CALGARY — A University of Calgary researcher says stronger hips mean less knee pain for runners.
Reed Ferber’s team has published a study in the March/April edition of the Journal of Athletic Training that looks at whether runners with knee pain benefit from an intensive hip-strengthening program.
Within three weeks, they found runners had less pain, less stride-to-stride variability and more strength to help them run safely, said Ferber, director of the university’s Running Injury Clinic.
Emily Morin, 21, a student at the university and participant in the study, said at around the second or third week her knee pain just went away.
“I tried physiotherapy, acupuncture and a chiropractor. I tried everything and it wasn’t going away. I started to worry that as I got older, I wouldn’t be able to walk,” she said.
The 25 runners involved did treadmill tests and the clinic used 3D motion capture to analyze gaits and the relationship between knees, hips and ankles.
Half of all running injuries in Canada involve the knee and between three and four million runners suffer with knee injuries each year, Ferber said.
“We’ve shown that strengthening those critical hip muscles helps runners restore a more consistent, predictable pattern of movement, reduce knee pain and stay on the roster for that next race.”
Ferber has also helped set up running clinics in the Alberta communities of Lethbridge, Banff and Edmonton and in Nelson, B.C., Vancouver and Victoria.
He says the team can compare information in its database with runners at the other clinics.
“That allows us to do much more robust research, and give each runner more precise advice about his/her treatment program.”
On the Net:
www.runninginjuryclinic.com