Tag Archive for: Physical Therapy

Running Course – New York, NY

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New York Marathon and other local races are coming up soon. Are you ready to help your runners?

Origin of Injuries

All hip, knee, ankle, back, quad, hamstring, calf injuries originate in movement. Poor movement pattern is a straight road to injuries. If your athletes or clients who participate in activities that involve running and have any pain or already have an actual injury, it is, in fact, caused by their current technique. Until it is properly addressed there is no way to heal the injury. No amount of Physical Therapy or training routine adjustment will help unless the root of the problem is addressed.

What’s commonly referred to as an “overuse” injury, should really be classified as an “incorrect use” or “misuse” injury. If our ligaments, joints, muscles etc are used correctly they can serve us a lifetime and usually do. However, when misused, they can only withstand so much and eventually get damaged. The good news is that it can be prevented and avoided. The Pose Method® Running Technique Specialist Certification provides the theoretical and practical information on how to achieve that.

Pose Method Certification: Running Technique Specialist

Sign up for the Pose Method Certification Course to be held in New York City during the weekend of May 20-21, 2017.

Sign Up Now

Moutain Mama: a Q & A With Single Dad And Full Time Adventurer Thomas Minton

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After I posted a couple interviews with single moms, readers responded. “I love what you’ve written about single moms, but what about single dads?”

So I sat down with Thomas Minton, one of the most inspiring parents I know.

Thomas is a physical therapist who focuses on running-related and sports injuries, a Pose Method Certified Running Technique Specialist, a USA Track and Field Coach, and a Red Level Bike Fit Professional. He’s also a single dad. Basically, Thomas is an all-around bad ass.

I was in the thick of it, working an office job for forty-hours a week and mostly raising a toddler alone, and Thomas Minton’s advice saved me. When my son was an infant, it was easy to tie him to me and go for a hike or run with him in the stroller. Once he started walking there was no containing him.

Thomas showed me how to turn a playground into a gym.

 

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About Thomas Minton

Thomas Minton is a Pose Method Certified Running Technique Specialist located in Asheville, NC. Click here to find out more about T. Minton and to contact him.

 

 

 

New running technique could help soldiers pass fitness test

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LANDSTUHL Germany — Army Sgt. Mia Lawrence detests running.

“I hate it, yeah,” she said during the classroom portion of a running clinic held here last month.

Lawrence, 25, was trying to tweak her running form with hopes of improving her time on the 2-mile run. She dreads this endurance component of the Army’s annual physical fitness test, which is required of all soldiers.

Lawrence and about a dozen other soldiers had just spent an hour on the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center track, trying to run in a way that felt awkward at first: shortening body strides, landing under the body on the balls of the feet, with feet under the torso, leaning forward and letting gravity do some of the work.

They were attempting the Pose Method, a running technique that its practitioners say can reduce injury and improve performance.

Such claims are appealing to the military, where injuries from running and fitness test failures from slow run times are costly and contribute to decreased readiness.

Some fitness experts in the Army, like Maj. Charles Blake, swear by it, which partly explains why the technique is gaining a foothold in military circles.

Blake, 45, a physical therapist and certified Pose running instructor who’s practiced Pose for about 10 years, led the running workshop at LRMC for about 45 Army and Air Force physical therapists, physical therapist assistants and technicians, and fitness trainers from around Europe.

“What I noticed when I started to train with this method, my heart rate didn’t get as high,” Blake said, referring to a time when he would run a few hours at a time and check his heart rate the next morning to monitor recovery.

“Mechanical efficiency leads to aerobic efficiency, which leads then to an overall (better) efficiency because I could recover faster and I could train more.”

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Here’s how to prevent runner injuries

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Research indicates there are about 54 million runners or joggers in the United States. This is great news for health and fitness experts, who recommend at least 150 minutes of activity a week for people to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Unfortunately, there is a darker side to this story. Injuries related to running affect up to 85 percent of runners each year. This is a problem of epic proportions when one considers that running comprises 30 percent of all sport activity.

Why are so many people getting injured? The answer involves technique — more specifically, lack of proper technique and training.

Running is the only sport in which technique is traditionally ignored on a consistent basis. Most coaches and athletes incorrectly assume running is a natural activity that everyone just learns without instruction. The injury statistics simply do not support this false assumption.

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About the Author: Thomas Minton, PT, Cert. MDT, CRTS is in Asheville, NC, and is available for consultations and technique training. 

The Dangers of Overstriding—and How to Stop It

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Want to run healthy forever? Start here.

It is well-known that 65-75 percent of runners experience an injury every year (1). This makes running a highly injurious sport, causing researchers to look into what factors lead runners to injury.

The list of risk factors is extensive but near the top is overstriding. Running stride is the distance from where your foot hits the ground back to an invisible line down from your center of mass (anatomically, this is the fifth segment of the lumbar spine).

Once this line passes a certain length, we consider it overstriding. Overstriding has been shown to increase stress on the body. Some people have enough strength to absorb the increased stress but many do not. Even with enough strength, it is not efficient to run accepting more mechanical load (stress) than is necessary to produce forward momentum.

But wait—it gets worse. The longer the stride, the greater amount of vertical displacement. This means the further out you stride, the higher you jump in the air and, therefore, the harder you land on the ground. Increased vertical displacement is another top risk factor in running injuries.

Further, overstriding leads to a straighter knee and a more aggressive heel strike which significantly reduces the knee muscles’ ability to absorb shock. The shock is then transferred to the knee menisci, knee joint and on to the hip and back joints.

Click here to read full article >
About the Author: Dr. Eric Schweitzer has been a Doctor of Physical Therapy for 14 years and is board certified in orthopaedic physical therapy. He is one of the few clinicians in the country that specializes specifically in running medicine including running injury prevention, running injury rehabilitation & running performance. Eric is certified as a Pose Running form coach as well as a certified manual therapist. Eric owns Premier Physical Therapy & Yoga in Clearwater. This is the only yoga studio in Tampa Bay where the yoga is guided by a Doctor of Physical Therapy. His other clinic, Premier Run & Fit, is a running specific physical therapy clinic inside a retail running store, The St. Pete Running Company. Find more about Dr. Schweitzer at www.PremierRunFit.com, Twitter: @RunTampaBay