Running Tips

THE RUNNING RESEARCH NEWS WEEKLY TRAINING UPDATE

ISSUE # 30    NOVEMBER 27, 2004

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Hi Friends,

    I hope that you all enjoyed a very wonderful Thanksgiving Day, and I send you my very best wishes for this holiday season.

    In our weekly updates, I like to cover endurance and sprint training, sport-specific strength training, and sports nutrition.  Today, I would like to focus on strength training - specifically on improving the strength of your thigh adductors for running.

    Thigh adductors?   I know that you probably haven't talked in depth about your adductors for a couple of months at least, so here's a brief review of the young fellows.  Recall that your thigh adductors are actually strips of muscle which run from your pelvic girdle to the inside of each leg.  There are five key ones (gracilis, pectineus, adductor longus, adductor brevis, and adductor magnus; there will be a quiz on these next week), and they generally originate near the center, front, bottom of your pelvic girdle.  Since your pelvic girdle doesn't like to wander around very much, even when you are running at full speed, contractions of the thigh adductors tend to pull your legs inward - toward the imaginary midline of your body, which runs vertically between your legs and divides your upper body into right and left halves.

    Huh?  Why would the adductors be important during running?   After all, when is the last time you crossed one leg over the other (adducting it) as you sprinted toward the finish line of a 5K?  Doesn't competitive running involve straight-ahead actions of the legs?  Aren't adductor activities primarily the province of the ballerina, not the marathoner?

    As it turns out, the thigh adductors get plenty of action during the gait cycle of running.  They have several key roles to play, one of which is to prevent unusual abduction of the leg - excessive lateral motion of the thigh, either during swing or when the foot is on the ground.  Several of the adductors can laterally rotate the thigh, which means that they help prevent excessive medial rotation of the upper leg when the foot is on the ground.  And of course the adductors help to control the swing leg as it accelerates forward through space, stabilizing its motion and preventing it from flying around too aggressively.

    Strains of the adductors, often felt as pain in the groin and the inside top of the leg, are relatively common in running.  They are sometimes linked with high-speed training, because high-velocity effort places more force on the adductors when the foot is on the ground and also when the leg is swinging forward.  High-volume training can induce "overuse" trauma in the adductors.  The Kenyan runners are highly resistant to injury, but adductor strains are fairly common among Kenyan cross-country harriers, mainly because cross-country training in Kenya often involves vaulting over things (fences, thickets, piles of vegetation, wild animals, etc.).  If the landing after such a vault occurs with the landing foot turned slightly inward (common when a runner swings his/her body over a fence), the thigh may suddenly rotate medially, and the adductor longus, adductor brevis, and adductor magnus may all cry out in protest.

    Although it has not been studied carefully, good running-specific thigh-adductor strength should be linked with good running economy, since the adductors play such an important stabilizing role, and of course good running-specific thigh-adductor strength should also be connected with a lower risk of adductor injury.  But - how do you strengthen your thigh adductors appropriately for running?

    A classic approach is to go to the gym and use a thigh-adduction machine - or to attach flexible cords to one's legs and then pull the lower appendages through adduction against the resistance of the cord.  Of course, these non-weight-bearing-on-the-acting-leg exercises are relatively useless for the advancement of strength during running.  Remember that although the thigh adductors can adduct the legs (pull them inward and across the midline of the body), this action - while it may be absolutely necessary for ballet and other forms of dancing - is nugatory during sprint and endurance running.  During running efforts, the thigh adductors help to control the legs, limiting excessive abduction of the thigh, and so it is important to strengthen this specific action.  My new creation, Surfer's Squats, does just that.  Here's how to carry out the exercise:

    (1) On the sidewalk, floor, street, track, grass, or dirt, please draw the outline of a surf Board (use chalk if necessary).  Such sketching is not mandatory, but it helps you think about the correct body position for the exercise.

Very kindest regards,