Back In MotionEltham

By Marty Ayres

Running is hard. Make no mistake, that’s probably why a lot of people don’t do it!
It’s also a lot of fun, and we know how to make your running a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable.

See below the amount of bodyweight (BW) force each of your muscles take when your foot hits the ground when running. I weigh around 80kg, so that can be up to 640kg of force through my Soleus (one of the Calves), 480kg through my Quads and 280kg through my Glutes!

Then if you consider your foot might hit the ground 160-180 times per minute, that’s a lot of load.

Image source: Sourced from the Instagram account of Dr Rich Willy @montanarunninglab

If you’d like to be a good runner you have got to condition those muscles ready for those forces.

More importantly, if you’d like to be a durable, uninjured runner, you need those muscles to be strong!

Your running muscles: Calves, Quads and Glutes are your engines.

Image source: https://darebee.com/workouts/glutes-quads-hamstrings-calves-workout.html
Image source: https://www.evo.co.uk/news/19565/ferrari-s-39-litre-v8-wins-engine-of-the-year-award

We want powerful engines for running, and we want them finely tuned, like how a racing car would want their engines before a race. Generally, we find that people build more muscle force by doing strength training than they actually do running. Strength improves the engine capacity, running just fine tunes the engine.

If you’re about to take your car out on the track, you want to have well-tuned engines so you don’t stop after lap two.

HOW STRONG?

It all depends. You don’t take a 2 stroke Go Kart down on the Freeway, but you also don’t need to be Dwayne Johnson to run either. We want to be balanced and prepared for the type of running you want to do.

Step 1 Equilibrium

If you have 2-cylinder engine in your left quad, but a V6 in your right quad, it stands to reason that the left engine is going to burn out quicker. The left quad muscle will get tighter and sorer and can lead to some knee pain. That’s the same in the calf or the glute.

We physios do our special tests to check your equilibrium and try to get you as balanced as possible.

Step 2. Big engine forces

We aim for our muscles to be fatiguing after 6-12 repetitions, so we need to add weight. As I said earlier, we have large loads going through your leg muscles when you run, but we don’t want the load so heavy that you have to stop before your 6^th repetition.  
If you can’t add weight, keep going until you hit fatigue. You might even make it to 25 calf raises in a row.

Strength is so important to the runner’s overall survival, which is why we always leave two days for strength work in your running week.

When do we fit it in?

We prefer that you don’t do your strengthening before a run, as you’ll be running on fatigued legs. Sometimes we’ll give you some activation exercises to “wake up” your muscles (e.g. your glutes) pre-run. However, exercises like heavy squats and then a high intensity running session could be a recipe for injury. You’ve already fatigued your legs and you’re pushing those muscle “engines” too far into the “red zone”.

In summary, no, you don’t just go out and run. You do some strength work too, and if you’d like to know which muscles, we are here to help and show you the way.

If you can pick one exercise for each muscle from the below list, completing them one legged, you’re already on your way:

• Quad: Step up, lunge, split squat
• Calf: Straight leg calf raise, bent knee calf raise, seated calf raise
• Hamstring: Arabesque, hamstring bridge, ball rollout
• Glute: Single leg deadlift, fire hydrant, donkey kick

Check out some examples of these exercises in action: