Top Tips and Drills To Improve Your Running Form

Are you looking to improve your 5k or 10k performance? Or do you feel that you don't have enough pop in your ankles or kick in your hips? Well take a look at this video from Mark Buckingham, a member of the British Triathlon Team and TriGold squad to kick start some good quality movement patterns and improve your running form. 

Here are some additional tips for the drills:

Posture and the pelvis cues - "Hold your head high and your hips high". This stacks them nicely over each other. To prevent your pelvis tilting and overarching your lower back, imagine you're wearing a belt and focus on the cue "keep your belt buckle up" to keep your pelvis and spine neutral. 

Arms - With all of the drills make sure you're getting the most from your arms. Drive one arm forward whilst the other drives back making sure you combine this with the opposite leg movements to create more power. Keep the elbows bent to around 90degrees, trying not to let them cross over your body as you swing.

High Knees Drill (10 reps, 3-5 sets) - don't just focus on the knee lift but on the downward push of the foot to the ground. Land with a fore-mid foot strike and immediately drive the other foot down. This creates an increased hip extension torque. 

Heel Flicks Drill (10 reps, 3-5 sets) - as you can see in the video, there is a small knee lift so the heel comes from below and up to the buttock. This shouldn't be like a hamstring curl where the heel strikes from behind. 

High Skips Drill (10 reps, 3-5 sets) - focus on good spring through the push off. Combine with a strong opposite knee lift and arm swing. 

Side Skips Drill (5 reps each side, 3-5sets) - start slowly so you don't fall over!

On the hurdle drills it's fine to use mini-hurdles, or even no hurdles, just make sure you achieve good height with your knees. 

These drills are designed to help you develop efficient and effective movement patterns for running and are perfect near the beginning of your training session. If these are new movements to you, make sure you leave a day in between each session to allow adaptation and recovery from fatigue. They can have an effect on your neuromuscular system relatively quickly so aim for 8-10 sessions over 3 weeks and you should get some really positive gains.

I hope you enjoy running through these drills, and that they help you as much as the many other athletes I've had working on them. It would be great to hear how you get on via Twitter @SportsMedOsteo  

Tom Lowes B.Ost MSc (Sports Med)
Registered Osteopath - Sports Injury Rehabilitation

Twitter @SportsMedOsteo     

I've just injured my back - Do I need an MRI scan?

Aside from getting asked this question on a daily basis in clinic, recent press and media attention made me feel the need to give my point of view. 

MRI scans have in many ways revolutionised medicine and enhanced patient care. The newest systems provide detailed images of anatomy that even 5 years ago lacked true clarity. They've also become increasingly affordable to many, and even on Harley street it is now possible to get a scan for £200 if booked off peak. Unlike CT scans and XRays their direct action is safe, as they don't expose the patient to a dose of radiation. However, many respected voices in the medical world are warning that inappropriate use of MRI to get a low back pain diagnosis is actually harming the healthy (1). 

To understand the problem it's important to understand that most acute low back pain resolves within 4-8 weeks if good management advice and reassurance is given by a medical professional.

The guidelines are in essence:

1. Use non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication

2. Refer to physical therapy/physiotherapy

3. Avoid early MRI unless exceptional cases involving red flags

4. Avoid habit forming medication

5. Avoid early referral for injections or surgery

Ok, so what's the problem? Well, point three of the guidelines isn't being followed and this is leading to "overdiagnosis" of simple back sprains (2). These sprains are given labels like "slipped disc" and "degenerative disc disease" when really the injury is as benign as an ankle sprain. Let me explain further. A recent study (1) showed that in a normal pain free group of people given an MRI scan, 90% had degenerative discs and 30-40% had disc bulges, joint degeneration, and bone spurs. Just to be clear this is the pain free, normal group. The group that had pain related to pathology was tiny at 1-2% of the population. 

So if a medical professional advises an MRI scan and it comes back with "degenerative disc disease" you now have a label, in fact you have just been told you have a disease. This feeds anxiety and fear, creating what's called a nocebo effect. This is the opposite of the placebo effect, and describes any case where putting someone in a negative state of mind has an adverse effect on their health.

This asks the wider question: what are the boundaries that define an illness or pathology? And what is in fact normal and not going to cause longstanding incapacity? If the data tells us that 98% of people with acute low back pain alongside structural changes on MRI have just suffered a sprain, then we clearly need a more careful interpretation of these results. Definitively, low back pain should never be diagnosed from a scan alone.

Overdiagnosis as a concept may sound counterintuitive and many, many peoples lives have benefitted from appropriate use of MRI, but this final statistic delivers the strongest message: In America, people referred for MRI for routine back pain are eight times more likely to have surgery. Now that's a statistic worth changing.

Tom Lowes B.Ost MSc (Sports Med)
Registered Osteopath - Sports Injury Rehabilitation

Twitter @SportsMedOsteo       

 

Here's a great link to a podcast on this subject: Ray Moynihan 

Thanks to Karim Khan @BJSM_BMJ

1. McCullough et al. Lumbar MR imaging and reporting epidemiology: do epidemiologic data in reports affect clinical management? Radiology. 2012 Mar;262(3):941-6. doi: 10.1148/radiol.11110618.

2. Mafi et al. Worsening Trends In The Management and Treatment of Back Pain, AMA Intern Med. 2013;173(17):1573-1581

How Does Mo Farah Keep His Running Form?

Have a look at Mo's core strength routine designed by The Oregon Project 

If you click on the link below you'll be given an insight into some of the running specific core conditioning routines that Mo Farah and Galen Rupp use to achieve their success. Further down is the story of how The Oregon Project revolutionised the American athletic programs' training methods.

The main principles are to improve your spine and hip strength and control in order to give you a better base from which to drive your legs and arms.

Mo Farah's core routine

The Oregon Project was set up in 2001 by athletics coach Alberto Salazar who had a vision of how to resurrect the once dominant elite American distance athletes. It's goal was simple: to enhance performance whilst reducing injury. The strategy was to ensure that their athletes would not only win once, but again and again without breaking down.

Salazar believed that no athlete was perfect and if underlying biomechanics and movement deficiencies were improved, they could create a stronger more powerful and successful group. This revolutionary approach required a rethink of how an athlete was managed, so the project created a team that gelled elite track coaches with elite strength and conditioning coaches. Each athlete would undergo weekly assessment of their biomechanics, allowing any weaknesses and imbalances to be highlighted and then addressed with  newly designed running specific programs.

In more recent years, the project has become a training stable for some of the most celebrated athletes in the sport. An image that clearly encapsulates it's success comes from the closing stages of the mens 10k final at the London 2012 Olympics as Farah is seen clearing the finishing line to take gold with Rupp just a few strides behind him in silver. 

Watch Mo Farah's core routine and try and add all or some elements of it into your training to help you perform better during your runs and reduce your chances of injury.

Tom Lowes B.Ost MSc (Sports Med)
Registered Osteopath - Sports Injury Rehabilitation

Twitter @SportsMedOsteo