By Gayle

So I took Helen for a bit of a run to have a look at her form. Helen has a long history of back pain, shin splints, hip pain and knee pain with running, so she needs all the help she can get with her form.

Helen wears five fingers most of the time so this is what she wants to run in.

So on our first assessment we saw a few huge, a few big, a few medium sized and a few small issues to correct.

The first and biggest issue on my list was heel striking. While I prefer people to run with a forefoot strike in general, in five fingers its not an optional point. You have to use a forefoot strike, heel striking without cushioning at the heel is a recipe for injury, so we’ll get that sorted first.

There were so many other issues going on with Helen’s form – most of them related to poor core activation, that I decided to go in and sort this lot out first and then reassess her form afterwards.

We went and did some “warm up” exercises for her running. These are core activators to “wake up” the nervous system and get it ready for action. And they worked! We quickly had the heel striking a thing of the past and a much better form going.

Now Helen will have to do these exercises every time before she heads out for a run, and can even stop midway in a run if she feels her form slipping from her and do a few of them.

My program for Helen for the next 2 weeks is:

3x Run/Walk/ wake up exercises sessions each week.

The run may not be longer than 2km, and should be split into shorter, fast runs (approx 4min/km pace) interspersed with brisk walking, the exercises, some squats and some chin ups and the terrain should include some uphill running.

We’ll catch up in a fortnight and lo

For more posts in this series click the ‘Himalayan Dreaming’ category tab.

ok at how she has done.