3 Ways to Crush Your Next Race
Improve Imbalances From Running – Crush Your Next Race
It’s hard to beat the benefits of running. It’s an awesome cardio and endurance activity. The feeling you get from a good run is addicting. Unfortunately, the wear and tear on joints and musculature imbalances that this high-impact sport can bring often become problematic.
Some great news is that there are 3 things you can do to improve imbalances from running and crush your next race, setting a new PR:
1. Pinpoint your imbalances
2. Strengthen your glutes
3. Strengthen your deep core muscles
Common Imbalances for Runners
· Quadriceps become more developed than the hamstrings
· Low back muscles become stronger than abdominal muscles
· Hip flexors become stronger than the gluteus muscles – and weak glutes are one of the worst precursors for injuries in runners.
Many runners feel the results of their imbalances and gluteal weakness in the form of back pain and believe their backs are to blame. The truth is that strong glutes equal strong backs! Your back pain will lesson and often go away entirely when you strengthen your glutes and deep core muscles.
When your glutes are weak, you’ll lose mobility in the hips, and your body will over-compensate to compensate for the glutes not functioning properly. This over-compensation leads to overuse of the rest of the muscles and joints and ultimately shows up in injuries.
Improve your imbalances from running and you’ll see a change in the way you feel and move. You may even hit a new PR and crush your next race!
Test Your Glute Strength:
· Squat Stand on one leg (with the other leg lifted to 90 degrees in the front of the hip and knee) and try to hold your pelvis level. Gluteal weakness shows itself when the pelvis tips to one side or the other.
· Lay on your side with hips and bottom leg straight. Bend the top leg forward at the knee, hovering toward the floor. Slowly lift the top leg diagonally up and backward away from your body 10 times, keeping your toes forward or slightly down. If there’s pain, it may be a sign of weak glutes.
Strengthening Your Glutes at Home?
You probably won’t be surprised to hear this, but you need to start doing squats and lunges, stat.
Other Exercises That Will Help Tremendously:
· Single Leg Squats and Lunges
· Deadlifts
· Lunge Walks
· Side Lying Leg Lifts
· Step Ups
· Reverse Planks
If you live in eastern Nebraska and are looking for the best Pilates studio in Omaha, book a class at Core10 Pilates, where they specialize in athletic group fitness Pilates reformer classes. Every workout is designed to strengthen members’ backs while incorporating exercises targeting the glutes and core muscles.
Strengthen, Lengthen, and Tone
TAP HERE for a short video of a 5-minute stretch to do daily to increase mobility in the areas that matter most.
Look for an athletic Pilates studio near you that is a challenging, core-focused Pilates reformer workout. These high-intensity Pilates reformer classes blend heart-pumping cardio and total body strength training – not your average Pilates class. It’s better and gives faster results because of the higher level of intensity and is less complicated than traditional Pilates.
Athletic Pilates studios like Core10 Pilates blend traditional strength training concepts (i.e…muscle fatigue and endurance) with the precision of Pilates for better results faster.
This kind of workout eliminates or minimizes rest periods, keeping the muscle tension constant. At the same time, your Athletic Pilates Trainers coach you to the optimal level of fatigue to fire up your fat-burning, slow-twitch muscle fibers in each exercise.
Core10 Pilates, like many high-intensity Pilates workouts, is the most effective, fun, and complete workout you can get in just 50-minutes. Then you can spend your time running, increasing your speed, and making new PRs.
We work with runners (half and full marathons) and runners who just run to run (not to race). Sign up HERE to try an athletic Pilates class at Core10 Pilates in Omaha, Nebraska or HERE to find one like it in your area.