FIND AND FIX YOUR BODY’S WEAK SPOTS

Try This Simple Test

YOU’ VE HEARD THE WORD‘ SYMMETRY’ BEFORE: it’s a mathematical principle that denotes exact equality on two sides. A butterfly’s wings, for example, or a snowflake. You probably first heard about the concept from a primary school teacher many years ago, and it’s fairly likely you haven’t thought about it since, even for a second. But it’s well worth your consideration when it comes to running, because an asymmetrical body could be the source of a nagging or recurring injury, or the reason that PB remains agonisingly out of reach, however hard you’re training and how carefully you’re eating.

‘Evaluating and working on symmetry is one of the top tips Iwould give new and veteran runners alike,’ says track legend Michael Johnson, four-time Olympic gold medal-winner and founder of the Michael Johnson Performance training programmes. ‘ It can lead to efficiency, which is very important for both sprinters and distance runners. Themore efficiently you run, the faster you can cover distance and the less fatigued you will be because you’ve eliminated or minimised wasted motion.’

When you run, your body ismoving in three planes of motion, explains physiotherapist David Reavy. ‘ You’re going forward and back in the sagittal plane, and your body is also twisting, which is movement in the transverse plane,’ he says. ‘ Meanwhile, the feet move in the frontal plane.’ The huge benefit of balanced body symmetry is that there’s an equilibrium of work and energy in those three planes – your muscles are all working together as one unit, says Reavy.

Sadly, none of us will ever be perfectly symmetrical because, well, we’re not robots. Even the great Usain Bolt made headlines last year for his asymmetrical gait ( his right leg is half an inch shorter than his left, owing to scoliosis, a condition that leads to curvature of the spine). Still, ‘Of all the athletes that we work with, runners can potentially yield the most performance and injuryprevention benefits from symmetry,’ says Lance Walker, the global director of performance at Michael Johnson Performance. In short: if you can identify – and correct – your asymmetries, you’ll tap into big stores of running potential.

WHY SYMMETRY MATTERS

ON SOME LEVEL, all of us runners want to improve – and we certainly want to avoid injuries. Symmetry – or a lack thereof – plays a crucial role in both.

‘ If a runner is asymmetrical, one part of the body may have to work harder than the other to compensate for weakness. That doesn’t mean you’re definitely due for an injury, but it does increase the likelihood,’ says Joe Holder, a Nike+ Run Club coach and trainer. ‘ Runners have some of the highest incidences of injuries and a lot of tha thas to do with not properly fixing muscular imbalances.’

Take, for example, runners who are quad- dominant, meaning they rely heavily on the quadriceps for force. Many of us fall into this category and if you are constantly working those muscles – instead of equally recruiting their counterparts, the glutes and hamstrings – you’re likely to end up with a quad strain, IT band syndrome or knee pain, says Reavy.

Even if your imbalances don’t manifest as injuries, that doesn’t mean they aren’t limiting your performance. Imagine an eight- minute- per- mile runner with an asymmetry in her hip flexors. That asymmetry could cause the glutes to power down, says Reavy, freezing the runner at that eightminute pace because she can’t tap into more glute strength to push the accelerator. ‘ When more muscles are brought to the party, you don’t fatigue as quickly because your whole body absorbs force, rather than placing it all on a certain area,’ he adds.

The trick is to pinpoint those areas of inefficiency.

FINDING YOUR TROUBLE SPOTS

ASYMETRICS TEND themselves known under extreme circumstances, such as when you’re running a marathon or blasting through a sprint, says Walker. But if you wait until a race to recognise and attempt to correct them, it’ll be too late. ‘ If you haven’t planned your training so that your weakest link doesn’t break under extreme conditions, you’ve set yourself up for failure,’ says Walker.

‘ Dumping more volume, or miles, on your system without levelling up in strength, stability, mobility, flexibility and balance means asymmetries are just going to expose themselves at the worst possible time, leading to a lessthan-optimum performance,’ he adds.

Unsurprisingly, pain is the biggest tip- off that there’s an imbalance in your body. But it may not be where you think. ‘ Eighty per cent of the time when you feel an injury, it’s referred pain, which is when it’s felt somewhere other than the actual source,’ says personal trainer Kira Stokes. ‘ Pay special attention to one-sided pain or tightness – that’s a clear indicator.’

Your pelvis is a prime example, says Reavy. ‘The hip and foot are dependent on the pelvis, and the knee depends on the hip and the foot.’ So if you feel knee pain, the root cause could be a pelvic imbalance, he says.

Paying closer attention to how your body feels during strength training can help you zero in on problems. ‘ If you’re doing a glute-specific exercise, do you feel your glutes working? There are primary mover muscles and secondary mover muscles; if you’re doing a squat correctly, your glutes should take the primary load,’ says Reavy. ‘ That ’ s something you can clearly feel.’

Your phone can be a helpful tool, too. Ask a running buddy to take photos and videos of you at the beginning, in themiddle and at the end of a run. ‘Analyse them and ask yourself: What’s happening to my knees when my foot strikes? Are they going in or out? And how high is my kick? Are my arms crossing the front of my body? Those things can be clues to whether your body is out of alignment,’ says Stokes. There’s even wearable foot- bed technology that can tell you how symmetrical your stride is: athletes at Michael Johnson Performance use RPM2 ($499/£ 360 plus shipping, rpm2. com), a footbed-measurement device that provides data related to deficiencies in gait, range of motion, force, and power. Less expensive devices, such as Stryd ($199/£145 plus shipping, stryd.com), are also available and Walker believes there’s more symmetry-promoting technology to come. ‘ Right now, we’re only really measuring time, distance and heart rate,’ he says. ‘ But when you drive a car, you don’t look at how far it’s gone, how fast, and how much fuel it used without glancing at the tyre pressure, too. Analysing symmetry gives you a clearer picture of what’s going on.’

FIXING THE PROBLEM

THERE IS NO SIMPLE CURE-ALL FIX FOR ASYMMETRY. Just a s ever y runner ’ s gait is different, our imbalances unravel in unique ways. ‘ It’s about getting to know your own body and having people you trust take an objective, quantifiable look to help you identify where you can improve,’ says walker.

Ideal ly, you’ll first make an appointment with a physiotherapist. Research their speciality areas and, ideally, talk to them first to make sure they have experience working with runners and that they are ‘ trained to identify muscular and skeletal imbalances’, says Reavy. ‘ They can tel l you what your alignment looks like, examine flexibility and tell you what muscles are and aren’t firing.’ From there, they, or a personal trainer, can prescribe exercises to improve your specific bodily weaknesses and imbalances.

If you really don’t want to go down the physiotherapy route, you can take more general rebalancing action. Holder recommends that runners incorporate microcycles of one-sided strength work (think singleleg squats and glute bridges), plus exercises that work multiple planes of motion at once to ensure the body is equally challenged.

That’s where the routines on these pages come in. The first will help you establish your baseline with six easy screening moves that bring asymmetries to light ( The test, right). The second is loaded with symmetry-promoting strength moves, which you should bring into regular workouts to stay in peak performance mode ( The Solution, p50). Do the exercises three times a week, and you’ll soon be running stronger and faster, and pushing beyond your current limits.

‘ RUNNERS HAVE SOME OF THE HIGHEST INCIDENCES OF INJURIES AND A LOT OF THAT HAS TO DO WITH NOT FIXING MUSCULAR IMBALANCES’