So many of us have witnessed a running event photo of ourselves looking a bit ‘sluggish’, having fallen victim to the dreaded Medial Collapse or ‘Hip Drop’. This is a common weakness in so many novice runners, and probably not something you will have recently witnessed during the Olympics?!
It is a key indication that lateral hip (medial glute) strength is inadequate and unable to support your pelvis in a single leg stance. This can also have a substantial knock-on effect, causing the knee and foot to internally rotate, and the trunk to compensate in the opposing direction. These asymmetries can lead to many unwanted injuries and inefficient running performance.
Medial collapse is unfortunately associated with numerous injuries. These include;
Patellofemoral (knee) pain
ITB syndrome
Hip Bursitis
Lumbopelvic (lower back) pain
Stress fractures.
To avoid medial collapse, we often recommend runners the following actions;
Verbal or Visual feedback for the runner to ‘Maintain Level Hips’.
Encourage knees to stay apart.
Cadence increase. By increasing our step rate (not our speed), this often encourages a faster transition from stance to ‘push off’ phase of the running stride, simply allowing less time for pelvis to drop during 'mid-stance''.
Strengthening of the Glute Medius. This will help to stabilise the pelvis during every stride. This consists of hip abduction exercises, such as side lying-leg lifts. To ensure this exercise is being performed correctly, the leg raise should be performed with heel driving upwards and backwards, with your bodyweight leaning forwards.
The most effective way to identify these issues within our running form is to use Motion Analysis software (such as Gait On), to detect potential areas of muscle dysfunction. With high-speed action cameras we can break down the running stride to identify areas of improvement from every angle.
It can be highly beneficial to identify and address running form dsyfunctions or imbalances before injury occurs.
For more information on running form or running injuries please get in touch.
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