Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights_ - Alex Hutchinson [35]
So far, on-the-ground studies such as one from 2003 that followed 844 runners preparing for the Vancouver Sun Run 10K have failed to find any association between running surface and injury rate. That doesn’t mean no relationship exists, just that it’s more complicated than we initially suspected. One thing we do know is the principle of specificity: if you do all your training on one surface, your body may not be adequately prepared to run on other surfaces. So don’t prepare for a marathon by running only on grass, and don’t prepare for a backcountry trail race by running only on roads.
Do I run “wrong”?
In some ways, running has more in common with basic functions like eating and breathing than with more technical sports like golf or swimming. As kids, we learn to run with no special instruction, just as our ancestors have for millennia. Still, it’s clear that some people run more smoothly than others. As a result, an industry has emerged promising to teach people “correct” running techniques like the Pose Method or Chi Running.
Two questions arise. First, is it possible to change the way you’ve run all your life after a few weeks of workshops? And second, does it do any good?
Though there’s a shortage of long-term research in this area, the answer to the first question appears to be yes. A 2004 study by researchers in South Africa put 20 runners through an intensive one-week program to learn the Pose technique, which aims to place the body in an S-shaped pose as each foot hits the ground. Sure enough, running with the new technique produced shorter stride lengths, less vertical oscillation, and less power absorbed by the knee. Whether these changes are maintained—and eventually start to feel “natural”—has yet to be tested.
The second question is more controversial. You can imagine that the reduced load on the knee might translate into fewer injuries, though that wasn’t demonstrated. The problem is that these forces don’t simply disappear—they’re transferred elsewhere, in this case to the ankle. In an interesting postscript, one of the scientists involved in that study, Ross Tucker, revealed in 2008 on his blog, The Science of Sport, that 14 of the 20 runners in the study suffered from calf or Achilles tendon problems in the two weeks after the study ended.
In 2005, another study of the Pose technique, this time at Colorado State University, confirmed once again that runners could learn to use a shorter stride length with less vertical oscillation. This time, eight volunteers were given 12 weeks of instruction, and their running economy—a measure of how much oxygen is consumed at a given speed—was measured before and after. The result was a statistically significant worsening of running economy by about 8 percent. There was one interesting anomaly in the Colorado State study: the only subject who improved his running economy happened also to be the least experienced runner in the group, and he started the study with the longest stride. One possible conclusion is that the other, more experienced runners in the study had already developed optimal stride patterns based on trial and error, which is why they got worse when they tried to learn a new technique. The more general conclusion is that the Pose method is good for some people and bad for others.
Some researchers are looking at simpler interventions, like taking shorter, quicker steps. Bryan Heiderscheit, the head of the University of Wisconsin’s running injuries clinic, noticed that the less-experienced runners among his patients were overwhelmingly prone to “overstriding”—reaching too far forward with each step so that the heel comes crashing down well in front of the body. “As they make the transition from fast walking to slow running, they tend to keep the long stride and low step rate,” he observes. In a 2010 study, he and his colleagues found that increasing stride rate by 5 to 10 percent (initially using a metronome until the new cadence felt natural) decreased the impact