If you love running and yet get knee and ankle niggles you may find something useful in here.

I’ve learnt from one of my clients who loves marathons and running that he has knee and ankle issues and niggles as well as spinal ones including whiplash from skiing.  I actually could work out some of his issues by giving him resistance on the stationary bike. A reason I use the bike is that for many people with knee niggles resistance on a stationary bike helps people develop stronger knees. I also notice the way in which they use their feet on the pedals. If the toes go down I know that they primarily run from their toes using their calfs predominantly rather than using their glutes if I were to seeing them pushing the heels down more.

 

From this my gut told me to get him on a hill walk to hill run on the treadmill. Step 2- the reason being that I want him to run and to walk more from the heels and less from the toes so that he runs and walks more efficiently by using the big muscles and proper positioning and use of the glutes and the spine   giving him better health, performance and energy and efficiency.

Step 3 from here I wanted to try interval training so better use or speed with recovery rather than running at a comfortable pace inefficiently.  He gets pain from sprinting in the knee and as I’ve seen this many time from athletes and triathletes and clients I realise he needs pressure in his itbands and adductors to help him relieve pressure from the muscles around his knees enabling him to feel better from his knees.

Step 4 is what I call the kung fu panda which is one leg foot balance with the eyes closed so it engages the ability to feel each foot and it’s function and usually their calves, shins and glutes get super engaged. This also helps with everything from the muscles of the foot to the stability of the ankles and calf muscles and shins to the legs and glutes and lower back to the core and spine and chest shoulders and back all the way up to the neck.

Step.5 is single leg deadlifts without shoes to get him to balance on one leg and the other leg in line with his spine and neck while getting parallel to the floor, what this does is gets him to use his leg and spine while his other leg is engaging in strength, poise and balance which is a useful movement to condition and give extra skills for People who invest and enjoy and want to do well at running without injuries.