Hello everybody, I guess it’s back to work! I hope you enjoyed the At A Glance the other day; but today I’m bringing you some pretty helpful tips that will reduce the stress on your knees when you run. Enjoy!
So I’m sure that we all know that running is a pretty high-impact exercise. If you don’t know what an exercise being high-impact means, it simply means that your knees and joints, and maybe even lower back, will take a beating just by performing the exercise. Every time your foot impacts the ground you are causing small amounts of damage to those areas, and after some time that might build up and cause very serious injuries down the road. Now the question is: What can I do about it? Because you may love running and don’t want to give it up on the chance that you could develop a pretty serious injury. Well luckily the Sensei is wise in the ways of such things, and I’m here to help you!
The main cause of the high-impactness is a heavy heel strike on the ground, for some reason people are insistent on beating the ground to death with their heels! So the main goal is to lessen the amount of force behind your strike on the ground. Some ways that this can be achieved are by running on soft surfaces, which will make it so when you do hit the ground, it won’t be so hard; you can also try leaning forward more and shortening your stride, it should almost be like you are falling with control, this will help the amount of force you exert on the ground with each stride.
Those are just some simple tips, but another wise thing to do, if you run on a treadmill or are looking to buy a treadmill, is find one that has built-in shock absorbing technology. Different brands have their own different types of shocks, but they are ultimately directed towards the same end. Not all of them are good, or even do anything for you knees for that matter, but they will usually help to alleviate at least some of the pressure on your joints, saving you the pain and hassle of having a major injury down the road.
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