Here's a phrase I hear a lot in my training: kinetic chain. What this means is everything's connected. Especially pain. That one pain leads to another. A pain in my right heel that started in December is related to a pain in my left iliotibial (IT) band and hip that started three months ago, and the hip and thigh pain is related to a recent nagging backache, even though the backache immediately followed two sessions of hog wild tennis (played when I was supposed to be recovering from a race) and one damn long yoga class. At least this is what I learned last night after meeting with a physical therapist in Long Island. I think he's on to something.
A little after eight last night, I met with Don Rourke in East Meadow, Long Island, a physical therapist highly recommended by my coach, and a guy who sounded pretty down to earth and friendly on the phone. He was the same in person. He listened patiently as I whined in detail about every twinge of pain and tingling sensation I've experienced in my three or so years of training. After, he went through a battery of strength and flexibility tests to see how my joints were moving and muscles were working. I scored high on flexibility, and quad and hamstring strength. And then he tested my hips. Laying on my left side, he asked me to raise my right leg and try to resist as he pushed the leg back toward the table. This was almost comical. I had zero resistance, zero strength. And this wasn't even the side that was hurting. We moved to my other side. Same test, and remarkably, though I was in pain on that side, I was able to resist a bit more. Or maybe I was using my arm to push on the table this time, but still. He did a few more tests of my hips and gluteal muscles, asking me to raise my hips off the table while laying on my back, and my lower back locked and I struggled to raise to a neutral position, could go no higher. I heard the ding. Weakness located. Or as Don put it, my engine was stronger than my chassis.
So how was it all connected? What did my right heel have to do with my left foot and my entire lower back? Here's how. My right hip is especially weak, which would cause me to run flat on my right side when that hip fatigued. Thus the foot pain. As the runs got longer and training more intense, my left hip had to compensate for the failures of my right hip, and when the left hip got tired of doing 70 to 80 percent of the work, it let me know loud and clear. And when I kept pushing through it, I started engaging my lower back muscles, and they screamed just as loud. And that's the kinetic chain.
So now what? Strengthening exercising, core and hips and gluts. (Which is not too surprising, or also explains why I can't get rid of my belly fat. Weak core. Too much ice cream.) In a few weeks, when the weak muscles are stronger, I can ease back into running. The good news is that nothing is injured. It's simply an imbalance, like the guys at the gym who work only their upper body and walk around on chicken legs, or how I mostly eat ice cream and carbohydrates because I hate washing vegetables, or how I check my email more than I write, and so many other imbalances in life that we seem to be good at. The other good news is that I have a few more weeks to lay off running, and when I get back to it, maybe my chassis will carry me a bit farther, a bit faster, and hopefully with an inch less belly fat. And maybe then I'll like running. Unlikely.
