Carnegie Sports Physiotherapy Clinic

Running Technique Service

• Struggling with recurrent injury?
• Feeling like you have reached a performance plateau?
• Feeling like you are putting too much effort in for too little gain?
• Would you like to learn the skills to improve your running technique and running economy?

• Would you like to improve the consistency of your training and make potential performance gains?

The ability to race or train well, even with good physiology, can all be hampered by injury and poor running technique, leading to an athlete failing to get the best out of themselves.

At CSPC we see runners with bad habits which affect biomechanical efficiency of their running style. We have retrained many runners and athletes to run in a more efficient manner and it must be remembered that it is NEVER too late to begin to address your technique.

What we do
By watching you walk and run, the staff at CSPC will identify aspects of your technique that could be fine tuned to improve the efficiency of how you move.

It may be as simple as adding some stretching or strengthening exercises into your training or addressing some more technical issues such as your arm swing or posture. This can dramatically reduce the stresses placed on your body.

We find that athletes may develop a different technique after sustaining an injury, or develop particular ways of running due to the demands of other disciplines within their events (i.e. triathlete) and that to some, running just doesn’t come naturally and the runner is self taught, and their natural running style is perhaps inefficient or likely to increase the chance of injury.

Assessment of technique

Having worked with runners for many years we have identified common areas of strength and weakness. The following could be recognised:

• Forward head carriage,
• poor posture,
• failure to use the feet well,
• foot striking position,
• poor drive and use of gluts, hamstrings and calves, poor arm swing,
• reduced functional stability
• poor breathing technique,
• over striding,
• lack of drive through the feet,
• inability to move well through the spine,
• “sitting” running technique,

• Feet crossing midline

Making Technical Gains and Improvement of Running Technique

Technical gains can be made using this service. Running is not just about strength and flexibility. The way in which an athlete moves when running is vital to efficiency, injury prevention and maintaining good form.

What happens after identifying areas of improvement?

You may be taught running drills tailored to your needs, which can start to address areas that could improve your running style.

Running drills are one way of changing and fine tuning running technique, and can also be used for warm up or for rehabilitation after an injury.

Benefits
Running action can be broken down into its component parts and built into drills which can be used as active warm up exercises designed to make you more effective at recruiting the nerves and muscles that make you run well and move economically.
This may also prevent loss of form at the end of a race, potentially enhancing your competition performance, even when tired.
They also help to prevent deterioration of technique as athletes get older and get injured. At CSPC we also use drills to rehabilitate athletes back from injury, and they can form a session in themselves.

Improving running technique may also reduce the risk of injury, which can mean greater consistency of training, helping the athlete to become fitter and stronger and therefore may ultimately improve race performance.

We have seen sprinters and endurance runners alike achieving PBs by adding in drills to their program, or by fine tuning the drills they are already doing.

Booking
If you are interested in having your running technique assessed by one of our team then please call to book your session on 0113 275 0606.

The session is 1hr and is tailored to you and your needs.

Services

Specialist Services