Category Archives: Muscle Activation
Does Hip Strengthening Work for IT Band Syndrome?
by Paul Ingraham
This is a surprisingly in-depth article about a single simple idea: hip weakness, a rising-star of running injury risk factors. In recent years, hip weakness or “dead butt syndrome” has become the most popular new scapegoat for running injuries like iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS) and patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS). I don’t think that runners can get excited yet. In fact, I think we shouldn’t: I just don’t think the evidence is compelling enough to “believe” in hip strengthening as a prevention or therapy for any condition. Read the rest of this entry
Quite a Stretch
This is the absolute best article we’ve EVER read on stretching. First and foremost it continually maintains both context and perspective, acknowledging both the satellite view and the zoom lens, the subjective bias of the author and the objective science as it appears to currently stand…
Quite a Stretch
by Paul Ingraham
Stretching just doesn’t have the effects that most runners hope it does. In particular, plentiful recent stretching research has shown that stretching doesn’t (1) warm you up, (2) prevent soreness or injury, or (3) enhance peformance. No other measurable and significant benefit to stretching has ever been proven. Even if it worked, stretching would be inefficient, “proper” technique is controversial at best, and many key muscles are actually biomechanically impossible to stretch — like most of the quadriceps group (which runners never believe without diagrams). If there’s any hope for stretching, it might be a therapeutic effect on muscle “knots” (myofascial trigger points), but even that theory is full of problems… Read the rest of this entry
BDx Biomechanics 