Training With Dr.Romanov: RUNNING INJURIES Archives

RUNNING INJURIES

INJURIES: TO ICE OR NOT?
Icing was always a part of athletes’ life, but never to the extremes it is today. It almost seems to be the most recommended treatment for injuries, especially so in running. One can find heat application being recommended also, but not nearly as much as it should be and sometimes not for the right reasons. Icing or cold therapy with ice is recommended primarily for numbing the pain and reducing the swelling. Since pain is our body's signal that there is a problem and swelling is reduced by freezing the tissue, in reality icing does nothing more than masking... [Continue reading...]

HOW TO AVOID KNEE PROBLEMS IN RUNNING
The answer to this question is really a lot simpler than it seems, but still so many runners are plagued with various knee injuries. Today we answer this question for you, hoping that you will benefit right away and continue running with pleasure instead of pain. So, how to avoid knee problems in running? First, you have to understand the correct role of the knee in running and, second, use the proper running technique. Just think, if you don't know how to use something and don't understand the intended way of using it, there is a strong chance that you... [Continue reading...]

HEEL-STRIKING IS THE WORST WAY TO RUN
With various running styles available these days, it is now common to hear forefoot, ball of foot, midfoot (still can't digest this one since midfoot is actually the arch of the foot and it's not possible to land on it, but hey, I guess such mental imagery can help some?) or flatfoot striking recommended over the heel striking style. So, today, let's talk about what we can safely call "the worst way to run" - heel striking style. Before we go any further, let's state what the problem with heelstriking is. Majority of runners are heelstrikers and running is associated... [Continue reading...]

ANKLE SPRAIN
It is quite a frequent injury in runners, and not only the beginners, or amateurs, but in elite, as well. It happens during running on an uneven surface, on trails full of rocks, roots, hidden holes and at a sudden change of surface. Most often ankle sprain goes laterally – outside, damaging ligaments and tendons of the foot, which could take a runner out of activity for quite a long time. In severe cases it could last a month or longer. But the most bizarre thing about ligament and tendons is that they keep this memory for a very... [Continue reading...]

INJURY - RECOVERY AND MORE INJURY
"I have not been able to run for almost three months now with the ball of foot pain, sort of like a neuroma. I went to a physio and the thoughts were that it is not a neuroma and not a stress fracture. It remains a medical mystery. I had severe pain under the second metatarsal joint and paralysis of that toe. The whole thing started with a lot of arch pain and then settled into that extreme metatarsal pain. I have minimal arches to start with. The fifth metatarsal is also a bit sore, but not nearly as extreme."(Lynn)... [Continue reading...]

RUNNER'S KNEE
Running injury know by the name "runner's knee" is an injury with the pain located on the tendon below knee cap. This tendon attached to the knee cap and to the knee extensor muscles - quads. This injury has highest rate in running community and goes up to 35 % of all injuries among runners. Originally this kind of injury was associated with high jumpers and called "high jumpers knee", but because runners over numbered with occurring of it "priority" with the name was given to them. What is the essence of this injury? Mostly it is the pain in... [Continue reading...]

SHIN SPLINTS IN RUNNING
According to the dictionary (1), shin splints is a term used loosely to describe an "over-use injury characterized by dull aching pain, associated with exercise, felt along the shins, either to the inside or outside of the main shin-bone ("tibia"). Shin splints in medical terms are called: "posterior and anterior tibial bone strain and fibular bone strain"(2). With some sense of humor T. Noakes in his book "Running Injuries"(2) wrote:" In the 1900s, before the running revolution, there was really one running injury. As long as you were a runner, and you hurt somewhere between the big toes and the... [Continue reading...]

PAIN IN ABS
First of all, I would like to state that pain in low abdominals is a very unusual thing in running, if it is not related to something like flexing the body by lifting your legs or the trunk. I think that pain is the result of some improper movement, which means that a specific muscle group was involved in improper activity, which could have been wrong timing or a response to the request of more activity than they could handle. To continue with this line of logic, we should think of why could the abdominal muscles be involved in any... [Continue reading...]

