3 Main Ways Runners Lose Energy ⎹ 142

In todays episode we break down where the biggest compensations happen during the running gait cycle and exercises you can do to fix this. This will not only allow you to have a more efficient stride but also decrease your risk for injuries. 

Next week I will be opening the doors to the Complete Runners Club so you can have more intermediate to advanced strength workouts for runners. Starting in August we will be preparing for fall races in the 12 week race prep series.

Transcript

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Welcome back to the Rehab for Runners podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Lisa. Today we're talking about how you can become a faster and more efficient runner. We're gonna do this by looking at where you are wasting your energy. There's two ways. Sorry, there's three ways, three common themes where runners are, I call it wasting their energy. You could think of it as like an energy leak. This is where those compensations happen, where we're putting, you know, too much force, too much power, too much energy into movements that don't necessarily help us. This could be because of areas that are weaker. This could be because of movement patterns, but it really comes down to these unnecessary movements that don't necessarily help our running. This is important because I don't know about you, but Richmond, where I live, Richmond, Virginia, it is hot as heck out there. It is hot, it is humid. I do not want to waste an ounce of energy where it does not need to go because those quote easy effort runs are not so easy in the summer. And you really like I'm sure you feel the same way, but it's like at the end of a hard workout, the end of a longer run, you want to feel like you could keep going. You don't want to feel like you wasted, or not necessarily wasted, but you used every last ounce of energy possible to get that run completed. And it's it's like you don't want to be running on E. You want to be an efficient runner, you want to be a strong runner, you wanna feel fast, you want to feel strong, especially at the end of those runs. So there's three ways we're gonna go about this. Let's start with number one. Now each stride has the opportunity to store and transfer energy efficiently, or it's gonna leak energy. And that's where you can see the hip drop, the collapsed gate, the scissoring gate, so many other compensatory strategies. We would be here all day if I listed them all. So if you want to feel stronger at the end of your run, then the first thing you need to address is what we call the stack. Now, the stack is very common in like the lifting um world where you're focusing on what are you doing when you're breathing, what are your ribs doing, what is your pelvis doing, and it's super important when you're running too, because you don't have time to think about these things when you're running, nor would you want to think about these things when you're running. I want you to think of the stack though, like if your stack is off, and I'll explain what the stack is in a second, but if your stack is off, your breathing's gonna be off, and your entire upper half and lower half are gonna be off too. So, what the stack really is, is what is happening at your shoulders, your pelvis, your rib cage, your hips, and your pelvic floor. Now, if you think about a runner who is maybe leaning to one side or has hip drop in their leaning, or maybe they're super rounded forward, or they're really, really tall, looking like forest gump running, all of these things are going to so I want you to think of a stack as like what is happening at the trunk and the pelvis and the hips and the shoulders. They should all be stacked over one another so that they don't cause too much compression in one area or too much expansion in one area, because that's gonna change how you're breathing. For example, right now I have a four-month-old who loves her mama, which I love obviously, but she only wants her mama, and therefore I hold her a lot to say the least, and that means that my posture is absolute crap, and that also means that I struggle now to get a really deep inhalation because my mid-back is so rounded forward. I'm also breastfeeding, but my mid-back is so rounded forward, my abs are so engaged, my ribs are like collapsed down. It is my whole breathing pattern is off, and I can tell that it's off because I feel the tightness when I try to take a deep inhale, and therefore my stack is off. I have like this like clinched butt mom back going on right now, and it feels horrific. But I can feel because of how my rib cages tilted forward almost, or almost like a rotated, you know, it's like the pump handle, what we call the breathing, is it's forward. My mid-back is so rounded, so there's a lot of compression happening, and therefore, there's a lot of compression in the front of my body, and therefore, there's a lot of expansion in the back. So, again, like it's throwing off my breathing, it's throwing off the way that I'm lifting, it's throwing off literally every single movement because my stack is off. And yes, this means that my core is off. My core is not gonna be as strong. So I'm going to address this by addressing my breathing first with breathing exercises, and therefore, that's gonna address what my diaphragm is doing, what my pressure is doing in my trunk. It's gonna address my lumbar extension position, it's gonna address my pelvic position. And this is important because if I'm not able to have this strong stack, I'm gonna see excessive movement at my hips or not as much movement at my hips, depending on, you know, the person. I'm gonna see a pelvis that is rotating a little bit too much or not enough. I'm gonna see a low back that's compensating because my hips are stiff, and I'm gonna see more muscular effort in places that don't necessarily need extra effort, because this is, you know, the core, really what I'm talking about is like what you would think about as the core needs to have this really efficient movement pattern in order for the strag to be strong and the arm swing to be strong. So if you think about when you are strength training, you think about when you are deadlifting, if someone has a pretend like you're overarching your low back, your butt is sticking back, your stomach is sticking forward, your ribs are now flared up, that is going to affect how you're using your glutes, how you're using your hamstrings, how