About 65 percent of endurance runners get injured during an average training year, and research reveals that the injury rate may be even higher in individuals training for a marathon.   Some running advocates say that 65 percent may not be so bad, because the lower-limb damage rate for sedentary individuals is probably even higher (hypothetically due to a lack of coordination and muscular strength among sofa spuds). If 80 percent of couch potatoes are hurt during an average 12-month ...

Iliotibial band syndrome is the most-common cause of lateral knee pain in endurance runners, and the troublesome condition can account for up to 12 percent of all running injuries.   The iliotibial band, a slab of muscle and connective tissue which runs down the outside of the leg from the hip to just below the knee, tends to impinge on a lateral projection of the femur at the knee just after foot strike occurs. Repetitive rubbing of the iliotibial band on the femoral projection can ...

If you are like many runners, you have probably wondered whether you could improve your biomechanics – and whether that improvement might upgrade your performances and decrease your risk of injury. Before I address whether that is possible, let’s take note of the fact that biomechanics is the study of the forces which act on the body during running, especially with regards to the muscles and skeletal system.  Kinetics is a branch of biomechanics which studies the forces and motions which...