Accelerate Health

We’ve talked a lot about different types of stretches and how stretching helps prevent sports injuries. So, in keeping with the stretching motif, here are a 10 stretches for runners that address key areas of the runner’s body:

1. Downward Facing Dog. Downward facing dog (or “Down Dog”) is a yoga pose that every athlete should know how to do. It stretches everything from your fingertips to your heels. Start on your hands and knees and lift your hips to the sky, straightening your knees and relaxing back into your heels. Concentrate on lifting your tailbone to the ceiling and trying to get your heels to touch the floor, and resist the urge to push into the floor with your arms.
2. Standing Quad Stretch. This is a standard stretch for most athletes. Stand up straight and bend one leg to your buttocks, grabbing your ankle, pulling on your leg slightly to stretch the quad muscles. Resist the urge to lean forward in an effort to deepen the stretch. Instead, suck your abs to your spine and push your pelvis forward for a deeper stretch.
3. IT Band Stretch. While standing, cross your right leg over your left, reach your hands overhead, grab your left wrist with your right hand and pull up and bend to the right while pressing your left hip out. You should feel the stretch in your left IT band and down the left side of your body. Switch everything up to stretch the other side.
4. Psoas Stretch. The psoas is a deep muscle in your pelvis that helps keep your posture upright. The best way to stretch the psoas is to get down on your right knee with your left knee bent at a 90° angle in front of you – with your ankle directly below your knee. Now rock forward slightly and feel the stretch in your right pelvis/psoas. For an even deeper stretch, lift your hands overhead or straighten your back knee and go into the Warrior 1 yoga pose.
5. Standing Calf Stretch. There are two basic calf stretches runners use. One is to drop one heel off a curb or stair to stretch out the Achilles tendon and calf muscles. The more effective stretch is to stand a couple of feet back from a wall and lean forward, resting your hands on the wall and stepping one foot forward. This will stretch the calf muscle on the back leg.
6. Arm and Shoulder Stretches. Exercising or working in an office can lead to tight arm and shoulder muscles. The best way to stretch these areas is to clasp your arms behind your back, suck in your abs and bend forward at the hips while trying to bring your arms over your head and let your head dangle.
7. Plantar Fascia Stretch. Most runners have experienced mild or sever cases of plantar fasciitis at one time or another, and it can be very painful. The best way to stretch out this cluster of tendons is to take off your shoes and sit on your heels with your toes curled forward, so rather than sitting on the tops of your feet, you’re sitting on the balls of your feet. The tighter your plantar fascia, the more this will hurt. Try to hold this stretch for 30 seconds.
8. Hamstring Stretches. There are numerous hamstring stretches, but one of the best that you can do without assistance is called the “hurdler’s stretch.” Sit with one leg straight out in front of you and the other bent to your groin – so you’re sitting half-cross-legged. Keep your back straight and abs tight and lean forward trying to reach your shin, ankle or toes to stretch out your hamstring muscles.
9. Soleus Stretch. The soleus is a deep calf muscle that isn’t stretched by the standard wall stretch described above. To stretch the soleus, step your right foot forward so your heel is even with the toes of your left foot, but still beside it, not directly in front. Keeping your back straight, abs tight and feet flat on the floor, bend your knees like you’re trying to sit down on your left heel. You should feel a stretch deep in your left calf muscle.
10. Piriformis Stretch. The piriformis is another pelvis muscle that often causes issues for runners. To stretch this muscle, lay on your back with your feet flat on the floor. Place your right ankle atop your left knee and grab your left leg behind the knee. Keeping your left knee bent, pull your legs to your chest. You should feel a stretch in your outer hip area. The Pigeon and Figure 4 yoga poses also stretch the piriformis.

In the past three years, minimalism and minimalist running has become very popular, especially after the book Born to Run was published. Critics say minimalist running is a passing craze and provides no real benefit to running, but every major running shoe brand has come out with several models or entire lines of minimal running shoes. In this post, we’re going to look at some of the pros and cons to minimalist running.

A Brief Explanation of Minimalist Running
Minimalist running refers to wearing shoes that have less cushioning and less support than conventional running shoes. The whole idea of minimal, and barefoot, running is to return to the days of yore when we didn’t wear shoes and our feet struck in a natural manner. A natural foot strike occurs in your mid to forefoot region, not on the heel, like so many of us do.

Benefits of Minimalist Running
Proponents of minimalist running will tell you it’s the best kind of running there is. Here are a couple of the benefits to wearing minimalist running shoes:

• It teaches you how to forefoot strike. As mentioned before, it is natural for our foot strike to be in the mid- to forefoot area. This decreases the amount of time your feet are on the ground, and the less time your feet spend on the ground, the faster you will move.
• It reduces your risk of injury. Research suggests that mid or forefoot striking reduces your risk of injury because your legs are bent with your feet landing directly underneath your body, which reduces over extension and decreases stress on your joints.
  >> Read more about sports injury prevention.
• It strengthens your core muscles. All of the cushioning and motion control in regular running shoes causes the small balance and control muscles in our feet and legs to weaken. Minimal running forces you to use those core muscles again, making you a stronger overall runner and further reducing your risk of injury.
• Minimal running shoes are cheaper. Since there is less cushioning and no bells and whistles, minimalist running shoes are anywhere from $20 to $50 cheaper than conventional running shoes. However, the shoes do wear out faster. Regular running shoes can go for about 400 miles. A good pair of minimal shoes should last you around 250 to 300 miles.

Drawbacks to Minimalist Running
Nothing is perfect, not even minimalist running. Here are a few drawbacks to the concept:

• Heel strikers run fast, too. One local elite athlete, Patrick Rizzo, heel strikes, and he currently has a 2:13 marathon PR. So, forefoot striking isn’t the end-all to running fast. As long as you can turn your legs over fast enough, who’s to say which style is best?
• You will actually suffer more injuries. Here is where the old adage, “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” comes into play. Changing your gait and going with less shoe can lead to devastating injuries like calf muscle strains, Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis and stress fractures.
• Rocks are not your friends. You’re going to feel a lot more of the road or trail when running in minimal shoes. Sure, you may pay more attention, but one sharp rock that you fail to notice can bruise your foot and put you out of commission for a week or more.
• You’re still running on concrete. Everybody knows about the Kenyans who grow up running barefoot, and Born to Run is about a tribe in Mexico that runs barefoot on mountain trails all day long. The one thing people fail to take into account is these groups are running on sand or dirt. Concrete is a lot harder and much less forgiving, and many minimal or barefoot runners look uncomfortable and unnatural when running on the road.

So, what’s the main take away from this? Minimalist running isn’t for everyone. It has numerous benefits; we only mentioned the most important ones here, but, as with anything, there are some drawbacks. If you want to give minimal running a try, just ease into it and see if it works for you. And, as always, listen to your body and back off if something starts to hurt.

Until next time.