Running is a highly repetitive sport. Every stride asks your body to produce and absorb force, over and over again. Whether you’re training for a race, trying to improve your performance, or returning to running after an injury, understanding how your body handles those demands can help you train more effectively and stay healthy.
At SOVRN, we take an interdisciplinary approach to running that brings together strength and conditioning, testing, and physical therapy. Each gives us a different piece of the puzzle. By looking at all of them together, we can better understand where a runner is today, identify areas that may need attention, and create a plan to help them reach their goals.
Look at the Whole Runner
A physical therapist and a strength and conditioning professional bring different perspectives to the same athlete. Physical therapy focuses on rehabilitation, movement, and addressing limitations, while strength and conditioning focuses on building the capacity to handle the demands of the sport. Both are important for runners.
A runner may need physical therapy to address an injury or movement limitation, but eventually they also need to be able to tolerate the forces and demands of running again. That’s where strength and conditioning comes in. Rather than treating rehabilitation and performance as separate processes, we can connect the two and progressively build a runner back to full capacity.
Research supports the value of combining strength and endurance training for runners. Studies have found that adding strength training to endurance training can improve strength and neuromuscular qualities, with some strength-training approaches also improving running performance. (PubMed)
Understand How You Move
Gait analysis gives us another important piece of the puzzle. By looking at how you move while running, we can evaluate things like cadence, stride characteristics, and symmetry, as well as what’s happening at the hips, knees, and ankles throughout the gait cycle.
We may look at knee flexion, dorsiflexion and plantar flexion, hip extension, or whether one side of the pelvis or hip is moving differently than the other. These observations can help us understand how a runner is moving and identify something that may be worth investigating.
But seeing a difference doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong. If a runner isn’t experiencing pain and is performing well, we don’t necessarily need to intervene simply because we see an asymmetry. Research on gait retraining has shown that changing certain biomechanical variables doesn’t always lead to better running performance. Gait analysis is one piece of the picture, and we consider it alongside the runner’s symptoms, history, training, and goals. (PubMed)
Understand What the Runner Can Do
We can also use performance testing to understand a runner’s current physical capacity.
At SOVRN, we use VALD ForceDecks and the VALD ForceFrame and dynamometer to objectively assess force production and establish measurable benchmarks. These tools can be used alongside run-specific assessments, such as Alex Natera’s Run-Specific Isometric Assessment Battery, which uses unilateral ankle, knee, and hip iso-push assessments in positions relevant to running.
This type of testing gives us an objective starting point and measurable targets to work toward. Instead of relying entirely on what we think a runner needs, we can use testing to help guide training and track whether the athlete is actually improving.
We can also look at other areas of performance, including mechanical and physiological measures. Cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory testing, for example, can give us a better understanding of an athlete’s fitness and how their body responds to exercise.
Use the Information to Guide Training
Once we understand how a runner moves and what they’re capable of, we can use that information to determine what they need to work on.
This is where strength and conditioning becomes an important part of the process. The goal isn’t simply to make a runner stronger. It’s to increase their capacity to handle the forces they’ll experience when they run.
That might mean working on strength, force production, power, or other physical qualities identified through testing. It might also mean progressively exposing the runner to greater demands as they get closer to returning to their sport after an injury.
Run-specific approaches like Natera’s isometric protocols are one example of how training can be made more specific to the demands of running. His approach considers factors like joint position, force production, and the ability to produce force quickly, providing another tool for developing the qualities runners need.
The important part is that training isn’t happening in isolation. The information we gather through testing and analysis helps inform what we do in the gym.
When Intervention Is Needed, Physical Therapy Comes In
Sometimes the information we gather points to something that needs to be addressed.
That might be pain, an injury, a strength or mobility limitation, or a movement pattern that is affecting a runner’s ability to perform. When intervention is needed, physical therapy can help address those issues and create a path back to full activity.
For runners returning from an injury, that process doesn’t necessarily end when the pain goes away. Return-to-sport physical therapy can bridge the gap between rehabilitation and performance, gradually preparing the runner for the actual demands they’ll face when they return to running.
That might mean progressing strength and movement, increasing running demands, or eventually incorporating more sport-specific work. The goal is to make sure the runner is not just feeling better, but is prepared to handle the demands of their sport.
It All Works Together
There isn’t one test, one assessment, or one training method that can tell us everything about a runner. That’s why we look at the whole picture. The biggest advantage of an interdisciplinary approach is that these pieces don’t have to exist separately.
A physical therapist can evaluate an injury and movement limitations and perform a gait analysis to give us insight into how the runner is moving. Neuromuscular and performance testing can help quantify their current capacity. Strength and conditioning can then build that capacity and progressively expose them to the demands of running.
And when appropriate, other members of the team, including exercise physiologists and nutrition professionals, can contribute to the plan as well. Each discipline gives us different information. When we put that information together, we can make better decisions about what a runner actually needs.
At SOVRN, our goal is to bring together multiple areas of expertise to create a more complete approach to running and overall longevity. Whether you’re healthy and looking to improve, dealing with an injury, or working your way back to your sport, we can use the information we gather to help guide the next step.
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