Yoga To Strengthen Your Strides

It’s mile 2 in the half marathon you’re running, and you suddenly sense a dull pain in the bottom of your heel near the arch. You were running late this morning to get to the starting line, and didn’t have time to stretch before the race kicked off. Instead of stopping to stretch, you press on. Now you’re at mile 8, and you suddenly notice tightness originating at the back of your knee that wraps around to your inner thigh, worsening with every step. To avoid injury, you end up shortening your strides for the remainder of the race. We’ve all been there - whether during a race, or walking around on vacation.

Performing yoga poses is an effective way to simultaneously stretch and strengthen your muscles from your toes all the way up through your core. Every stride taken while running originates from the core composed of the abdominal and gluteal muscles. As the leg swings through the air, all the muscles in the hamstrings, lower legs and feet are activating to set the foot up for an aligned foot strike. Depending on your foot structure and alignment of your hips through your knees to your feet, the activation of the muscles in the foot is magnified to achieve maximum propulsion at push-off. Therefore, it is critical to include regular stretching and strengthening of your feet, legs and core to avoid foot and lower back pain. Yoga also enhances your balance. Further developing your balance will help sharpen your foot and ankle proprioception, or position sense, on uneven terrain. Improving proprioception will help prevent ankle sprains.

The following yoga poses and information recommended for foot and ankle strengthening and recovery were taken from http://www.sunandmoonstudio.com/.

1)Virasana-Hero Pose - Stretches the top of the foot and ankle.

Squat with Toe Stretch (knees on floor)
Kneeling with the toes tucked under stretches the entire plantar aspect of the foot.

2)Baddha Konasana-Cobbler Pose

Pressing the four corners of the feet together and drawing the toes away from each other strengthens the foot muscles and activates the arches.

3)Viparita Karani-Legs up the wall

Excellent for recovery following runs.

4)Adho Mukha Svanasana-Downward Facing Dog

This pose primarily stretches the feet, hamstrings, shoulders, back and arms.

For more information on yoga poses for runners, check out this link: http://www.runnersworld.com/topic-ext/0,7121,s6-238-409-0-0,00.html.