- I'm not sure if you've ever seen any video
of yourself running, but sometimes what we think
is going on and reality of how we're actually running
are sometimes two very different things.
Let me explain.
(upbeat music)
My name's James, I'm a sports rehabilitation therapist
and a running coach and it's my job
to help you run strong and run injury free.
Now today I want to talk specifically about running form
and I want to talk about a very particular
part of running form, and that's how this leg comes through
underneath you through swing phase.
So the trail leg coming through onto the next stride.
Lots of people have asked me over the years
in terms of something they've noticed
about their particular running form
when it comes to a tendency to either
flick the leg out a little, so flick the foot outwards
as they come through onto the next stride,
or indeed what we sometimes see,
which a tendency for the foot to flick across the midline
and almost kind of fishtail across the body
as we're then coming through onto the next stride.
Now let's deal with those two situations one by one
and understand what's going on.
(gentle upbeat music)
So let's start out talking about the foot
that has a tendency to flick out for some of us.
Of course, we've all got a picture in our mind's eye
of how we'd like to run, this nice kind of linear pattern,
really kind of smooth and efficient
and everything going forwards in straight lines.
Now of course, that's not always necessarily the case,
that's not always what happens,
especially if you've a tendency to perhaps
have not great control of adduction
and internal rotation at the hip.
What do I mean by adduction and internal rotation?
Well adduction at the hip is coming towards the midline
and internal rotation is rotation
in towards the midline as well, so medial rotation this way.
If we don't control those two movements
when we're weight bearing, that looks like
this collapse inwards of the knee.
But of course, we're talking about non-weight bearing,
we talking about swing phase here,
which is more likely to look like as the leg comes through,
the knee drifts in towards the midline.
And as the knee drifts in towards the midline,
again what we see, adduction here,
internal rotation in terms of where the thigh
goes in that transverse plane, that rotational plane.
And if you look at what's happening to my foot as I do this,
as I rotate inwards, the foot's gonna flick outwards.
So what we need to do is strengthen
those external rotators and abductor muscles,
so the opposite muscle groups
to the direction we're falling into,
and that is those glutes in particular.
So there are lots of exercises we can do
to start strengthening your glutes, particularly focusing
on frontal plane and transverse planes,
so side-to-side movements and rotational movements.
So exercise is like single leg fire hydrants,
with a resistance band around your knees
to exercises like our crab walk exercise,
resistance band crab walk exercises
would be fantastic for strengthening the muscles
that will help you keep your leg
in a nice, smooth, neutral pattern coming forwards,
not excessively internally rotating or adducting
because you'll have better control in that frontal plane
and transverse plane as the leg's swinging.
Okay, so the big thing to remember
is that if there's no history of injury,
if there's no pain involved and it just,
you're looking at this just because it's less pleasing
to the eye, perhaps someone's commented
on your flick of the leg outwards,
if there's no pain, no injury, there's no problem.
Okay, there's no one best way to run.
There are various things that we can all be aware of
in terms of improving form in general terms,
but just because you flick the leg outwards,
you know what, it's not the biggest problem
as long as it's not causing you injury elsewhere.
Okay, so not let's take a look
at the opposite movement pattern
or what we see in terms of the flick across behind you
as you're running, the tendency a lot of the time
as people are coming through, particularly to this point
of toe off, so the point where we're in terminal stance,
we're about to start the swing phase
where rather than coming off the ground
and swinging through nice and straight,
what happens is the foot peels off the ground
and we actually flick across the midline
and then swing 'round in this kind of
almost circumductive type movement pattern.
So what I mean by that is that because of the way
in which in the first few stages, first few moments
of swing phase, the foot comes across
where you're set up to swing out around
rather than through straight.
Now this is actually very little to do
with the foot and ankle.
Far more to do with what's happening around the hips.
A lot of the time we see this pattern
where instead of the runner being able to extend
nicely through the hip to the adequate degree
for the pace they are running,
and see a little bit of rotation through the pelvis,
because we need a little bit of rotation
through the pelvis as we're running
and we're coming forwards on the opposite leg
onto the next stride, we see a lack of extension
at the hip here because of perhaps
tightness through the front of the hip,
through those hip flexors, and what happens
is because of the lack of hip extension,
we bail out by rotating the pelvis moreso.
And as the pelvis rotates moreso,
we get this effect
of almost compensated hip rotation,
here this external rotation here at the hip.
Let's see if I can show you from behind.
We get instead of stay nice and linear,
back and forth, we almost see
that as the pelvis rotates out,
we rotate out with the hip and naturally
that sets us up to flick across,
and again I'm exaggerating here,
but flick across before we can then
swing the leg through underneath us.
So we set ourselves up
for this circumductive swing,
which often ends up
with a little bit of a crossover gait as well.
So a lot of the time actually it's to do
with what's happening on the hips.
We need to get into a lot more hip flexor mobility work,
so be that standing hip flexor mobility work
where we've got one foot up on a stand
and we're working into, again, a bit more
kind of iliopsoas type flexor mobility work
or we're getting down into our classic
half-kneeling hip flexor stretch
where we're working more on rectus femoris.
Either way, we need to make sure we're squared off
with the pelvis, that everything's facing forwards
rather than the tendency to bail out
as we see from so many people.
Okay, if your tendency is to bail out
in that transverse plane, that rotational plane,
bail out here, then probably not just running
that you're doing it, it's probably
in all sorts of exercises
because of the lack of back and forth,
stand still plane mobility through those hips.
So hopefully that helps to understand what's going on.
Hopefully that helps to appreciate
why the leg's flicking behind you
or flicking out to the side.
Of course there are always exercises you can work on,
whether it's mobility work, whether it's strengthening work,
but just know that as long as there's no pain,
there's no injury associated with it,
it may just be the way that you run.
I hope you found this video helpful.
Of course, if you did, please consider subscribing
as we've got lots more videos to do with running form
here on the channel, in fact, I'll leave a great video
for you to watch next right over here.
Okay, see you soon.