Christien came to see me as she had heard about my Biomechanics Screenings and wondered if I could help her.
She had been running for a while and when she decided to move up from running 5kms to half marathons she started to experience injuries. She has successfully ran 4 half marathons despite the occasional niggle but since 2015 she hasn’t managed to get to race day due to various injuries. This was very frustrating for her and at the time I met her she could only run for 5km before feeling pain.
She had some pelvis pain, lower back pain (right side) and had also been experiencing knee and sometimes ankle pain (also right). She had been to physiotherapy in the past but she had never managed to properly shift these pains.
As I always do with my new clients I remind them that I don’t treat pain but we could work together to improve her movement and we made a goal for her to get back to running 10km.
In our first session we did a full screening (part of which can be seen in this video)where we screened her pelvis, back, shoulders, knees and feet. There were definitely many areas I could guide her to improve upon.
We started with 2 exercises to work on how her pelvis moves and within a week of seeing each other we could already see there had been improvements. She reported she had run twice for half an hour (less than 5km) with no problems.
Week 2 she started working on her back and on some strength work for her pelvis (now that it was moving better)
When she came back on for her third session she had run for 45 minutes (7km). It had gone well and she noticed she had hardly felt her ankle either. So after 3 weeks she was happy with the improvements and she was sent home with more homework including stabilisation of her core to help keep the good work in place.
Week 4 she wasn’t so happy with her running, she had become a little bit over enthusiastic on a lovely day and increased her speed and distance a bit too much. Her pain returned after that. The day before she hadn’t even achieved 5km before she felt pain. This shows the up and downs of getting back to running.
By the 5th time I saw her her screening showed a marked improvement in her movement. We were now adding more and more strength work that she was doing religiously (the perfect client) but she was nervous to go over 5km. Around this time we reviewed what she had done and decided to slow down how quickly she would increase her running to 0.5km per week. It may not seem much but given how long she had stopped running a few more weeks to get where she wanted to get to was worth it.
Now we are monitoring once a month. She is in a better position, so I provide a strength programme for her to complete herself at the gym. She has hit 9,5km at the time of writing this blog and is happy to be back on track.
Does this sound like you? Are you frustrated with niggles and pains that hold back your running? Please send me an email to meet up for a chat about how I can help you.
Author: Lorna Wilson
Like what you see? Then send me a message or e-mail. We can meet up for a chat and find out how I can help you improve your training and help reduce injury risk.
06 460 377 74 / lorna@wilsonsworkouts.nl
