How to reduce knee pain when running

I recently posted about 3 approaches that are commonly used to reduce knee pain that don’t work, at least in the long term. But what can you do to reduce knee pain when running?

The first step with any injury/pain is to reduce the amount of the activity that brings it on. In the case of acute injuries, tears, and sprains, this is pretty obvious and initially, this will likely be that the activity is reduced to zero.

This won’t be zero activity just zero in terms of anything that is likely to stress the knee and surrounding structures whilst you go through rehab. As things improve it is ok to have knee pain when running so long as it isn’t a lot. More on that later.

What about more chronic pain or one that has come on slowly? Things like ITB syndrome, runners knee, PFP or similar problems.

The first port of call is to reduce the activity, in this case running, to the point where there is no knee pain.

To begin with this might still be zero but only for a very short period of time and only in the most severe cases. Outside of these, we need to find the combination of duration and intensity that can be done regularly that doesn’t make things worse.

 

Continue reading “How to reduce knee pain when running”

Training Lessons From Kenny Rodgers

I have to say I have a bit of a soft spot for Kenny Rodgers “The Gambler” it’s a bit corny but reminds me of hearing it on the radio growing up.

Twice this last week in my training, I have had to fold them, both occasions on a run. One I wasn’t too bothered about the other was a little disconcerting.

Last Friday I was doing my second run of the week which includes two blocks at 10k tempo pace. This week the goal was 2 blocks of 10 minutes. All was going well until minute 9 of the second block when I could feel my form significantly deteriorate so I stopped. Continue reading “Know when to hold them, know when to fold them…”

Pain is a strange beast

Pain is a strange beast with so many different things affecting how you perceive it. It is, therefore, no surprise that most do not realise that it is primarily simply a warning that something might have happened.

Yes, pain doesn’t tell you that you have injured your self only that you might have!

How can this be I hear you ask?

Like many things, it’s all about context. There are conversations I have with friends that would be entirely inappropriate to have with others. This is because the shared, 40+ years in some cases, history isn’t there. They know I’m joking etc when it at first glance doesn’t sound like I am etc.

Pain is very like this. How you perceive it is based a lot on your own individual history. All your experiences, both in relation to painful events, both emotional and physical, illness and general social support, what you do for a living and more go into how you perceive pain. Continue reading “A total pain in the…”

I was away on a course at the weekend and boy did I miss my own bed! The course itself was amazing, return to play protocols for the lower limb if you are interested, but one of the things it highlighted was the effect of a lack of sleep has on performance.

Continue reading “The importance of sleep”

 

 

 

 

 

Plantar fasciopathy is a problem with the plantar fascia. The plantar fascia is a band of strong, thick connective tissue that spans the base of the foot from the calcaneus, your heel bone, to the toes. It plays a large role in increasing the strength of the arches of the foot, tying the bones of the foot together to prevent them collapsing under your weight.

Continue reading “Plantar fasciopathy – a pain in the foot.”

With such a wide range of amazing scenery on display Scotland is a great place for running be the events on the road or off road. There are races the cover everything from the flat expanses of East Lothian to highest peak that Scotland has to offer and everything in-between.

So suffice to say whatever type of race takes your fancy you are likely to be able to find it somewhere in the country.

 

 

Continue reading “The 5 best races for runners in Scotland”

It’s around 12 weeks to the Edinburgh Marathon and 6 weeks to the Edinburgh Great Run so many of you may be in full training mode preparing for them. To help with your preparation we are running a special offer through March where we are reducing the price of our block booking offers to £215 for 6 appointments and £110 for 3 appointments, full price for 6 appointments is £270 and £135 respectively.

In this workshop we cover some of the basics of training the core such as correct bracing strategies/abdominal engagement through to more advanced exercises and progressions for more familiar ones such as the glute bridge, plank and side plank, bird dog. The idea behind it is to both teach you how to make your training of this area more effective and to show you it doesn’t need to be either complicated or take hours to complete.

The workshop will run on Saturday 7th Feb at 13:00 and the cost is £25.