The Need for Speed
I learned a lot about myself after an extensive therapy session today. I’m
not afraid to admit it: I’m biomechanically challenged.
I went to the University of Virginia (UVA) SPEED Clinic in Charlottesville, Va., thinking I would get a few pointers to shave a few seconds off my 5K, and I came out with a stark realization: my natural running form is all wrong. Nagging knee pain was the first clue, but the experts at the UVA SPEED Clinic were able to pinpoint specific micro-adjustments to my biomechanics that could help save me from debilitating arthritis down the road.
The SPEED (Strength, Power, Endurance, Education, and Development) Clinic is first and foremost an academic research lab that opened its doors to the public a little over a year ago. While several speed labs have popped up nationwide, SPEED is unique in its high-tech assessment of biomechanical efficiency. No other biomechanical testing facility in the country can match the SPEED Clinic’s 3D assessment technology.
The facility has one of only two force plate-loaded treadmills in the world that are aligned with 3D analysis and a four-computer real-time system (the other system is owned by the Army and is unavailable commercially). It’s $1.5 million dollars of equipment operated by a team of ivory tower brainiacs ready to fine-tune the region’s athletes. The SPEED Clinic’s most expensive 3D assessment service goes for $350—a modest solution in comparison to what could amount to building physical therapy co-pays.
Research has shown that 70 percent of runners experience some kind of running injury each year. Proper mechanical form can mean more speed for less effort and far fewer trips to the orthopedist.
“Certain muscle imbalances and mal-alignments can predispose people to certain injuries and cause running inefficiency,” says Dr. Bob Wilder, who helped found the clinic. “The aim of evaluating people is to maximize running efficiency, so they essentially become better energy users. We also help identify factors that predispose runners to injury before they occur.”
My running form was chock full of red flags, as the analytical cyber beast soon revealed. After shaving my ankles and knees with a plastic razor so that they could stick me with electrodes at critical joint locations, I was off and running. On the treadmill, I was a main-stage display for mechanical dissection. Ten infrared cameras were pointing at me from all angles. The cameras sent a signal to the electrodes and rendered a digital skeleton on the nearby computer screens and captured my joint measurements at 250 times a second.
Some of my problems were immediately noticeable. My strides were way too long, which caused me to bounce up and down and land too far in front of my center of mass. As a result my inefficient cadence was only allowing me 75 strides per minute—a number that should be around 90.
My biggest problem was the awkward way that I supinate (or “under-pronate”), which means I land on the outside of my foot. The stress of pounding the outside of my feet torques my knee outward—the likely cause of my nagging knee pain. The cameras also revealed that I rely more heavily on my right leg to do all of the work, which causes my running stride to be off balance.
“People don’t know to think about these imbalances, because they’re often imperceptible to the untrained eye,” says Jay Dicharry, physical therapist with the UVA Health System and director of the SPEED clinic. “That’s why we opened this facility—to address the roots of dysfunction and use technology to help develop healthy athletes.”
Dicharry gave me printouts with left-to-right comparisons of my muscles. Scientific graphs showed which muscles were weak and which muscles were overcompensating. My running was actually mathematically inefficient, and my mechanics were actually slowing me down. My natural motion was causing more brake than acceleration, drastically reducing the ground I could be covering with the same amount of energy.
I am the epitome of Average Joe when it comes to running, so I figured my unspectacular skill level had something to with my shortcomings. Not so, says Dicharry. He regularly sees weekend warriors with perfect form and elite athletes that look awful.
“When it comes to having good form, it’s not a question of are you good enough,” he says.
A prime example is elite triathlete Michele McGleish from Gaithersburg, Md., who injured her knee in the 2005 World Duathlon Championships in Australia. She wrestled with the injury for over a year, trying to heal it with stretching and physical therapy, before reluctantly conceding to a cortisone injection—a final approach that her local doctor promised would be a sure-fire remedy. The pain returned on her first post-shot run.
“If you’re injured, you can go to the doctor and become pain free—at least temporarily,” says Dicharry. “But there’s a big gray area between being healed and future prevention. Symptoms can go away, but biomechanical problems won’t.”
Wilder later diagnosed McGleish with Patellofemoral Syndrome and sent her to the SPEED Clinic.
“I run lopsided,” McGleish says. “My ponytail kept bobbing to the left. I was completely off-balance. I learned I had to go back to basics.”
McGleish has finally corrected her stride and had a solid season in 2006, including a finish at Ironman Florida.
