Not too long ago, my good friend Michelle Jobin invited myself and a few of my fellow running friends to experience a pilates reformer class specifically tailored to our needs. Tight hamstrings, stiff hips and more are common problems for runners since we are literally executing the same motion for a prolonged period of time.
As a runner herself, Michelle understands our pain. As a certified Stott Pilates teacher at MISFIT Studio, she can help us. Read on for more insights on both!
What three pieces of advice do you have for runners?
1. Cross train! It’s the best way to avoid injury and boost your overall fitness. I see a lot of injuries in runners because they are doing the same thing over and over without cross training and they end up creating or emphasizing imbalances in their bodies.
Fitness isn’t just one thing.
You can run fast or run far? That’s great! But fitness isn’t about just one thing: strength, agility, stamina, speed, flexibility and more are things that everyone should be focusing on in order to be more well-rounded. Adding pilates, weightlifting, HIIT or even another sport that you enjoy to your regime will not only up your running game, but give you better overall results.
I mostly ran for years without cross training much and I can promise you that when I added in other elements that built strength, the changes I saw in my body and fitness level were profound.
2. It’s great to have goals, but be realistic getting there. I’ve seen a lot of people get injured when they start running because they’re trying to take on too much distance or too fast of a pace too soon. You will get faster, you will be able to run further. But don’t strive to run a sub 5 minute K as soon as you start because your friend is in that pace group. Or whatever. Respect where your body IS to get where you need it to be.
3) Proper nutrition and rest are key. There was a point that I could eat fast food and still get the results that I wanted. I think I was about 15. Now, not so much. Almost all of us will hit that point. While we ALL need to indulge sometimes, you need to put the right kind of fuel in your tank on a regular basis. You wouldn’t put the wrong kind of fuel in a car and expect it to function optimally, if at all.
Also, don’t forget about the power of sleep. As someone who spent a long time working in morning television, which means waking up at about 3:30 am (Not kidding. At all.) I have learned the value of getting the right amount of sleep at the right time to regenerate your body and your mind. Sleep is magic. Don’t ever forget that.
What muscle groups should runners focus on strengthening?
As I mentioned, I see certain injuries or postural imbalances quite often in my clients that run, so I like to target these areas when I work them out on the reformer:
1. Tight Hip Flexors: People that run are often overly flexed at the hip joint and therefore rather tight in this area. It’s a great idea to focus on exercises and stretches like hip rolls or standing thigh stretches that help to open up that area. Interestingly enough, people that sit all day are also often quite tight in the hip flexors. So if you sit all day at work and are a runner, give some love to your hip flexors and stretch them out.
2. Weak Glutes/Hamstrings: These are essentially the muscles that oppose your hip flexors, so they help to extend your hip joint. I am a bit glute obsessed, and not just because a nice body is a beautiful thing. This area is also the powerhouses of your body, along with your abdominals, IMHO. I sort of jokingly say that the overall western population have no idea where their butts are. Actually, I’m not really joking. Most of us have no idea how to engage our glutes, partially because a lot of us sit all day.
Most don’t know where their butts are.
While you are doing a lot of good for your body running, you need to strength train your hip extensors to balance things out. Squats and lunges are great. I can do these things on the reformer with clients with added tension and stability challenges, and I also love to do a side-lying series that targets the glutes from a few different angles, with a big focus on the lateral muscles (Glute Med….essenitally your “side bum”). This is because a lot of runners are tight in the IT band, which can make their leg rotate medially (inward) and leave the lateral muscles of the hip and thigh on the weaker side. Not only do we want to strengthen the glutes overall, I like to particularly focus on the lateral muscles for that reason. Also, back to the nice booty is a beautiful thing point……exercises like these will certainly help you achieve that. If you care about that kind of thing.
3. Abs, abs, abs. Another area that can sometimes be weaker in runners if they don’t cross train is the abdominals. While a nice 6 pack (rectus abdominus) is great, it’s not my focus. The abdominal muscles that lie deeper to the rectus, namely the obliques and transversus are far more important to overall strength and stability in that area. So to target those, we not only focus on the right kind of breathing in pilates, but do exercises that create a stability challenge, such as a pike/plank/pushup combo on the reformer with minimal spring tension. It’s a great all-over body conditioner, but can definitely target that core.
