Do you love running but hate the beating your knees and lower back take? The average runner strikes the ground with 7 to 8 times his or her body weight, and pushes off with 2 to 3 times body weight. That's a lot of impact for your joints to absorb! But don't put away your running shoes just yet--with these few simple tips, you can dramatically reduce the impact on your joints and enjoy running on pain-free joints for hours.
Instructions
1. Hit the trails. Paved roads, concrete sidewalks and other hard surfaces only increase the impact on your joints. If you don't have access to trails, try to find a gravel or dirt road outside of town and run on these softer surfaces for at least 50 percent of your total weekly mileage.
2. Shorten your stride. Extending your legs out too far in front of your body means that you'll be striking heavily on your heel and sending that impact straight up your leg to your knees and lower back. Try to keep your feet directly below your body or just slightly in front. This will keep you from hyperextending your legs.
3. Hinge forward at the hip. Running should feel like the perpetual act of falling forward, meaning that you should be slightly hinged at the hip. This will push your momentum forward and bring you up on your toes a bit more, again helping to alleviate a heavy heel strike.
4. Stretch. After your run, be sure to loosen up your muscles around the knees and lower back. Focus on stretching the quads, hip flexors, gluts and erector spinae muscles. For a list of great post-run stretches, visit Footworks Miami (see Resources below).
5. Use ice, not heat, after a run. Muscles hurt after a long run because they are inflamed, and adding heat to an inflammation only makes it worse. You want to constrict the blood vessels, and the way to do this is with ice. Heading for the hot tub is NOT a cure for sore muscles! Heat is most effective before a workout as a means to warm up the muscles. See eMax Health for more details on when to use ice or heat (see Resources below).
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