RUNNER SHORTEST DISTANCE!
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007Pat Peterson ran 26.2 miles in under two hours, yet lost to winner, Ibrahim Hussein, by 60.02 seconds. Just a minute difference separated the winner from this race. A runner takes approximately 1,000 strides per mile. And approximately 26,200 times during a marathon. Ask yourself…If one doesn’t run in a complete straight path will that change the ending outcome? The answer is that it very much will. Peterson came to find out he had a 6 inch lateral travel as he ran. This calculated up to 2.5 miles, which would have reduced his run time by 12.5 minutes. Hussein “crossed-over” only 1 inch or .42 miles of lateral travel. That means that Peterson ran 2.08 miles farther than Hussein. Peterson would have beaten Hussein by 9 minutes instead of losing to him by 60 seconds.
Crossing over your midline is always taxing on the muscles and joints of the hips and legs. Anything over 3 degrees is associated with shin splints, knee injuries, hamstring pulls, hip pain and back problems. To demonstrate on oneself run in place in front of a mirror. Observe how you feel when jogging in place while your legs are going straight up and down. Now try and jog in place while crossing over to your midline which will be located around your belly button. Notice how awkward this feels and how your legs fatigue much faster.
This mechanism of crossing over also causes runners to progressively become stiffer so flexibility suffers. African runners are known to deal with the pain of running marathons, but their crossover is much less than American runners. They also have less vertical movement and less overstride. Well next question is how to reduce crossover? Surprisingly, the stiffness responsible for crossing over is found in the shoulders. Every time a runner takes a stride his or her arm extends behind there trunk 60 degrees. Many runners do not have 60 degrees of extension at their shoulders. Restriction of extension in the shoulder causes their upper body to twist or torque to that side, throwing the opposite arm over the midline.
Exercise to stretch shoulders and increase extension:
-Lie down on back
-Prop yourself on your shoulders
-Scoot your trunk and legs towards your feet
-Should feel a stretch in the front part of your shoulders
**Do this before your run and will notice an immediate improvement with time and smoothness. **
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