PUBLISHED 06/07/2005
While training for the Marine Corps Marathon, Margaret Colvin, 48, of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, developed patello-femoral pain syndrome (a.k.a. runner's knee)--unfortunate, but not uncommon. Her luck improved when she was referred to the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Delaware. The clinic's director, Irene Davis, Ph.D., a physical therapist is a leading researcher in the field of gait retraining, a method of rehabilitating running injuries by correcting flaws in a runner's stride.
Using video analysis of Colvin's stride, Davis looked for biomechanical abnormalities that could be causing the pain. Davis found that Colvin's thigh was rotating internally during ground contact due to weakness in her hips. But instead of just giving her hip-strengthening exercises, Davis also helped her modify her running mechanics to reduce the stress on her knee.
To assist Colvin in the gait-retraining process, sensors were attached to her leg. These sensors produced a graph on a video monitor that she could watch and manipulate while running on a treadmill at the clinic. Davis taught Colvin how to activate her hip abductors and hip external rotators to achieve the optimal stride.
For several weeks Colvin was allowed to run only at the clinic.
Using the instant feedback system, she was able to strengthen her hips and gradually reprogram the neuromuscular patterns that controlled her stride. When her new gait felt natural, she resumed training on her own. Two years later, Colvin says her corrected stride remains intact and she has had no more knee pain.
Davis hopes that gait retraining will soon become standard treatment for injured runners. "Abnormal running mechanics are a factor in many running injuries, and in most cases these flaws can be corrected," says Davis. But at present, few professionals who treat injured runners suggest gait retraining because of the prevailing wisdom that a person's running gait is too "automatic" to be changed. "Most of us have a stride that's natural to our body--the stride that's best for us," says Alan Hreljac, Ph.D., a professor of biomechanics who studies running injuries at California State University in Sacramento.
Davis, however, believes running form is as changeable as a golf swing. And the failure to correct form flaws in response to injuries all but guarantees that the same problem will return after the original injury heals. In fact, research has identified a number of stride flaws that appear to be associated with running injuries.
