Sorry for the lights out for the past week. Craziness on this side of the keyboard. Hope you had an awesome, yummy Thanksgiving!
Last night Porter & I picked up some friends and headed to a Hip Strength & Balance Clinic sponsored by the running club we belong to, Checkers AC, and presented by the fantastic Steve Gonser from Buffalo Rehab and runsmartonline.com.
When the post first showed up on my FaceBook feed I thought “Perfect, just in line with our year of strengthening.” And it was…
My brain is still fried from the craziness on this side of the keyboard or you would be seeing pics from our (tortuous) wonderful hour learning about the three hip muscles and how to work them! 🙂 Sorry, I am getting better at remembering :).
Steve started with some background. We learned about the three hip muscles, some of the problems you can have when they’re not as strong as they should be, some problems incorrect form from compensating for said under developed gluts can cause and some differences between men & women runners. Among other things, that runners tend to love running and not so much strength training. But the strength training is crucial to keeping the running injury free. And it really doesn’t take much strength training, well compared to your time investment running.
Did you know that 75-80% of runners are injured each year? I didn’t. This is a case where being in the majority isn’t something that makes my day.
But… strengthening muscles that assist with running but that you don’t strengthen running (hope that makes sense) is key to running injury free. …running faster and stronger too!
Last night I learned more lunges than you can imagine – on one foot. So glad I missed the “and Balance” part of the title when signing up. My foot is still sore if I do the wrong thing and probably would have bailed. Yea, I know… wimp! Knowing my balance stinks and that it’s something I’m working on because strong balance is one key to elegant aging and strong running, I’m so glad we got to spend an hour with Steve.
After a 30 minute hip and balance workout, we know how much we need it! Thankfully Steve’s guidance was once a week for 30 minutes. It’s now on the calendar and we’ll see how it goes.
My biggest take away is Steve’s suggestion to remove and put on your socks and shoes balancing on one foot. Instead of sitting down on the side of the bed, stand and work up your balance to the point where you can untie, remove, put on and retie your shoes. An easy addition to any routine. My second biggest take away is to do more of the exercises he taught us and to pull out my list from Lisa and get to work.
How do you maintain and improve your gluts and balance?