5 Exercises to Help Runners Stay Injury Free

Whether you are new to running, or a seasoned veteran, here are some exercises we recommend that address many of the common running injuries we see such as plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, runner’s knee, IT band tendonitis and hip pain.

Here are our top five recommended exercises:

1.  Foot Intrinsic and Ankle exercises: These exercises are specific to strengthening and building endurance in the muscles of the foot and ankle. Perform the exercises daily. Hold the arch exercise for 10 seconds and repeat for 10 repetitions. Perform 15 reps of gathering the towel and pulling the towel to the side. Use a medium size towel.
2.  Ankle mobility and stretches: This segment demonstrates how to assess your range of motion and mobility of your calf and how to perform self treatments to improve the length of your calf muscle and improve the range of motion of your ankle joint.
3.  Side lying hip Isometric exercise: This is our first exercise in a series of strengthening exercises for the outside of the hip. These exercises are key for maintaining the hip stability as we land from one leg to the next while we are running. These exercises will help prevent some foot, many knee and hip issues we see in runners.
4.  Side lying hip active exercise: Great exercise for strengthening the outside of the hip. Be sure to perform this exercise with high quality as you will hear in the video as it is easy to cheat. Work up to 2-3 sets of 10 reps and then progress with ankle weights.
5.  Standing hip isometric exercise: This exercise is what I call “2 for 1” as not only does the leg you are standing on get exercised, the leg you are pressing into the wall gets worked as well. I also love this exercise as it puts the runner in standing position. You can double up this exercise with the foot intrinsic exercise above and perform both at the same time.