running, sprinting, injury, physiology

I had a wonderful training run yesterday. It was when I discovered that the treatment I’d had from an Osteopath last week had worked - and worked amazingly well. Instead of taking 9 secs for the 40m as in the last few months I got the time down to 7.9. That equates to roughly 2 seconds over 100m.

For months and in fact for years I haven’t sprinted comfortably or very well at all. I had sore glute muscles, which were even painful at night (*see below for explanation of what and where these gluteus maximus muscles are) and began to think that’s where the trouble was. This pain at the back of the leg certainly prevented me from taking a full stride with my left leg. A good long stride is one of the essential components of fast sprinting, along with a strong push-off from the front of the foot, great work by the hamstrings, cooperation from the arms, and heaven knows what else.

There was also the “Underpants Test” that made me suspicious. When putting on underpants, or my shorts, I first raised my right leg and slotted them in, but the left leg wouldn’t manage to clear the top and I almost crashed down on the deck.

Off to the Physio. She had a go and massaged the glutes. It didn’t help, not a whit faster. It seemed to me that the problem was in my lower back, which in turn caused the glute muscle to be disadvantaged, pulled askew.

So off to the Osteo, Alex Fugallo, a fellow member of my club Highgate Harriers and a former 400m international. Alex diagnosed that my guess was right, the sacro/iliac joint was to blame. (The picture below showing the glutes also shows where they are attached to the bottom of the spine at that S/I joint.) So now he deeply massaged, very deeply and rather painfully, the ligaments that anchor the bottom of the spine to the pelvic bones, having spotted that on the one side the ligament was shortened and pulling them together too darn close. Having warmed it up nicely with the massage he took it off its guard by bending me around and it snapped back into the right position.

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Here’s the picture of that gluteus maximus, showing the position of the muscle on each side of your bum, to use the academic term for buttocks. The two glutes in fact virtually make up the flesh of the bum itself. They’re nice and soft to sit on and add nicely to a girl’s perky looks, as well as being a great asset for a rugby forward. (My school Latin teacher was Bill Payne, a famous Springbok. The word Athenas, meaning “Towards Athens”, he translated as: “Athenas, no good in the scrum.)

See the detailed explanation by searching for gluteus maximus. The first entry is Wiki and it opens up on that picture and an explanatory caption.

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Immediately everything felt relaxed and released. By evening I could see that with everything symmetrical again the various other muscles had also relaxed and I was nice and easy all over.

A few days later I went to the track and timed myself: Hooray! Over a second faster over 40m than last week. That’s a regular training distance, 40m, although not run in competition. What it does is get you going at your highest possible speed, which you can keep going for the whole 100m or 200m.

I’d fallen back all this year to 9 seconds or so for the 40m and now I managed a 7.91. Triumph! What’s more with new confidence and more training, down it will come, I betcha.

So many people have S/I problems, even non-runners. If you’re one of them, I’d advise you to go to my Peak Performance website for the best advice. It’s time, anyway, that I opened up to you what is the world’s greatest treasury of sport wisdom. It’s available to you, it’s free as air. Search for www.pponline.co.uk. And if you think you would like to see Alex, try alex@osteo-practice.demon.co.

Back soon!

Sylvester

	Author:	Sylvester Stein (Sylvester Stein's profile, Sylvester Stein's blog)
	Posted On:	Tue, 2007-09-11 05:12
	Tags:	running, sprinting, injury and physiology
	Comments:	0 comments, go to comments