A sneak peak from my upcoming online workshop series… This really puts into perspective the importance of what I do in terms of encouraging people to run with good technique, the reason being – FORCES!
Forces are invisible, and because we can’t see them, we don’t often quite understand the detrimental effect they have on our bodies. For example, when we hit the ground while running, Ground Reaction Force (GRF); the force that comes back up through our body when we hit the ground, travels through our bodies at a force of approximately 2.5-3x the force of our bodyweight. So, if we take a typical 80kg runner, then that translates to 200kg of force – PER STRIDE! That then works out at roughly 36,000kg of total force travelling through the body per minute – and how many minutes are there in a long run, or a marathon?
Now, we obviously can’t stop the effect that GRF has, no would we want to, because without it, everything would be pulled in towards the centre of the earth. However, what we can change (at least to a certain degree), is our bodily alignment. Let’s take the knee joint as one example of many – now you know the extent of how much force travels through your body over the course of a run, do you really want that pressure to be exerted through the knee joint while it is misaligned, worsening this issue? Well, most runners do run with either maltracking knees, (for example, because they collapse inwards, resulting in ‘knock-knees’), or a misalignment in other joints.
"Let’s take the knee joint as one example of many – now you know the extent of how much force travels through your body over the course of a run, do you really want that pressure to be exerted through the knee joint while it is misaligned, worsening this issue?"
Therefore, for the sake of our long-term joint health, maybe we should start considering fixing the alignment of the body, rather than learning to live with our dysfunctions by opting for quick workarounds – just something for you to think about…
