Don’t Forget Your Back

The body takes a beating when running.

While we love to do it we should always remember Newton’s law of impact and reaction forces. Don’t recall this one from science class? It goes a little like this:

Every force you apply to a body (your own body when running), the force to which you are applying your own force (ie: the ground when you run) is applying an equal force back to you.

So everytime you hit that pavement you are taking that shock up into your body.

While the body is cushioned and can generally handle such impact, even for long periods of time, we have issues when we are striking down using the wrong gait, or our body is not being held correctly, or perhaps we already have an issue (a knee problem, etc) and we continue to impact that area over, and over, and over again.

Many people have issues with lower back pain after running. This can be attributed to a number of reasons: improper gait, tight hamstrings and quads, tight hip flexors, overtraining.

To help ease this pain it is important to stretch after each run (hamstrings and quads, even the back if you have time) and to do some mild stretching each evening before bed (which not only helps the lower back but which relaxes as well!)

Today  I thought I would share a few of my favorite lower back stretches.

• Lay on back with arms out and legs straight in front of you (like a T)
• Bend knees to chest and hold this position for a minute or so. Squeeze legs with arms if desired, then move arms back while keeping knees to chest
• Drop knees to the right side and move head to the left side
• Hold, breathing deeply, for several minutes, and then drop to the other side, move head to the opposite direction, and hold

This is my very favorite stretch. It’s relaxing, and it really squeezes out the tension in the back.

The other stretch I love, but I’m not sure how easy it will be to explain!

Sit up straight and tall. Cross legs.

• Take right leg and put it up with foot on floor.
• Move it across the left leg so knee is in front of your chest
• Put right elbow on left knee and twist slowly; left hand should be on the floor behind you
• Stop and breathe deeply and slowly for a minute or two
• Twist over to the right, putting left elbow against the right knee
• Switch and do the other side

I’m a visual person, but I could not find images to upload for these. I hope you are able to figure them out!

The other few things that I do for my lower back include laying flat on my stomach, arms stretched out in front of me. Then I put them next to my shoulder and slowly raise my upper body, keeping my pelvis and legs on the floor. Open up the chest by bringing it up as high as you can and breathe deeply. This is called the cobra.

My run today: Little to none. I got up to run but it was lightning outside. I made it a mile and a half almost and came inside. Now it is pouring out. I had hoped to get in 5 miles this morning so I’m a little discouraged and pretty tired. I could have stayed in bed, but I’m finishing up a blog design job for a client so I figured I would utilize this time to get some work done. Of course my oldest got up way too early (sun is not even up yet!) so not getting much work done, either.

Sigh. Hopefully it will clear up, I’ll get in a run, and the daughter will not be too punchy from lack of sleep! (me either, for that case!)

Hope your Sunday runs are great.