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How do you get hurt?
“Ouch! Damnit. Shit. My leg hurts!” I complain to myself as a junior in college, walking to class, passing through the historic stone arch by the university steps. It’s then I realize that in order to move straight forward I’m forced to lean a bit left.
That’s how far my hips are out of line.
Frustrated and in pain, with a major cross country meet looming this weekend, I decide to skip class. Making my way through the picturesque campus fall foliage, I’m pissed. I head to the training room in desperate search of a solution. Unsure if one even exists.
As a collegiate runner, I ruined season after season with soft tissue injuries inflicted by my stride directing the stress of mileage in the wrong directions. For me, the difference between injury and achievement was whether my stride was working. Cause when it’s aligned the pounding passes through me. It’s only when it’s off that I end up with sore shins, aching hips, and tugging hamstrings. Like a neglected marionette doll’s wires pulling in all the wrong ways, when my stride is off-kilter each mile does more harm than good.
“You know the definition of insanity?” the college trainer asks me, a desperate young athlete jabbing at his hip flexors and leaning deeper into lunges in search of a solution. I shake my head no.