I, on the other hand, still have a long way to go: I need to strengthen stabilizing muscles that I never knew existed. But if I stick with a few simple exercises (some that can be done while brushing my teeth or watching TV), my running economy could improve by as much as 15 percent. For a guy like me, a little under-the-hood mechanics can get me a lot farther down the road. •
I went to the University of Virginia (UVA) SPEED Clinic in Charlottesville, Va., thinking I would get a few pointers to shave a few seconds off my 5K, and I came out with a stark realization: my natural running form is all wrong. Nagging knee pain was the first clue, but the experts at the UVA SPEED Clinic were able to pinpoint specific micro-adjustments to my biomechanics that could help save me from debilitating arthritis down the road.
The SPEED (Strength, Power, Endurance, Education, and Development) Clinic is first and foremost an academic research lab that opened its doors to the public a little over a year ago. While several speed labs have popped up nationwide, SPEED is unique in its high-tech assessment of biomechanical efficiency. No other biomechanical testing facility in the country can match the SPEED Clinic’s 3D assessment technology.
The facility has one of only two force plate-loaded treadmills in the world that are aligned with 3D analysis and a four-computer real-time system (the other system is owned by the Army and is unavailable commercially). It’s $1.5 million dollars of equipment operated by a team of ivory tower brainiacs ready to fine-tune the region’s athletes. The SPEED Clinic’s most expensive 3D assessment service goes for $350—a modest solution in comparison to what could amount to building physical therapy co-pays.
Research has shown that 70 percent of runners experience some kind of running injury each year. Proper mechanical form can mean more speed for less effort and far fewer trips to the orthopedist.
“Certain muscle imbalances and mal-alignments can predispose people to certain injuries and cause running inefficiency,” says Dr. Bob Wilder, who helped found the clinic. “The aim of evaluating people is to maximize running efficiency, so they essentially become better energy users. We also help identify factors that predispose runners to injury before they occur.”
My running form was chock full of red flags, as the analytical cyber beast soon revealed. After shaving my ankles and knees with a plastic razor so that they could stick me with electrodes at critical joint locations, I was off and running. On the treadmill, I was a main-stage display for mechanical dissection. Ten infrared cameras were pointing at me from all angles. The cameras sent a signal to the electrodes and rendered a digital skeleton on the nearby computer screens and captured my joint measurements at 250 times a second.
Some of my problems were immediately noticeable. My strides were way too long, which caused me to bounce up and down and land too far in front of my center of mass. As a result my inefficient cadence was only allowing me 75 strides per minute—a number that should be around 90.
My biggest problem was the awkward way that I supinate (or “under-pronate”), which means I land on the outside of my foot. The stress of pounding the outside of my feet torques my knee outward—the likely cause of my nagging knee pain. The cameras also revealed that I rely more heavily on my right leg to do all of the work, which causes my running stride to be off balance.
“People don’t know to think about these imbalances, because they’re often imperceptible to the untrained eye,” says Jay Dicharry, physical therapist with the UVA Health System and director of the SPEED clinic. “That’s why we opened this facility—to address the roots of dysfunction and use technology to help develop healthy athletes.”
Dicharry gave me printouts with left-to-right comparisons of my muscles. Scientific graphs showed which muscles were weak and which muscles were overcompensating. My running was actually mathematically inefficient, and my mechanics were actually slowing me down. My natural motion was causing more brake than acceleration, drastically reducing the ground I could be covering with the same amount of energy.
I am the epitome of Average Joe when it comes to running, so I figured my unspectacular skill level had something to with my shortcomings. Not so, says Dicharry. He regularly sees weekend warriors with perfect form and elite athletes that look awful.
“When it comes to having good form, it’s not a question of are you good enough,” he says.
A prime example is elite triathlete Michele McGleish from Gaithersburg, Md., who injured her knee in the 2005 World Duathlon Championships in Australia. She wrestled with the injury for over a year, trying to heal it with stretching and physical therapy, before reluctantly conceding to a cortisone injection—a final approach that her local doctor promised would be a sure-fire remedy. The pain returned on her first post-shot run.
“If you’re injured, you can go to the doctor and become pain free—at least temporarily,” says Dicharry. “But there’s a big gray area between being healed and future prevention. Symptoms can go away, but biomechanical problems won’t.”
Wilder later diagnosed McGleish with Patellofemoral Syndrome and sent her to the SPEED Clinic.
“I run lopsided,” McGleish says. “My ponytail kept bobbing to the left. I was completely off-balance. I learned I had to go back to basics.”
McGleish has finally corrected her stride and had a solid season in 2006, including a finish at Ironman Florida.
I, on the other hand, still have a long way to go: I need to strengthen stabilizing muscles that I never knew existed. But if I stick with a few simple exercises (some that can be done while brushing my teeth or watching TV), my running economy could improve by as much as 15 percent. For a guy like me, a little under-the-hood mechanics can get me a lot farther down the road. •
Share this article with others:
