Why is a Running Analysis important?
Consider the level of force you are placing on your joints with all the running you do, at possibly 1 million steps per year, that is a great deal of stress of your body to withstand. Running is a popular sport and unfortunately running related injuries are very common. There are reasons for suffering injury and aches and pains and it doesn’t always need to be complicated.
Our Running Assessment will analyse the pressures through your feet as your run, the degree of rotation around the feet, knees, hips and legs and measure balance and postural sway when running. Our data also measures a variety of additional data relating to power when you perform particular running related movements.
Having the correct running shoe certainly seems to be important, however, there are many other important factors that should be included in running analysis which you don’t usually find when assessed in a running store.
There is sufficient evidence in the literature that suggests not all “pronated feet” (flat feet) are ‘bad’ and require correction. Therefore one could assume that just because the foot rolls inwards and gives the visual appearance of an over-pronated foot, we do not need to fix or correct this.
We need to dig deeper with analysis to truly understand what’s going on with your biomechanics. In running analysis it is important also to consider other parameters of gait, such as knee height, foot position relative to knee in sagittal plane on initial contact and throughout gait, arm swing and position, hip posture…
Our 3D Running Assessment analyses running gait by measuring the degree of rotation around the various joints of the body. We then sit with you to explain why and how you are overloading particular joint and muscle groups and work to alter your running gait to alter these measurements.
What does the Running Analysis entail?
- Step length and stride length
- Comparative loading times and positions of the foot during different phases of the gait cycle.
- The degree of motion around the foot, ankle, knee and hip at various stages of running gait cycle
There are clinical tests which are performed by clinicians to diagnose foot type and the degree of correction which may be required.
We assess and measure the degree of rotation around the ankle, knee and hip at various stages of running gait.
Specifically, as part of the running assessment, we measure the degree of ankle dorsiflexion, plantarflexion and inversion, eversion, knee flexion and extension and abduction and adduction, and hip flexion and extension, from foot strike and through-out the various significant points of the running gait cycle.
We devise a lower limb strength and flexibility programme for you in-order to enhance activity of the previously inhibited muscles, thus contributing to joint and muscle equilibrium.
This strength and flexibility programme works in combination with your personalised gait re-training programme.
As explained above, small changes in the position of the foot, ankle, knee and hip can be significant enough to result in changes in muscle activity and joint loading, therefore we can work to reduce stress applied to injured or over-worked tissue.
The running assessment – running analysis is important because it is the accumulation of abnormal stress applied to the same muscle group, joint or bone which eventually results in an injury.
For example, incorrect foot strike will alter the ground reaction force thus alter the position of the ankle, knee and the hip and the pattern of muscle activity around these joints.
Therefore, poor foot strike results in abnormal joint and muscle function around the entire lower limb.