Thursday, June 12, 2008

Sore Knees

A few weeks back my knees started bothering me. I attributed it to needing new shoes and kept running. Any time I'd run more than 5 miles they continued to hurt so finally I went into Triad to kept them checked out. Kirk videotaped me running and then hooked it up to the computer through a combination of slow-motion and some specialized software, he was able to diagnose the problem.

The amazing part was, it had nothing to do with my knees. It turns out that the upper body plays a huge part in running efficiently and correctly. I'd always wondered why sprinters have such huge upper bodies, which Kirk explained was because of how much they use their upper body for speed. Kirk showed me how my arm movements were throwing my hips and spine off kilter for which my left leg was compensating for. Kirk gave me a bunch of odd exercises to retrain my arms to move correctly with my run, which should in turn fix my knee problems.

4 comments:

Jon said...

So it is because you run like a girl?

Unknown said...

I think girls actually run better than me.

Ken said...

I have always held another theory as to the reason for your sore knees....

Dan said...

Surprised that you didn't go to your chiropractor to have them fix your problem