Strengthen your hips.in a descriptive analysis of injured runners published in January, researchers tested the strength of the six hip muscle groups of the injured leg against both the runners' uninjured legs and healthy controls. They discovered that, while both legs of each uninjured runner had very similar hip muscle strength, among the injured runners, the injured side's hip abductor ab·duc·tor n. A muscle that draws a body part, such as a finger, arm, or toe, away from the midline of the body or of an extremity. abductor that which abducts. and flexor flexor /flex·or/ (flek´ser) 1. causing flexion. 2. a muscle that flexes a joint. flexor retina´culum see entries under retinaculum. muscle groups were significantly weaker than the uninjured side. In addition, the injured side hip adductor muscle Noun 1. adductor muscle - a muscle that draws a body part toward the median line adductor skeletal muscle, striated muscle - a muscle that is connected at either or both ends to a bone and so move parts of the skeleton; a muscle that is characterized by group was significantly stronger than the uninjured side. Leg dominance (as determined by preferred kicking leg) did not appear to be a factor in which leg had become injured. The hip abductors move your straightened leg outward from your body on either side, in a plane of motion similar to a sideways step. These muscles are important for stability during the single-leg phase of the running motion. The adductors move your leg back toward midline mid·line n. A medial line, especially the medial line or plane of the body. midline, n the line equidistant from bilateral features of the head. (in medicine, the imaginary line In general, an imaginary line is any sort of line that has only an abstract definition, and does not exist in fact. As a geographical concept, an imaginary line may serve as an arbitrary division (such as a border). that divides the right side of your body from the left). The hip flexors and extensors allow front-to-back leg movement, as in running. Although this study's findings stop short of proving a cause-and-effect relationship, they are the first to show an association between weak muscle strength in areas secondary to the site of pain and the overuse injuries themselves. The authors point out that lower extremity lower extremity n. The hip, thigh, leg, ankle, or foot. Also called inferior limb, pelvic limb. injury is often multifaceted and therefore runners must consider strength improvements in all muscle groups to not only stave off injury but to rehabilitate after it. The addition of strengthening exercises to specifically identified weak hip muscles may offer better treatment results in patients with running injuries. (Clin. J. Sport Med., 2005, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 14-21) |
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