Do you find there is something missing in your recovery from running or that you tend to pull up sore continuously from your runs? Have you considered that this could be due to your posture whilst running, or even an injury you have but have not yet been diagnosed? Or are you just wanting to improve your runs functionally? Here at Form Chiropractic we have extensive knowledge in Exercise and Sport Science and love seeing changes in our running clients!

Good running posture (or walking for that matter) is essential to optimising your whole body function whilst running. Not just to reduce potential risk of injury but to enhance breathing effectiveness, reduce tension on the shoulders, lower back and lower limbs.

To enhance breathing during running, posture is key. Do you find it is hard to get a big breath in or you are constantly getting stitches? Keeping the body upright rather than hunching forwards, relaxing shoulder down and back and having your head up so the eye gaze is in front of you is a nice way to set posture whilst running. This will allow your ribcage and lungs to be able to work at full capacity and is likely to help with breathing whilst running.

If you feel yourself running with an arch in your lower back, this would be limiting the function of your gluteus maximus - the biggest muscle in your butt! This could be caused by tight hip flexors pulling your pelvis into a forwards tilt or lack of core control which may be causing poor lumbo-sacral posture - hence the arch in your lower back!

Some home care tips to help

Stretching dynamically before a run to warm up the body. This could include things like

• Leg swings

• Squats

• Ankle circles

• Arm swings

• Shoulder rolls

• Neck lateral flexions movements

• Neck flexion and extension movements

Shoulder strengthening

• The Y’s

• The T’s

• The W’s

• The L’s

Glute strengthening

• Clams. Side lying, begin with your knees bent and touching, raise the top leg to open the hips and then lower back down

• Side lying straight leg raises. Next progression to your clams, both legs straight and stacked on top of one another, lift the top leg and then lower back to your other leg.

Posture pole

• Laying on top of the foam roller or rolled up towel with your head up, extend the arms open whilst keeping the knees bent for balance. Feel a nice stretch / open through the middle of the spine and chest / shoulders. This one is nice after a run!

Why chiropractic helps

Your Edgewater Chiropractors will help to assess your full body to see if any tension is being held in the wrong areas or to assess whether there is any injury. Chiropractic may be likely to help with improving range of movement throughout the joints, in particular the hips, knees and ankles. Also helping with allowing pain free movement, whether we assess and find this is coming from posture, injury or anterior pelvic tilt, the goal would be to improve function of running and allow for better recovery. Book online here to get assessed and get help with your running!

Alternatively email us at formchiro@gmail.com or call us on 0497 358 214

See you in the clinic or down at the Joondalup Medicare Park Run next Saturday!