A large part of physiotherapy isn’t about treating problems you’ve got but about preventing them from occurring.
Before you begin training, it may be helpful to see a physio for gait analysis. Everyone has their own individual way of walking or running and your body gets accustomed to the way you weight-bear. If your gait is slightly off, you can probably get away with it, from day to day, just walking around. But when you run, this increases the load going through your joints and exacerbates any gait problems.
During gait analysis, we can see if your ankles and knees are moving normally, your glutes are activated, your hips are working properly and there’s not too much pressure on your back.
Your muscles and joints are like shock absorbers in a car – they may not be strong enough for running and so they may become inflamed.
We can give you strengthening exercises to make sure you’re not overloading your joints and balance exercises to make sure you’re not overburdening your hips and knees. Your physio will probably give you a course of exercises and then check you after a couple of weeks, adjusting the exercises if you’re not getting results.
The biggest precursor to injury is previous injury. Say, for instance, you played a lot of football years ago and you had serious back or knee problems, but now you’ve decided to do the Maccabi GB Community Fun Run. Your injury may not have been loaded since you last played football, so before you start training for the fun run, you should go to see a physio and say: “I’m doing a charity run – this is where I am at the moment, do you have any advice?”
Then the physio can put something in place to prevent injury and also you will have made a connection, for any follow-up you need.
If you do pick up an injury, a physio can give you an idea if you’re in danger of making it worse if you run.
Don’t leave a niggling injury until a week or two before the run, hoping it will have gone. If you come in to see a physio in the early stages, we can stop it getting worse. There’s nothing worse than training for months and then you pick up and injury and can’t run. Listen to your body. You can minimise the chance of having to pull out of a run, by getting professional help promptly.
Gary Lewin is a chartered physio specialising in sports medicine at Centennial Medical Care, Elstree