MORTON'S NEUROMA
Q: I am interested in trying your technique. I have been bothered by neuromas in my feet . Does your technique work if you have neuromas? It appears that your technique would put more pressure on the forefoot? Thanks for your help. John A: A neuroma is a swelling of a part of a nerve caused when the nerve gets pinched. In the foot it is called a Morton's neuroma, an interdigital neuroma, or a plantar neuroma. It usually affects the nerve between the third and fourth toes or, less often, the second and third toes. The swelling, or neuroma,... [Continue reading...]

INJURY FREE RUNNING - Continued
So what do we have to do to get our running injury free? If we understand that neither "special" shoes nor any "helpful" equipment can help us in this endeavor, what can? I have only a trivial answer, well known for a long time. It is your own skill and lots of work. Hard work is well accepted in the running community, but that's not what I mean. We need a special work to develop and perfect our running skill, where technique is just a part. Running technique is our material base for developing our skill of running, but without... [Continue reading...]

INJURY FREE RUNNING - The Alluring Promise And the Disillusioning Truth
I was forced to write on this topic by my daughter Lana, who felt that we were leaving this area in a shadow, in an equivocal, illusive state, as if it's something that people can handle by the way, by some magic trick, pill, new shoes, equipment, overnight change of something or by some "simple" formula, etc. I could continue this list forever, but I guess you get the idea. The underlying ground for our discussion should be an old saying, "there is no such thing as a free lunch", which I often heard from my good friend, a very... [Continue reading...]

HAMSTRING INJURIES
Hamstring injuries happen mostly in short running distances and sprints. Nevertheless it is a common injury for long distance runners as well. Anatomically the hamstring muscles are representing a group of muscles of the posterior thigh, consisting of the biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus. Hamstrings are major extensors of the hip and strong flexes of the knee. Biceps femoris is the most lateral of the three hamstring muscles. It has a two-headed muscle with the origin of its long head on the ischial tuberosity, and the origin of its short head on the linea aspera and distal part of the... [Continue reading...]

PLANTAR FASCIITIS. Prevention.
Prevention of the plantar fascia problem is not an easy task because of the anatomical location of the tissue. This tendon is right on the cross section of all forces acting upon the body and is involved into, practically, any movement of the body. It is difficult to isolate it from the movement in order to give it some rest or reduce its work in any way unless we are not doing it for the whole body. Nevertheless, it is possible to prevent the problems by sticking to some simple procedures: Learning and perfecting running technique on a constant basis... [Continue reading...]

PLANTAR FASCIITIS. Treatment.
Any treatment should consist of several necessary parts, involving different aspects of human organism functions, such as mechanical, physiological, psychological, mental and spiritual. Successful treatment usually includes all of them as a holistic approach, in which, according to ancient Chinese philosophy, we should treat not the injury, but provide for healing of the person as a whole. Modern medicine, unfortunately, compartmentalizes treatment and "rationalizes" it to just anatomo-physiological problem solution, in which a person, with his/her mind, concerns, fears, way of movement, almost doesn't exist. Then, everything reduces to just tissue treatment, leaving the rest behind, out of touch.... [Continue reading...]

PLANTAR FASCIITIS - Description and Cause
Description and cause. Treatment. Prevention. This injury is considered a common complaint among runners. By some sources it affects only about 8% of runners, nevertheless it seems to be a very well-known injury for most of them, which is confirmed by Pose Tech Forum discussions. Thus, we return to the topic again. Modern medical community doesn't support our approach to solving this problem by changing one's running technique and neuro-muscular patterns. Instead they offer some conservative treatment with cortisone shots, pills, different kinds of physiotherapy: massage, exercise therapy, etc. Another option is surgery. Though they use the word "prevention" in... [Continue reading...]

