AM - 3 miles. I was going to wait until the afternoon, but I woke up early and didn't want to run in the rain this afternoon.
My visit with Jay Dicharry was worth every penny - there's definitely a reason why he's considered one of the best running biomechanics specialists. Even more impressive was the fact that he broke his jaw in 5 places, fractured his skull, and lost ~4 teeth from a really bad fall last week...poor guy's entire right face was swollen and looked to be painful, but he was there to evaluate me nonetheless. Anyway, I am confident in him and his rehabilitation approach. It is significantly different from any other therapist that I have seen (and I have seen a lot!)...in many cases I have been told to do things WRONG for a long time. I wish I could just move to Bend, OR for the next 6 weeks to work with him, but he gave me an evaluation report, DVD with my rehab program exercises, and other handouts. Here is a section of Jay's review that sums up my problems and what I need to work on.
• You’ve got right leg stability issues caused by instability of your spine and pelvis. Your want your deep core muscles to maintain your posture as you run, however, you over-dominate with your flexors. These muscles are not postural, will fatigue, and then you’ll flop into the opposite of flexion, which is excessive extension – which will INCREASE compression in the back – not good! The muscles in the pelvis that stabilize your hips originate at your pelvis become inhibited and weak when the core is not stable. (this is why we see your right leg internally rotate and adduct more than it should. Another reason we see this is that you naturally have a little bit of toe out. Nothing is wrong with this. But you’ve tried to adopt a standing and running posture that keeps your feet pointed straight……which causes more internal rotation in your hip! – let your feet point slightly out ad stop the madness.
• What to do? Fix the PROBLEM. The problem is poor stabilization of your deep core muscles. You need to spend quality time on improving this imbalance. Ensure you are feeling SPECIFIC activation of the CORRECT muscles. Its not so much the exercise, its how you perform the exercise that really matters.
• Fix your posture – mom tells us not to slouch, but she didn’t say to cheat your low back position to avoid looking like you are slouching. The taping we did today will make an imprint in your brain to slide your shoulders back along your ribs – that’s how you keep your shoulders where they should be. With this in place, it will be easier to find a better position for your low back.
• Fix your hip mechanics. Your foot contacts way too far in front of your body. Let’s repeat what we said today: A Very high rate of loading placed on an unstable system = disaster. Because you have posture issues, you lean slightly forwad with an extended back (slight toilet bowl of doom posture). This forces you to contact too far forward, which dramatically elevates your loading rates. You are in the 8100 Newtons/sec range. You should be less than half this. How do you fix it? Again, first, spend time stabilizing your spine. When you are ready for phase 2, it will emphasize good hip dominant mechanics. This combined with the C-skip and Treadmill hip extension drill will make a huge dent in you understanding how to get the right muscles involved, and how to do this when running (both easy, tempo, and fast runs).
I have Phase 1 and Phase 2 exercises that will probably take the next 2-3 months to master. Then I will most likely go see him again for a re-evaluation. ​His closing remarks to me -
Getting your better movement is key. Your running form is an issue, but you can’t make good pasta sauce out of rotten tomatoes. Spend some quality time fixing your body, and lay a foundation. Sure, It will take some work and patience on your end, but nothing that you shouldn’t be able to clear up 100% and make this a thing of the past.
| 
