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Running Repairs – a guide to successful running

One of the great things about running is that it doesn’t require any special equipment or gym membership. A bog standard pair of trainers, you really don’t need to be spending £100+ on shoes, shorts and a t-shirt and off you go. Unfortunately, running injuries are ridiculously common.

The big issue that is often forgotten about is, and let’s be honest, running is hard work.

Running at a moderate pace you are looking at 1200-1500 steps in a kilometre.

On an easy run, the forces that we absorb are around 3 times body weight on each foot strike. Or around 320,000kg, strictly speaking, it’s 320,00N but we’ll stick to a measurement we can all relate to.

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Golf And Back Pain

Golf and back pain don’t quite go together like bread and jam but back pain in golfers is common. One of the biggest reasons for back pain in golfers is an inability to generate sufficient force into the ground. In fact, it’s not just the ability to create this force but to maintain it through the swing that is the big factor.

Golf is a sport of extremes in terms of movement. There isn’t really another sport that requires you to maximise your rotation in the manner golf does. Any kinks or flaws will reduce your ability to rotate. Continue reading “Golf And Back Pain”

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Practising what you preach – graded exposure and progressive overload in rehab

I injured myself in mid November last year. Nothing serious just a mild grade 1 tear in vastus lateralis, one of your quads, when doing some heavy squats. I took it easy for a couple of weeks and gradually worked back into things. I then tore it again in the first week in January! To say I was not happy would be an understatement.

 

man squatting

What went wrong?

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Avoiding injuries – Why hit it hard and go home isn’t always the best idea

It’s that time of year when flushed with the desire to get back to it after a bit of a break over the festive period can result in you getting injured. Avoiding injuries is paramount to any kind of sustainable progress, even more so as we get older.  Given that you are always likely to pick one up at some point it rather than fire back into things after the holidays it’s a far better idea to ease yourself back into things.

I did this myself November and wasted about 3 weeks of training, though thankfully no injury. I say thankfully as I was coming back from a slight quad tear. It took me 3 weeks to realise that I needed to adjust things down. The rest period I had just had was on the back of having peaked as well as the quad tear. As a result, I had the general deconditioning that occurs after a rest period plus there was the normal drop in performance from the peak itself.

injured athlete

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Training equals Rehab

Training equals rehab, rehab equals training is a phrase that was coined by the American physio Charlie Weingroff. For me, the phrase means that rehab and training do not stand separately from one another. They are a continuum that blends seamlessly together. Parts of the rehab process sit at one end of the spectrum and parts of standard training are at the other the rest sits in the middle being neither one nor the other. Properly progressed rehab should resemble basic strength training and properly performed strength training has an injury preventative aspect. Continue reading “Training equals Rehab”