your breathing is, what's happening at your pelvic floor. So that is the first place that I usually look at when someone is injured, especially with hip pain, especially with um low back pain, because usually there's excessive movement or not enough movement in certain places at the hip and the low back. So that's the first place to look at. The second part of the energy leak is basically the runner is not able to control rotation. This so sometimes I see that they're not rotating enough, like if you have stiffness into rotation, and sometimes I see that rotation is just a hot mess and it's really uncontrolled, and you're not able to actually like go through this rotation happening at each joint in an efficient pattern. So I feel like I feel like too, whenever I talk about rotation, it's like it's it's almost like obviously like when we're running, we are moving forward, but we cannot forget that each joint is rotating. We cannot forget that the muscles and tendons, when they contract, they rotate. There's always rotation happening. It's just how much can you control that rotation? And rotation is also one of those things where it's like if you practice rotating in your strength training, you are going to see the biggest difference in your running, just as a little heads up, a little um tip there. There's a book called Injury Free Running, and the author is Tom Mashad, and he he talks about this a lot in the book, and it's basically like there's no research behind it, which is fine because not everything, in my opinion, needs to have research behind it. When you know I was in PT school, it was very evidence-based practice. Part of it was research, part of it is what you observe in the clinical setting, what patterns you pick up in the clinical setting. And that's kind of where this idea falls into, and that's that a very underrated way to decrease your risk for injuries, especially in the hips, is working on a lot of rotation. Because so many runners can't get into internal rotation of their hip, and that can cause issues in the knee and the foot and ankle. That's where you see a lot of over-pronation. It's also where you see a lot of weakness in the glute because if your hip can't rotate into internal rotation, it's not going to have a strong external rotation because the glutes have to lengthen in order to have that strong contraction. Internal rotation is really where the body stores the energy at the foot and ankle. This is known as pronation. And then as you push off the ground, that's where external rotation comes from. That's the propulsion part of the gait cycle. You're pushing off the ground, that's where supination at the foot and ankle happens. So it's a game of storing energy and then releasing energy through internal and external rotation of the entire lower body. This is not just the hip, it's the entire lower body. So if one part of the body, and this is usually in the lower half, is stiff or can't control rotation. And one of the most common themes of this is when the hip goes into way too much internal rotation, it collapses, the knee collapses inward into internal rotation. This causes, you know, you see the knee cave in, but you also see the hip kind of poke out to the side. Then you also see the shin bone or the tibia rotate into external rotation. There's like a pretty large curvature of the calf on the outer part, I see. And then that causes or can cause over pronation at the foot and ankle because it's all a compensatory pattern of what's happening from the hip. So that's your body's way of that compensation is your body's way of keeping you in this like nice alignment. That's not so nice because it's throwing everything off. That's where things can feel like, you know, maybe the weight feels like it's more on the inside of your arch, but the outside of your foot, that's where bunions happen. So we really want to be able to control this rotation. So if you're only, so say you feel like that, I felt my leg like that. It just felt like a rotated mess when I had ITB syndrome, IT band syndrome. And when you are in this like rotated mess, I'll call it a rotated mess because that's really what it is. Then that is where a lot of this energy is lost. It's lost in this excessive rotation that's happening. You want rotate, it's, you know, it comes back to that theme I always talk about where it's like you want to have a controlled amount of a certain movement. You do not want to have too much. Too much in the energy world is usually not great, and too little in the energy or in the running world, not the energy world. So I guess it could be in the energy world too, but too much in the running world is also not great. We want that middle ground. So when your lower extremity is in like way too much rotation, it's affecting your foot, how your foot hits the ground, your ankle, your knee, your hip, up to your pelvis, your trunk, your opposite arm. Running is all about rotation. And we don't necessarily want to like get rid of rotation. We want to be able to manage the rotation. So this is this is really important. So one way you can work on this is just add in rotation during your strength workouts. I'm not talking about like every not every single movement needs rotation where you're like actively rotating, but you want to be able to add in some rotation so you can work on controlling the rotation. And the third place that a lot of runners waste energy is with their pore push-off. This is that triple extension, your leg is pushing off the ground, you should be into that hip extension, knee extension, planar flexion, and big toe extension. So it's definitely more like a quadruple extension. And one way that a lot of runners will lose this, because this is important. This is where you are like, you know, springing off the ground. This is where you're releasing the energy, you're moving forward. And when this is not efficient and you are losing energy here, this is where you're gonna see a loss of speed, or not necessarily like it could be a loss of speed, but it also might be that it's really hard for you to pick up speed, or it's really hard for you to run faster. It's hard for you to hit your running goals with that are associated with speed. And I think that one reason behind this, and one big way that like runners lose this energy leak, is this movement pattern where they're going into, you know, the the triple extension piece is a timing piece too. It's not just like, hey, can I get