How does working my entire kinematic chain increase my run performance?

01/23/22 • 12 min

By now you may have read one of my weekly posts or multiple of them where I talk, educate or discuss some of the common injuries that beginner or novice runners may experience. Recently I went live 3 days in a row where I discussed one of the most common injuries a majority of people are complaining about or suffering with, Shin Splints. On the second and third day I talked about how working the entire kinematic chain will be your key in helping you resolve this problem.

Let me break it down for you.

Running is a single leg sport which means each leg needs to be able to work independently throughout the entire gait cycle. The gait cycle starts when one foot makes contact with the ground and ends when that same foot contacts the ground again. Once you understand the term gait cycle then you can begin to have a better understanding of how to resolve the problem.

This is something I addressed which is to have a gait analysis done or have a professional like a running coach or physical therapist or sports medicine doctor who works with runners review video of you running from the back and the side. Knowing if you pronate, supinate, have high arches, flat feet, if you hinge forward in your run, how the heel strikes the ground or which part of your foot strikes the ground first will give you answers on how to make the necessary changes to prevent an injury from setting in. This will also provide you with better insight as to which running sneaker will be best for you.

Finding your muscle imbalances, compensation patterns or weaknesses before strength training. This is another key component. Reason being if we start strengthening muscle groups before addressing the imbalances then we are going to create more compensation patterns which could lead to more injuries down the road.

So this means looking at the muscles that surround our core, our hips, our thighs and our lower leg. The importance of flexibility and mobility work prior to strengthening the muscles. This piece of the puzzle I think gets overlooked. Knowing when to stretch, the type of stretching to do (passive, active or resistance) helps improve our run. Which then can aid with mobility of the entire kinematic chain along with the use of some soft tissue work. This helps with increasing speed, pace, stride length and overall enjoyability of the run itself.

If you have any specific questions about how working your entire kinematic chain will benefit your run performance, drop a comment below 👇

Check out this video on Ankle Strengthening Exercises

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Let me break it down for you.

If you have any specific questions about how working your entire kinematic chain will benefit your run performance, drop a comment below 👇

Check out this video on Ankle Strengthening Exercises

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Support the show

Previous Episode

Shin Splints - Why do they cause so much trouble?

Have you ever suffered with shin splints? ✋

Throughout the whole Pandemic and even now, Shin Splints seems to be the #1 problem people are asking about. Their question is “how to fix them”. For some the answer is simple because the initial course of action is to rest, ice, compress and massage out the area. But for others these little muscles come back with vengeance making one believe that their shin splints will never go away.

Not sure if you caught what I said above but I did say “muscles”. There are two muscles that can cause shin splints which is why it is important to determine first if it’s an anterior shin splint or a posterior shin splint. Even though the initial course of action may be the same regardless of an anterior or posterior shin splint, it’s the course of action you take after that initial phase. This will also play apart in your running gait.

So what do I mean by that 😕

Having a gait analysis done at your local running shoe store will add great value, insight to what is happening when the foot strikes the ground. This is why it becomes important to know if we pronate, supinate, have reduced dorsiflexion of the foot or if we are a heavy heel striker. Now here is where the gait analysis plays an even greater role in understanding how to rid yourself of shin splints. By watching someone run, we don’t just look at the feet, we look at the pelvis, the hips, how the upper leg and lower leg are moving throughout the entire run cycle. This helps us in figuring out why the shin splint is recurring.

Understand that shin splints are an overuse injury because many times we do increase our intensity, our mileage too quickly but it doesn’t mean nor should it mean that you can’t continue to run. If you have specific questions about your shin splints, leave a comment below 👇

Shin Splints Part 1

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Next Episode

Why is proprioception work so important for a skier?

Now that ski season is in full swing and we are gearing up to hit some of those all time favorite spots. Let’s make sure your bodies are truly ready to handle the conditions of the mountain. I have written some posts on ankle strength/mobility, the importance of balance training, understanding the need to have strong hamstrings in addition to your quads and having upper body strength as an important need especially in case you were to encounter a fall. But if we were to put this all together we begin to understand why proprioception work is so important for a skier.

What is proprioception?

Proprioception, sometimes also called kinesthesia, is the body’s ability to sense its location, movements, and actions. It’s basically a continuous loop of feedback between sensory receptors throughout your body and your nervous system. Proprioception is the body’s ability to receive input through receptors in the skin, muscles and joints, and transfer the information to the brain through the nervous system so that the body can sense itself.

Something I should point out as it relates to skiers and snowboarders more here....Kinesthetic awareness is the conscious effort to react to the situation, whereas proprioception is an unconscious or subconscious brain process.

Take an example of a skier moving through different types of terrain; the skier’s body acts subconsciously to stay upright while their mind processes the upcoming terrain of bumps, trees, and steeps and makes the appropriate adjustments. The light bulb should have gone off in your head because now it would make sense why balance, single leg and plyometric exercises would become an important addition to your pre/post-season training program.

When dealing with injuries or injury prevention, we need to focus on the whole chain, the whole kinematic chain. How the foot/ankle move affects the forces at the knee which then affects the rotation patterns at the hip which then affects the relationship between the pelvis, sacrum and lumbar spine.

Several studies have shown that athletes with better proprioception are less likely to sustain ankle sprain injuries. Which again is why this is an important style of training that should be added into everyone’s training programs. Balance training programs are known to be effective, apparently through enhancing neural processing of sensory signals. Another strategy is to enhance those sensory signals. Athlete’s footwear (ie. sneakers or ski boots) substantially impact their performance through sensory feedback. Hence the reason why you might want more Ankle Flex in a ski boot (see my prior post on Ankle Flex).

So you might be thinking what are some

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