Reduce Triathlete Injury - Hips, Bricks and Transitions

If you want to try and avoid injury as a triathlete then here’s a stat that’s worth considering: 70% of all injuries to triathletes occur while running. Further to this, recent research has highlighted how in triathlon, the bike-run transition may increase the risk of leg injuries as it affects running posture. 

Before we talk about running off the bike lets think about what your lower body needs to do to achieve good running form. When we run, we need one leg to drive forward and the other to drive back, with each relying on the other to create power through this dynamic flexion/extension pattern. There is a reciprocal relationship between them. Most runners have less of a problem driving forward into hip flexion as the joint naturally allows this, but during hip extension there’s more of a challenge as we’re moving into the end range of the joint. The picture below is a good example of what you’d look for in strong running form. You can see that the athlete in the middle has enormous left hip extension and high right knee drive.

We know that cycling before a run makes it harder to achieve good running form. A recent study looked at a group of triathletes firstly just running, then running off the bike. The results showed that when running after a 30 minute cycle they had a more anteriorly tilted pelvis and reduced hip extension. Clearly we're going to struggle to get good form straight off the bike. Additionally, going into a race after sitting at a desk all week, typically in a flexed hip and spine position, won't help the overall picture either.

My advice to help your day to day tightness that occurs from sitting, is to stretch your hip flexors once or twice a day, using a kneeling lunge with gluteal activation (see video here).

To help the transition try standing for the last few minutes of the cycle. There is research showing that this helps by being more biomechanically similar to running than seated cycling. It opens the hips and spine more which logically you should benefit from. Also familiarise yourself with the transition through BRICK sessions (Bike-Run = ick) as this will create a strong training effect that will carry over to race day.

I hope this gives you some food for thought, and as ever feel free to contact me with any questions.

Happy racing.

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

Twitter @SportsMedOsteo