Glenn Dawson explains why runners get lower-back and knee pain: short strides, forward-tilted pelvis, tight calves from padded shoes. He shows three stretches to fix it, including an Achilles wall stretch, hip-flexor lunge, and IT-band twist.
Runners, everyone is running right now. If you're experiencing lower back pain or knee pain, I want to help you. I've got 3 stretches here that can help eliminate lower back pain and knee pain when you're running. Hi, I'm Glenn Dawson with Reset U Fitness, and we've worked on thousands of people, and most of them have these 2 problems that when you start running, it creates the knee pain and the lower back pain. We're going to break it down first, tell you scientifically why this is happening, and then how to fix it. With 3 simple stretches. So the first thing you have to realize is most people when they run, they're not doing sprints. They're doing short choppy movements. They're not striding out, right? You're probably one of those distance runners too who's just like, I'm going to go run miles. Now when that happens, starts to tighten up the front of your legs because there's not a lot of flexibility. You're doing short strides. Then the pelvis starts to tighten up too and starts to tilt forward and down. Like this. It's a little exaggerated, but this is so you can, you can actually get it. And there's a lot of strain on the lower spine. On top of that, the quads start to overactivate and do all the work, because to work your glutes and hamstrings, you have to stride out to pull. So they just become choppy pushing steps that are working most of their quads, and that pull becomes even more dominant. Now, as this is happening, most people who run have those elevated heel shoes. They have thick, thick padding because you're running miles. You don't want your knees to hurt, so you have to pad your shoes. Well, that padding lifts the heel and scrunches the Achilles tendon, shortens it down. So now this whole calf becomes tight. The IT band becomes tight. The glute becomes tight right here. And then that leads up to your lower erectors. These muscles right here in your lower back stiffen up and get really, really, really tight as you're running. And there's too much torque going through them. Almost like if you're putting too much pressure through a water hose and then you kink the hose, cutting off a lot of the water pressure, making it even harder. So there's 3 stretches you could do to basically fix this problem and eliminate it from happening. So you don't have to experience the lower back pain at mile 3 or the knee pain the next day. So first thing, we want to fix this ankle problem. We want to stretch out the Achilles tendon, stretch out the calf. The easiest one to do, especially if you're outdoors, just find a wall and do the Achilles wall stretch where you're just pushing your heel into the ground and your knee forward just like this, creating a bridge and going back and forth. I recommend doing this for 30 seconds at least 2 to 3 times. So you'd go 30 seconds, stretch, release it, go back and stretch again, and obviously do both sides. Now the next one, your hips are going to get tight, right? You have that short choppy stride, you probably want to elongate it a little bit, and that's going to really develop your quads way too much, right? So the first thing we're going to do is we're just going to do a hip flexor lunge stretch. Create two 90-degree angles with your legs, arms above your heads, and push your hip down and forward. Now, if you could do this one and there's not too much tension here, then what I want you to do next is I want you to do a wall hip flexor lunge stretch where you're just hooking your foot to a bench, a couch, a wall, anything behind you. Make sure your knee is padded on this. If there's any kind of pain, your body will not stretch. Then from here, you're already going to feel a stretch in your quad. Put your arms above your head, hip forward, chest back, and then rotate over. I want you to do this stretch for 90 seconds on each side. Now I know 90 seconds sounds like a lot, but is it better to spend 90 seconds before you run and after you run, or is it better to spend 3 days with lower back pain? It's up to you. Now, the last one we have is to loosen up our IT bands, the one that's like causing all the knee pain because there's just too much tension going through the outside of our leg. Now, if you can touch your toes, what I want you to do, take One hand, grab the outside of your foot, twist the foot into you so that you're basically pointing your pinky toes towards you, and then hold. This is another one you want to go 90 seconds each side. If you can do this, you might want to stretch it up and over to really, really, really stretch out that IT band. If you are a good runner, flexibility is key for you so that every single repetition where you're putting torque and force through your body, it's going through a happy structure and not going through a rickety structure with a bunch of pain and imbalances. Now, if you can't reach your toes to do this stretch, you have a lot of muscular imbalances and you probably shouldn't even be running in the first place. I would recommend click the link above my head. We'll give you a free assessment and teach you exactly what to do to loosen up your body and fix your muscular imbalances on an individual level. Huh, is you probably shouldn't be going running and putting a lot of repetitions through a body that's unbalanced. It's almost like driving a car on a road trip with a flat tire. But because I care about you, I'm going to help you if you still want to run anyways, to adjust the stretch for you. Now, if you have a belt or I'm going to use a Voodoo Band here, you just simply put it around your foot and then like reins on a horse, pull the outside one harder, and that will twist the toes in the foot towards you and light up your IT band. Again, 90 seconds each side. Now, if this brought you value or you're going to try it out when you're running so that you can feel better, not have lower back pain, have a rock-solid lower back, stable core, and not have knee pain, make sure you share it. Or if you know somebody that could benefit from this, you know they're running and they're hiding the pain from you because most time we're in pain, we don't tell anybody. Make sure you share this video.
Touch Your Toes in 6 Minutes | Release Muscular Guarding for Better Flexibility
