These photo’s were taken of me at a meet about 2 weeks ago, and I was shocked by the amount of external hip rotation that I have during my running. I’m guessing it’s from having strong external rotators and weak internal rotators and It’s probably decreasing my efficiency by quite a bit so I would like to fix it, if it will help.
What should I do about this? should I work on strengthening specifically de internal rotators?? work on it by focusing on it during drills etc…???
I don’t think strengthening the internal rotators specifically will do much to fix the problem. What concerns me more is the backside mechanics in the last frame. Maybe someone else can comment.
My feet point out no matter what I do. Even walking. It suckssss. Kills my acceleration especially. I go side to side all over the place. In a 55 dash im probably running 58 meters. and everything I have attempted to do has not corrected it. Some say it may be a muscle imbalance between the semi tendonous membrane and bicep femoris part of the hamstrings and doing GHR’s with feet close together may help. We just got a GH bench this week so. Lets hear what others say.
don’t bash yourself up too much!!! these photos don’t tell the whole picture so don’t be too worried.get a video clip instead of your running
The last picture looks like: a lot of heavy squats and not enough streching the quads and especially the psoas -> not enough extention in the hips.
That way you seem to absorb all the force you could bring to the ground with your backside, but it’s only one pic from the side and maybe I’m wrong - more pics from the side could tell more.
I have to admit that the last picture is after the finish line so it probably isn’t a good indicator, but since I have the National Dentistry students meet on monday (as in 3 days time I’ll get a friend to record a video side on and load it up on quicktime where you can see stuff frame by frame)
As for the strength issue you mentioned AUT, I don’t do a lot of squatting at this time, actually I haven’t squatted for a couple of weeks. With regards to psoas flexibility it could be really right though!!!
I’ll get photo’s and video as soon asap!!
Thanks everyone!!
Your arms seem to come across your body when you run, could this affect it?
Pete Egoscue links external rotation to tight Psoas:
How’s your flexibility side-ways?
Are you doing any such stretches?
Not entirely true. Usually a tight psoas is involved, but other tight pelvic girdle muscles are also involved. Why are they tight? Because of compensation (the muscles are working in the place of muscles that aren’t engaging in the activity). So in addition to lengthening the psoas etc. you need to make sure the body has other options to go to in the future in terms of muscle usage (to not tighten up those muscles again).
From Pain Free I would suggest trying the exercises for externally rotated knees (knee pain chapter). They are designed to release those tight muscles while also doing some rewiring work with muscle recruitment. Or the condition I exrecises from the other book.
Ahgchile, also one thing to consider is that running with that form is not very efficient. You are wasting a lot of energy to side-to-side movement instead of focusing most of the energy going straight ahead. So correcting those muscle imbalances is going to impact your form and speed also.
I address the problem to Fascia Lata/ITB and Biceps Femoralis.
Probably pirfiromis, but the photo isn’t good for understand this.
Do you use orthotics?
Looking at your feet in the pictures and from personal experience you may have tight pirformis (sic) muscles (i.e. glute area). I once had similar problem, but had it corrected in a single massage treatment. Have you tried that?
Guys…the one apparent thing i see when looking at the pics is the external rotation. But, where is the ER occuring? It seems everyone is assuming it is femoral ER that is causing the footstrike problems. However, i’m not completely sold that femoral ER is the problem here. Take a look at pics 4 and 6 (starting from the left). Ther does not appear to be an excessive amount of femoral ER, but ther foot is still rotated out. This could possibly be due to tight IT band or a tight biceps femoris, both causing the tibia to rotate laterally. Any thoughts?
Yes - if it is tightness that is the issue - I would be thinking pirfiromis and glutes - but again photos don’t tell the whole picture.
But certainly concetrate on stretching and restoring flexibility before strengthing.
Thank you all for all your advice and help, so far I’ve been stretching my glutes a bit more, and have been focusing on keeping my legs moving forwards without moving outwards, whilst doing my drills and training. On monday I ran the 100 in the National Dentistry Students Meet and I won, however the good thing was that my girlfriend (of about one week… hehehe I’m still high on this) who is also an athlete and has been training a lot longer than I have and brought this leg rotation to my atention mentioned that I wasn’t rotating the legs as much.
Today in training my coach said the same thing, I was running 150’s and he said that I looked much better than I usually do, I assume it’s because of the extra attention I’ve been paying to my leg movements.
I’ve been stretching out my glutes, a lot more, and I have to admit that from the runs on monday I’m sore where I’m not usually sore, specifically adductors (those are the ones on the inside of the leg right?? hehe) and middle back.
I’ll try and post a better reply tomorrow because it’s late and I have class early tomorrow
cheers and thanks to all
I have also realized from the photos that I’m bringing my arms too far across my body and that leads to my head bobbing from side to side by the end of the race.
Ok, point 2 is that tomorrow I’m running in the national university meet tomorrow (equivalent to National NCAA’s but the level is nowhere near NCAA level here in Chile athletes lose their level in college!!! most of them anyway) despite my not running in the 100 I’ll try to get someone to video tape my run, hopefully on the 1st straight so you guys have something to watch.
Thanks all and Cheers
Ok guys I finally got video so you can go ape watching analyzing and advising cos it is most welcome.
http://www.udeportes.cl/secciones/atletismo/alek2.m2v
you can download the video there it weighs quite a bit, but you can se me running an 11.82 against the wind and the two guys on either side running in 11.28 and 11.29, you can se how my feet hit the ground pointing out like a duck, hopefully you can all help me with this.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Oh and I don’t wear orthotics, I don’t get massage and I stretch every time I train, but I don’t have a fixed stretching routine.
ahgchile,
One word: Ouch!!! It hurts to even look at. I mean with that amount of compensation going on in your body you are an accident waiting to happen. I would strongly recommend you stop sprinting until that is fixed. Only do tempo and conditioning.
How to fix that…there is no magic bullet like going to a massage therapy or taking a pill. Man, you gotta work your ass out…yeah by yourself. Now go get that Pain Free book and get started.
I can’t really buy any books, it’s kind of a bad time of the year for me to scrounge up some money, but I’m gonna work on flexibility should I attack this from a tecnical viewpoint as well???
Anyone have any suggestions for drills or anything???
Looks like a week posterior chain to me, especially glutes, rather than flexabilty.
How is your flexabilty? What is your form like when you do A-Skips etc, do you have the same problem?
I just think the body is compensating for a weekness. Look how your legs are bent during the support phase (to reduce the moment arm?). Also note the lack of knee lift and triple extension that should occur at toe off, you can compare this to the guy to your right who has good form.
Also you foot strikes the ground directly below your centre line, rather than each side of it as it should be. This is limiting the amount of force you can generate so this could be another cause of the problem.
Can anyone elaborate on this?
Does anyone care to comment on the video, any suggestions??