Running injuries

People run for many different reasons – fitness, weight loss, racing, or as part of their training for another sport such as football or hockey.  For an individual sport such as running, two major factors determine how well or how fast you run – your physiology and your biomechanics.

Physiology is all about how good your heart & lungs are at getting oxygen and fuel to your working muscles.  

Biomechanics, on the other hand, looks at how efficiently and smoothly your muscle and joints work – the more efficient you are the less oxygen needed per stride, thus the faster or longer you can run for.  Interestingly enough, getting your biomechanics perfected has another benefit other than enhancing your performance – the same biomechanics which make you go faster are also those which reduce your chance of developing a running related injury such as shin splints or ITB friction syndrome.

Our job as physio’s and massage therapists is to optimise your biomechanics (whereas you and your coach work together to improve your physiology by setting up – and sticking to! - a training program).  

Red Hill Physiotherapy & Sports Injury Centre has long been known for its expertise in running analysis.  In fact few other clinics place as much emphasis on this skill.  We consider that a holistic analysis of running technique is essential to identify any biomechanical faults that may be affecting performance or creating injury. The site of injury is often far removed from the site of the biomechanical fault.  For example, a common problem that many runners will have heard about is excessive foot pronation (where the arch of the foot collapses), which can cause the knee and hip to roll in as well, resulting in an unstable pelvis and extra pressure on the lower back and potentially resulting in lower back pain.  In this example, finding a long term solution to lower back pain would require the correction of foot pronation since this was the key factor in the chain reaction of problems.

All of our physiotherapists at Red Hill Physiotherapy & Sports Injury Centre are highly trained in the treatment of biomechanical running injuries or in enhancing performance by optimising your biomechanics.  They understand your needs as a runner and are happy to help you achieve your goals.