Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilbert
In another thread I mention I run my laps on grass. I have recently ran on pavement, my first time in years, and it was awful on my legs. Specifically my ankles were burning even after just a few minutes of running and I had to stop short. This has happened to me before during highschool and has hindered my performance. I feel very fine on grass and have been able to run farther, faster, and longer than I had ever ran even in highschool and I have a hunch that this is the problem. What do you think is wrong?
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I ran the mile in track and ran the 5k in cross country. Concrete is one of the worst surfaces you can run on. There basically is no give in the surface and all of your force that is not absorbed by your shoes and muscles is transferred to your bones.
Grass is a cushion and usually the ground underneath it is softer than the concrete (unless you are in Texas in July/August and then you are running on clay that is actually harder than the concrete!).
You can minimize the damage from concrete by eliminating any bouncing/up and down movement when you run. The easiest, but most awkward way (until you get used to it) is to keep your arms below your waist when you run. You still swing your arms in time with your stride, but just keep them below the 90 degree point with your body (This also helps reduce shoulder strain/fatigue as well and will loosen up your muscles more. Also lean forward a little bit as well. My coach used to call running nothing but continuously falling with out ever hitting the ground! Doing this will help reduce your bounce/up and down motion, putting more of your force into forward momentum.
One last note, make sure you are using a good pair of running shoes for concrete. More shock absorbency. If you are using cross trainers or any other kind of shoe, they are designed to absorb the shock from stresses in a different way than a good running shoe and will make things worse on concrete.
Ok, sorry for the long winded response and hope this helps out.
