Injury Prevention for Runners in Edmonton

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Injury Prevention for Runners How well you run and how enjoyable running is for you depends on how well you care for yourself. This includes what you eat, how you sleep, and all of your health habits. Clearly a strong stable body is key. Routine chiropractic care, before an injury happens, should be part of maintaining your running machine.

 

Any physical performance, including running, depends on the body being aligned for the best possible result. Everyone experiences misalignment over time simply through daily living. For a runner, the importance of these misalignments are magnified by the repetitive force applied through the feet and transmitted up the body. Additionally, running can train some groups of muscles more than counterbalancing muscles, which can cause further exacerbation of misalignments.

 

A negative loop can set in. Running may cause unbalanced development, which aggravates misalignments. Misalignments cause more underlying dysfunction. A lack of comfort causes the runner to shy away from helpful stretching. As this cycle continues, it is not uncommon for highly fit amateur runners to be fairly stiff and inflexible.

 

Chiropractors will start with an assessment. For a runner, this can be valuable in and of itself since it can provide guidance on muscular development. For example, many runners commonly experience posterior chain weakness. This is simply the muscles from the lower back through the calf on the back of the leg being less developed than the muscles in the front of the leg. This condition can lead to joint problems and for a serious amateur runner can result in decreased performance.

 

After an assessment, a chiropractor can develop a treatment and tune up plan. The goal of the plan will be coordinated with the patient. The goal can be to improve comfort, to correct a condition that may be leading to true dysfunction or even to improve performance. The key is that the patient is fully aware of what is happening with the body.

 

Running has great health benefits but can be stressful on the body. Regular chiropractic care can be an important tool to keep runners strong and in good health.

4 Ways To Gain More Energy

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There’s never enough time in the day and if there were, I wouldn’t have the energy to deal with it. Does this sound like you? Life’s busy!

For my wife and I, balancing between giving our kids all the love and attention they deserve, working, meal planning, day home, pre-school and once in a while having an adult conversation with each other can be a daunting task.  Needless to say we don’t have as many adult conversations as we would like. So what’s the solution?

Unfortunately there’s no one magic bullet answer to give. Although a lot of us share similar experiences of lacking energy at times; your lives are unique, your family is unique, and you yourself are unique.

The uniqueness of the individual sitting in front of me is one of the things I love about being a chiropractor. I know that the response my patient has with their treatment is greatly influenced by their unique lifestyles and experiences.

To gain more energy there are some general rules you can begin to follow. You can also tweak them a little to meet your specific needs. (Click here to watch 4 Ways to Gain Energy Video)

1) Stay hydrated

Ya, ya, ya you heard that one. Well it’s amazing how many of us  ignore this seemingly simple rule. The general rule of thumb, that you’ve all likely heard is to either drink eight 8oz glasses or 2 litres of water per day.

That’s a good place to start, but what if you’re not drinking anywhere near that? What do you do? Start very slowly by drinking small amounts of water and slowly increase your daily water intake over a few weeks.  This will allow your body to integrate the water you are drinking. Eventually drinking more water won’t feel like a chore and you won’t spend all night going to the bathroom.

2) Eat good food

This seems like a no brainer. The reality for most of the patients I see is that there seems to be less and less time during the day to eat well. The only way to successfully put good food into your family’s mouth is to a) buy good food b) have a plan to make good food. As the saying goes “plan to succeed or plan to fail”.

Consider meal planning 2x/week to decrease the time spent each day preparing food. You can also make larger meals that can be frozen in smaller or individual portions. Those frozen portions can be a game saver for busy weeks preventing you from using the drive through window. Successfully meal planning can help you control your portions which can help you control your waist line and energy levels

3) Get appropriate rest

Getting 8 hours of sleep per night can be easier said than done. That rules gets tossed out the window if you’re a shift worker, if your spouse is a shift worker, if you’re in school, if you have kids etc.  I think that it is important for people to get 7-9 hours of sleep, on average, per week.

Not every day of your week is created equal so the sleep that you get may vary on some days. It is crucial that you make up sleep  2-3 nights per week to help keep you fresh overall.

When you are sleeping, your body goes into rest and rebuild mode. Your nervous system is processing your days experiences, putting some experiences or information to long term memory and healing you up from whatever you’ve been up to during your waking hours.

4) Be Active

The human body – the vehicle that you are using to experience your world requires exercise and activity. You may have heard of the saying “you have to spend money to make money”.  The same concept holds true when it comes to having energy. You have to spend energy to have energy.  Now, I believe there are some parameters for your activity to classify as exercise.

  1. Activity must be balanced
  2. Activity must be performed with good form
  3. The activity must stress the body in a way that teaches it to do more
  4. The activity must be fun and enjoyable so that you’ll do it on a rainy, snowy day for free.

Again, these are 4 general rules to follow. There is certainly space to make these rules fit your own unique lifestyle.  So in your quest for more energy, maybe choose 1 rule per week to work on.  Remember to start slowly and if you stumble it’s okay.

Dr. Kent Ferguson
Chiropractor
Oliver Chiropractic Wellness Clinic
www.ocwc.ca
780-455-2112