I am going to go to Marathon Sports in Boston on Friday and have them do a Fit Right test on me. They have you run on a treadmill and look at your how you run, if you pronate or not, your arches, etc... and then suggest the proper shoe for you. After that I will give it a few weeks with the new shoes and see what happens from there.
Perhaps massage or yoga or something else. Anyone have any suggestions?
It's just really getting frustrating at this point. I know, I know; it could always be worse, but enough is enough already.
Funny how this damn sport can take you from the high of reaching your goal (100 mile month goal for October), to the lows of 4 days later, ready to throw in the towel.
Well thanks for listening to me whine, Be well - Sank
If you're having hamstring issues, I doubt it's due to lack of support in your shoes. I can almost guarantee that it's from overstriding.
ReplyDeleteI went through a bad bout of almost a year with a chronic hamstring tear. It wasn't until I finally addressed stride length (shorter) and frequency (quicker) that it finally came around.
Deep friction massage and ART will help. As will a roller. Some leg strengthening as well as a certain amount of flexibility work will too.
To be honest, I wouldn't waste the time and money on a 'Fit Right' test as it's probably either designed to sell you shoes or orthotics, which you probably don't need either.
Changing your stride will help, and this includes NOT heel stricking excessively, but landing more midfoot-forefoot. I know that this is the current fad that you hear everyone talking about, however I found a lot of truth to this a number of years ago.
Good luck!
Derrick,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input.
The Fit Right actually is free, and they mostly check arches and for pronation, to try to put you in the right type of shoe. They can really only check my left ankle (which I slightly pronate) as my right one was fused about 30 years ago. If the right one pronates I'm in real trouble cause I just broke it! LOL
I bought some new shoes today (Nike Triax) which felt like a pair of gloves when I put them on. And they let you put some time on the "dread"mill with them, so hopefully that may help a bit.
I think you are probably on to something in regards to the overstriding (or as I called it my gait). In August and September I was bouncing between Trails and roads, and in doing both my stride shortened on roads because of the trails. When my IT acted up I jumped to just roads to try to take the stress off of it, and my times started dropping, but shortly afterwards I couldnt get into any decent rythmn while I was out there.
I am going to hit my wife's yoga place this weekend (hopefully) to see if that will help with the flexibility. My muscles are about as tight as you can get and still be able to move around without looking like Herman Munster, so at this point anything will help with that.
Thank you so much for your time and input.
Unfortunate that you are so far away, or I would have you to try help me directly.
Take care
Sank