so I've recently noticed that I sit with my ankle turned out for much of the time I sit working at the computer. BAD HABIT! No wonder it rolled. "Sickling" the ankle can lead to increased ankle sprains as the ligaments on the outside of the joint become "overstretched" with time.

Do you have any bad habits that could make you more susceptible? I'm correcting mine!

Here are some great articles to help you learn more about your feet and ankles, and ways to prevent foot and ankle injuries. As we move into the season of outdoor activities (not to mention Outdoor URBAN Boot Camp season), it is extremely important that you keep your feet and ankles in tip-top shape!

Sprained Ankle
Taking Care of Your Foot and Ankle