I have a lot of students who are passionate runners, most of them have injuries but of course they love running so much they aren’t stopping till the injuries get really bad and their knees or their hips go.
What I would suggest is stretching, because so many runners come to me and they can’t touch their toes, they can’t cross their legs, their hamstrings are super tight, their IT bands are tight, the list is endless!
So there's a lot of exercises to do for runners, some involve the feet, the legs, the hips and so on.
Let’s start on all fours, flex your feet and sit back onto your heels, do this for about 30 seconds before doing the same again on all fours but this time pointing your feet and sitting back so you stretch the top part of your foot. That part for most runners is where they are tight because of the impact running does to the other side of your foot.
I would work on other postures like sitting down, sliding your fingers between your toes, massaging the feet while you’re there!
Then I would work on the hamstrings, standing up, folding over and pedal the knees. If you can’t touch the floor you can put your hands on a chair. Check out my video tutorial here.
There are actually quite a few things you can do on the chair, you can put your leg up and bend your knee, leaning forward into the hip and back, you can take your arms above your head if that feels comfortable, but most importantly, listen to your body.
To stretch out the outer thighs, you know some runners can’t even sit on the floor but if you can, sit on the floor, cross your legs and fold over. Remember to lift up and out of your hips not round over, repeat on other side, switch your legs and fold over gently you should be able to feel that in your hips too.
If you can’t cross your legs, sit on the floor, bring one knee up, one leg out and twist around the side that your knee is up, this will ease tension in your outer thighs and lower back. Breathe in to lift, exhale to twist.
You can also take your arms under the bent knee and work on straightening and bending the leg, moving it in circles to ease some tension.
If you’re a regular runner I would recommend doing this definitely after each run but also on your rest days to build flexibility and ease the tension that comes from the impact.
You can watch the video tutorial on my Instagram here!
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