into the knee behind the hip and the plantar flexion and the knee straight and you know the big toes and extension? Like that's great if you just look at that snapshot of someone's leg behind them when they're running, but it's a timing piece too, because the hip has to extend before the knee extends. This is a huge energy leak because if the knee is extending first and then the knee goes behind, so if the knee is straightening and then the knee goes behind the hip, it is going to cause the low back compensation where maybe now you're overarching your low back. It's gonna cause the glutes to not be as strong. That's where a lot of runners feel like, quote, their glutes are not turning on when they're running because they it's almost like they don't have to. The hamstring is taking over, the hamstring's kicking on before the glutes, but we want the glutes to turn on before the hamstring. So you have to practice that hip extending before the knee extends. That's really, really, really important. I can't emphasize that enough. So, um, in order to do that, one way you can do that is my favorite exercise in the world because the more I learn about running and the more I learn about the body, the more I love this exercise. And that is a single leg hip hinge. It is simple, but it is extremely effective, and most runners do not do it correctly. So, in order to do a single leg hip hinge correctly, I want you to think about a couple things. I don't want you just going through the motion and lifting the heaviest weight and feeling it in your low back or feeling it only in your hamstrings. This is a major glute exercise when it's done correctly. So there's a couple things I see that go wrong. One, if you are doing a single leg hip hinge, like I want you thinking like the back leg is on the ground. So it's almost like a kickstand position or a B stance position, which means let's say my right leg is on the ground and my left leg is behind me, I want you thinking my left leg behind me just has the toes on the ground, but I could easily lift up my toes at any point during the exercise. So that means that there's not a lot of weight on my toes. I am not putting, when I'm hinging back, I'm not loading that back leg. That is a huge mistake. The other mistake, because when people load that back leg, their weight on the front leg goes to their heel. We want the weight when you do a single hip hinge, kickstand hinge, I want you to think that the weight is where your laces are. They want to, I want you to keep the weight over your laces. Otherwise, if you lean back as you hinge down, you're like loading your heel and you're loading the back leg, and that's not the point of the exercise, really. And it's also not going to help you, it's not gonna teach you how to load your glutes. So make sure the weight is over your laces. And the second huge mistake, and this is how you can really feel your glutes. Like if you want a glute exercise, do this exercise. You have to keep your knee bent at that slight bend position. So I'm getting into this thing, I'm about to do my single-leg hip hinge, my knee is slightly bent to start. I am not going to bend and straighten my knee as I go down and up. I'm not doing that. No. The way you do this, because then you're, if you think about that, you're teaching your body to extend your knee before your hip goes into a hip extension position. So that's not what we want. What I want you to do instead, you're gonna slightly bend your knee and you're gonna maintain that knee bend the entire time throughout the exercise. You are only straightening your knee when you come out of the exercise and you have finished your reps, you've finished that set. That is the only time you're extending your knee. Other than that, slight bend in the knee as you go down. You're not bending it more, you're not straightening it at all. As you come up, you come all the way up and your knees stay slightly bent. Your glute will be on fire. Try that exercise. It's huge. That's gonna completely shift the way that you think about a single-legged hinge, but it's also gonna teach you that movement pattern of hip extension before knee extension. That's how you're gonna use your glutes more when you're running. And these are just like when I'm talking about these energy leaks, they're just poor compensation, they're they're compensations, but they're also poor movement patterns. So there's a couple different, you know, things that are going into this. So to recap, number one, you're working on the stack. You're working on your rib cage, you're working on pelvic floor, you're working on your breathing. That's really, really important. The second thing is you're learning how to control your rotation, you're learning how to accept your force because internal rotation is a downward force. It is the bottom of a squat, it's the bottom of a deadlift, it's mid stance during gait. It's how you are accepting the force. So you're working on that internal rotation and external rotation. And then step three, you're learning how to push off the ground efficiently with the correct movement pattern and move forward. And that is how you are gonna become a super efficient runner. And also you're gonna prevent injuries because now you're gonna not go through all these compensatory patterns. All right, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Next week, I'm gonna release an opportunity. If you are ready for strength training for runners, if you want, you know, I have the runners complete program, that's a great place to start. But if you're looking for more intermediate, I would say to advanced um strength workouts for runners, I'm gonna release the opportunity for you to join my Complete Runners Club membership. I don't always open the doors for this membership because it has been um, it's there's a lot of people in it. There's a couple hundred people in it, and it's a really effective way for you to continue working on running specific movement patterns, working on the stack, working on the rotation, working on pushing off efficiently. And it's almost like if you took the runners complete program and now you're going through the next steps, the next progression. That is exactly what the Complete Runners Club is. I'll post how you can join next week. Keep an eye out for that because doors are going to also close. I'm only going to keep them open for a couple days. So just keep an eye out for that, and I'll talk to you next week. Bye.