New trends in the prevention of running injuries (day 1)

Posted In: ChiRunning January 25th, 2011 divider No Comments »

Folks,

In my next three posts, I will be providing some more information about the course I took over the weekend with 30 of the region’s top health practitioners specializing in running injuries.

Day 1 was mostly about presenting new evidence that shook the belief systems of some in the room. Since I’m a proponent of ChiRunning, a lot of these findings simply re-inforced what I thought but it was nice to see the findings. It also helped than an independent expert proclaimed that ChiRunning is the best teaching method out there!

The research that was represented by Blaise shows that contrary what most of the shoe companies have been saying for years, even decades, cushioning in running shoes do not prevent running injuries. The bulk of running injuries come from the “too much too soon” variety. A lot of the stress put on the body is by the ground reaction force and as was explained by Blaise, the human body does a great job at minimizing that if you don’t provide interference (in the form of big, bulky shoes). That’s also where the principles of  ChiRunning come in handy to minimize the “pounding”.

In the second half of the day, to be honest, a lot of the advice for treatment for health practitioners was over my head due to its complexity, but it all seemed to make the same point: go to the root of the problem in order to fix it for the long run.

The main point that Blaise kept on driving home though was simple. Even if people get hurt running, they’re better off doing physical activity since it decreases the risk of death by 63%. I must get the link of the study he was referring to.

Stay tuned for more from the last two days of this course.