Join the MINT Ambassadors for a happy hour at Sauf Haus on Feb. 21 at 7pm!

Here’s what you can look forward to:

• Happy Hour specials, including $2 off all pretzels, beer, wine, and spirits.
• Meeting MINT Ambassadors and fellow MINT members! Who knows, maybe you’ll meet a new workout buddy!

DYK? Every week, Sauf Haus extends happy hour prices on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 7:00-9:00 PM to MINT members who show their MINT key tags!

Why do I keep getting the same injuries when I run? – Part 2

In last week’s blog post ( week of January 30, 2017), we discussed how your knee is usually not to blame when it hurts during runs. And we specifically addressed how often over-pronation issues can really impact the knee.

There is an old saying that is ‘as the foot goes so does the knee.’ This is very true.

Pronation is not inherently a bad thing. In fact we need to pronate through our feet. It is how we properly transfer forces through our body.

Pronation is the foot movement in which your foot rolls in causing your arch is getting to get lower. But when we over-pronate we put our other joints as risk for injury … including our feet.

But how do you know if you pronate too much? Do you know if your shoes are enough to provide the support you need?

Try this: Get the bottom of your feet damp and then step on a piece of paper. If your footprint has no gaps/indentation in it, you most likely have flat feet and need more support than you could get from most shoes.

[Aside: if you read Born to Run and think everyone should be running around barefoot, we have about 100 past patients that were injured by running in minimalist shoes who would tell you differently. Barefoot running can be appropriate for some runners, but certainly not all of them.]

Over-pronation can often be caused by having flat feet. The arch is NOT meant to be a weight-bearing surface of your foot. When your arch becomes a weight-bearing surface, problems begin to happen. The knee collapses and the hip begins to rotate inward. If you repeat this enough, injury is not far off.

So what can you do if you over-pronate and are at risk of injury (or already hurting)? A good pair of supportive shoes is a great place to start. Since every foot, body type, and running style is different, we can’t suggest specific shoes here in this article without evaluating your feet. So our best advice is to make sure you choose your running shoes with the assistance and guidance of a professional who has a lot of experience working with runners and shoe selection.

Though strength is very important, when your full body weight is coming down on one foot during your running stride, there’s only so much that the muscles in your feet can do. For those who severely over-pronate and collapse through the arch, even strong feet and supportive shoes may not be enough to avoid running injuries at the foot, ankle, knee, hip, or low back.

In this situation, Custom Orthotics are your best bet. They are an assistive device that are placed in your shoe to provide the exact level of support you need and to help distribute forces more evenly through the foot and up the leg. We have seen people with debilitating foot, knee, hip and back pain get amazing relief and the ability to return to running once they started using custom orthotics.

The market is filled with many options of what to put under your feet. Most over-the-counter shoe inserts and arch supports do not provide the support needed by someone who has significantly flat feet.

At Manual Medicine Spine & Sports Physical Therapy, we are experts in evaluating the foot and in the creation of custom orthotics. If you have any foot, knee, hip, or back pain when you run, it may have something (or everything) to do with your feet. If you’d like to have a free assessment of your feet and whether or not you would have less running pain with custom orthotics, call me at 202-670-8874.

Why do I keep getting the same injuries when I run? – Part 1

Are you frustrated with constantly dealing with same running injuries over and over again? Are you tired of thinking you have recovered only to have the same injury come back several months later? Read on to find out why you are dealing with repetitive injuries.

A wise man once said “running reveals weakness and if you run enough, injury is not too far away.” When you run, you experience 2-3 times the force of your own body-weight! .. with every step! Over the course of a run you experience an extreme amount of force through your joints which can lead to injury.

What if you could get to the underlying cause of your injuries that keep plaguing you and keep you from doing what you love? What if you knew exactly what to do to prepare for your upcoming 5K,10K, or even half marathon?

Research has shown that up to 80% of runners will experience some injury during their running lives.

The most common injury they will experience is knee pain. The knee is a simple hinge joint that is wedged between your hip and your foot, and the reality is that your knee is usually not to blame!!
Knee pain is usually either a result of poor hip control or over-pronation issues. Pronation is a natural motion of the foot that happens when your foot contacts the ground and your arch goes inward. Over-pronation is when your arch collapses too much, placing increased stress on all the joints above.

In Part 2 of this blog post (stay tuned next week – Feb 6, 2017) we will discuss about what to do about your over-pronation issues. The first joint above the foot/ankle just happens to be your knee, and often takes the brunt of any issues in the foot.

Poor hip control and hip muscle weakness is another common problem that leads to increased stress on your knee, and we will explain more about how to avoid this issue in Part 3 of this blog post (stay tuned week of Feb 13, 2017)

So to answer the question in the title of this blog post: if you continually get the same injury as you ramp up your mileage, then rest and/or whatever “treatment” you’ve had to solve the problem is not removing all the underlying causes of the injury.

In today’s unfortunate healthcare world, clinicians are often forced to see many more patients per day than they should. If a patient has knee pain, they only have time to look at the knee … but as you’ll see in the next two articles, this will often lead to missing the whole story, and therefore failing to address why you keep getting the same running injuries over and over again. If you need help, Call my office at once at (202) 670-8874 or visit me at the Mint Health Club to schedule your FREE 30 minute consultation to see how Physical Therapy can help. Don’t delay–schedule now so we can assess your specific issue and get you fit and injury-free for the Rock N Roll Marathon on March 11, 2017.