PAIN IN THE BALLS OF THE FEET
This topic quite often appears on the Pose Tech forum. Pain in this area appears to be a byproduct of learning the Pose Method. Runners complain about this discomfort attributing it to the new technique. The situation is quite the opposite - this pain comes because of deviation from the proper Pose technique. What lies at the bottom of this problem? First of all, this is the part of the foot which was never before used in such a manner. So, obviously the load on the balls of the feet is increased significantly. It would be OK, if the load... [Continue reading...]

PAIN IN RUNNING. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Chuang Tzu defines pain as "the penalty for violating the principle of nature". And what is the main goal in nature? - Survival. How does it apply to biological systems? It works through fear and pain, where soreness is an early warning, helping the body to recognize danger, necessary to avoid in order to survive. Pain is confirmation of our fear, it signals us that we are doing something wrong and need to stop and change something. Certainly, fear could appear even without any pain, just in anticipation of getting it, and prevent us from any activity in this direction.... [Continue reading...]

PLANTAR FASCIITIS
Is one of the most frequent injuries in the running field and probably most uncomfortable, because of its location. The plantar surface of the foot sole is very vulnerable for different kinds of impacts during support time in running. The nature of impacts is overloading by one's own body weight or gravity, which the body weight represents. The mechanics of overloading is very simple. In some cases, it is resisting to the body weight going downward to the ground during support, when plantar muscles and tendons perform as a part of the chain of resistance. It means that the ankle... [Continue reading...]

CALF SORENESS
Calf soreness very often appears at the beginning of the learning process in the Pose Method and bothers the runner around 2-3 weeks while he is adapting to the new neuro-muscular coordination and to the regime of muscle loading. Is it possible to avoid these negative consequences? This is a constant question I am getting from our website's running forum and standard clinics. The fact of having muscle strain is the first indication of getting DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) syndrome, which appears 12 to 48 hours after exercising and is characterized by tenderness and stiffness of muscles. The... [Continue reading...]

ITB SYNDROME, IS IT A PROBLEM?
When I say at Pose Tech running clinics that my students do not have this problem, I usually get something like: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep talking". It is really difficult to get people to accept the fact that this is not fatal - to run and to not have any negative consequences. As I see on our website's Running Forum, ITB syndrome is a hot topic, which means that lots of runners went and may still be going through this unpleasant experience. And I really want to help these people who were deprived of running. As probably most of the... [Continue reading...]

BACK PAIN IN RUNNING
This a common problem for many runners and very often with no solution except for the unlikable one - to get off of running to get healed. But your solution is inside running itself: you have to run proper. What exactly does it mean? First and foremost: do not work against gravity. Do not pound the ground with your heels Do not push the ground off with your legs The next important point is the body position in relation to support. If your body is not aligned along the straight line going through the shoulders, hips, and forefoot on support,... [Continue reading...]

BRUISE INJURY
QUESTION: Help! I am signed up to run my first marathon (thanks to Pose) in 2 weeks and I've injured my foot. I woke up early yesterday morning to do my last 20+ mile run before the race. I was running in the dark and I stepped on a stick in the trail. The stick had a broken branch leaving a nice stub pointing upwards. The point went into the bottom of my NB 230s (thin sole) and poked me REALLY hard just behind the ball of my foot. I went on for another mile to see if I could... [Continue reading...]

ACHILLES TENDINITIS: what is the problem?
Our Running Forum again raised the hot topic of “Achilles Tendinitis”, a common injury of lots of people, especially runners, which deprivates them not only of pleasure of running, but also influences their entire life. They spend a lot of money, time and efforts to cure themselves from this painful injury to be able to continue doing what they love to do, and what saves them from stress and helps them to keep their healthy lifestyle. But in many cases traditional medicine fails to help them and even after costly surgery they are still not able to resume running. Many... [Continue reading...]