R.U.N. as an Acronym to Better Understand Running

Over the past couple days, I have performed a handful of physical therapy consultations with runners, who have "failed" conservative management, yet were desperate to get back to running. In typical fashion, I asked what they were doing as part of their home program. Invariably, it was some combination of foam rolling, stretching, and non-weightbearing progressive resistance exercises (PREs) targeting the hip. It's no wonder that they were struggling to return to healthy running, because all of these programs were not preparing the runner for the performance demands of the sport. So, I thought it was time to go back to the drawing board and review some basic characteristics and fundamentals of running. Hopefully, these will guide you the next time an injured runner walks into your facility. To accomplish this, we need need to look no further than the word R.U.N. 

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"R"

Running is a repetitive, rhythmic activity. 

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"U"
 
​Running involves unilateral  loading & 
​ being upright.

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"N"

Runners are never in contact with both feet at the same time so they need to tolerate unilateral, plyometric activities.
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