The glutes are a group of muscles around the back and side of your hip that make up your backside. They are responsible for creating some hip movements and for controlling your pelvis on your standing leg. There are 3 different glute muscles – glute maximus, glute medius and glute minimus – their names refer […]
When you’re doing a run training program for a marathon, you will have several run sessions per week, some of which will be long and take hours out of your day, giving you less time to dedicate to strengthening. However, you need to be strong to be able to withstand the increasing demand of upping […]
A nice analogy that I have found useful when teaching someone to pace their training is to consider training load in terms of alcohol consumption…bear with me. Imagine that you have been set a weekly target of drinking 14 pints of beer (or your favourite equivalent). If you were to decide to drink all 14 […]
Your body adapts to the loads that it is put under on a regular basis. This ensures that your tissues regenerate in response to the stresses exerted on them to enable them to withstand the stress better in the future. This is how we get stronger. When this process goes wrong we end up with […]
Acupuncture is the use of fine, flexible needles inserted into specific points of the body in order to stimulate the body’s natural healing. In many western circles the terms acupuncture and dry needling are interchangeable and are talking about the same thing, but their methodology and techniques are actually different. The term acupuncture comes from […]
What is DOMS, am I injured? DOMS stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, and it occurs as a result of exerting your muscles. When you do an activity that is new, or you are working harder or for longer than usual, the extra stress on the tissues of your body causes micro trauma. These are […]
Shockwave therapy is a non-invasive treatment in which a device is used to pass acoustic shockwaves through the skin to the affected area. This will encourage neovascularisation (the formation of new blood vessels) and tissue regeneration, which are important during healing and recovery. Shockwave Therapy can provide relief and advanced recovery in situations where the […]
Increased hardness of the ground, for runners that run off road, means increased ground reaction force and more strain for your body’s shock absorbers These shock absorbers include structures like cartilage, tendons, fat pads, bursae etc. The only way to take the stress off of these is with a preventative strike of your winter training […]
It is a common selling point when buying new trainers from a running shop to get your ‘gait assessed’ or your ‘foot posture checked’. These assessments vary depending on what equipment they have available. Some shops offer video analysis – this is a video of your feet whilst you are running to see what part […]
Getting your gait assessed in store when buying trainers is no bad thing if you have no idea what type of runner you are. But the rules they use to match you to a pair of shoes are very over simplified. They can guide you on what shoes may suit your running style but they […]
