436: Hips and Single Leg Strength

Training Single-Leg Control for Better Running

In this week’s episode, we’re diving into something I talk about with runners every single day: your hips. If you’ve ever wondered why certain niggles keep showing up, why your gait feels “off,” or why your stride doesn’t feel as smooth as it should, this episode is for you.

Although many people think of running as a two-legged sport, it is actually a one-legged activity repeated thousands of times. Every step is a single-leg balance, stability, and power moment. So if your hips aren’t pulling their weight, you’ll feel it. For many runners, especially as you move into your 40s and beyond, hip weakness becomes one of the biggest contributors to gait inefficiencies and overuse injuries.

In this episode, we break down:

• Why hip strength and control are foundational for efficient, pain-free running
• How single-leg stability impacts everything from cadence to stride mechanics
• The surprising ways hip weakness shows up in your gait (sometimes in places you wouldn’t expect!)
• Personal stories from our own “aha” moments—when we finally connected the dots between hip strength and better running
• Simple assessments you can do at home to understand your hip control
• Key exercises that build strength, stability, coordination, and power—all levels welcome
• Why runners over 40 should prioritize this even more (hint: it’s not just about strength—it’s about longevity)

We wrap up the conversation with actionable steps you can start using today to feel more stable, more powerful, and more confident on the run. Because when your hips show up, everything in your running feels better, and your everyday movement does, too.

If you’ve been skipping your strength work or unsure where to start, this episode will give you the clarity and motivation to take the next right step.

Tune in and let’s get those hips working for you, not against you!

00:51 The Importance of Hip Strength in Running

01:12 Personal Stories and Experiences

01:49 Understanding the Role of Hips in Running Mechanics

07:15 Kevin's Journey and Hip Strengthening Exercises

09:20 Common Running Issues and Hip Weakness

22:59 Understanding Pelvic Drop and Lateral Trunk Lean

23:43 Compensations and Ov

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Don't forget: The information on this website is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition or to provide medical advice. It is intended for general education in the areas of health and wellness. All information contained in this site is intended to be educational in nature. Nothing should be considered medical advice for your specific situation.

Episode Transcript

Angie (00:00):
Welcome back to the Real Life Runners podcast, episode
number 436.
So most runners probably thinkof running as a two legged
sport, but the truth is runningis actually a one legged sport
repeated thousands of times, andthat's why hip strength and
single leg strength and controlare so critical every.

(00:22):
Almost every gait issue andoveruse injury that I've seen in
my 18 plus years of being aphysical therapist traces back
to some sort of hip, weakweakness and poor single length
control.
So today we're talking aboutboth of those things and taking
you back in a littlestorytelling of how all of this
got started with Kevin and I.

(00:43):
So stay tuned.

(01:08):
Welcome back to the showrunners.
Today we're talking about thehips.

Kevin (01:13):
The hips and the hips.
Don't lie.

Angie (01:14):
I, I was gonna say that.
I know I was waiting for, Ican't believe it.

Kevin (01:18):
You, you dropped that one because Come on, Shakira,
because your hips clearly do notlie.

Angie (01:21):
Shakira.
Shakira.
Oh.
We're gonna start in, intosinging already in the episode.
We're

Kevin (01:25):
a minute in and we're into song.
Excellent.
I

Angie (01:27):
mean, this is always gonna be the, a sign of a good
episode if you ask me.
As a lot of I am a physicaltherapist.
I have a doctorate in physicaltherapy.
I've been practicing for over 18years now, which is insanity.
And considering we justcelebrated our 18th.
Wedding anniversary yesterday.
That's an easy thing to keeptrack of.

Kevin (01:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Apparently those guys match upnicely.

Angie (01:50):
Yeah.
Because we got married rightafter I graduated from PT
school.

Kevin (01:53):
Yes.
'cause I, same year.
Yes.
I waited until you were adoctor, until I married you.
It's sounds weird that way, butthat's fantastic.
But that is timing what actuallyhappened.

Angie (02:03):
That is actually what happened.
So let's take it back to PTschool because that's where this
whole journey started.
And this is the thing that, Idon't know if.
A lot of runners reallyunderstand this, especially if
you've gotten into this sportfor recreation or to get in
better shape, but.
A lot of runners that I'veworked with in the past and even
clients, on our team when theyfirst come in, before they start

(02:26):
to go through some of thelessons in our program and
really understand what's goingon in their body, don't realize
how important the hips are.
I think a lot of people thinkabout running and think about
the feet.
They think about what shoesthey're wearing and they think
about, they've heard of theterms of Pronation and
supination and they think aboutcontrol and do I need to have an
orthotic and a certain amount ofsupport in my feet?

(02:48):
But not as many people arefamiliar with the critical role
of the hips in running.

Kevin (02:53):
yeah, my background, I have a lot of background in
running.
You have the background inphysical therapy before you
really fully embrace.
The love of running it kind,those kind of came together.
but my background in, in runningand selling shoes, a lot of my
thoughts on how to fix any sortof injury issue was to put the
appropriate shoe on it.
Yeah.
And my strength trainingprotocol came from what I was

(03:15):
doing for strength when I was inhigh school.
So we're looking at like midnineties strength training.
Yeah.
That's very different thancurrent strength training.
And even in college that we'relike.
Early two thousands so that eventhat form of strength training
from coming from very goodsources was still not what we
should be doing based off oflike current understanding.

Angie (03:35):
And so one of the things that people don't really
understand is what exact, likehow the hips are essentially the
power center of running.
That's really where.
All of your, I shouldn't say allof your power, but the majority
of your power comes from,because your glutes are your
main hip muscles, and there'sthree different glutes that,

(03:56):
that we're talking about.
There's glute max, glute made,and glute men, all of which play
a slightly different role in therunning gate process.
But your glutes as a whole, as agroup are responsible for.
Propulsion, like moving youforward.
they're responsible forstability, like making sure that
you don't just topple over sinceyou're balancing on one leg for
your alignment, your runningalignment, making sure that the

(04:17):
forces are going through yourjoints properly.
And of course, from for forceabsorption, actually absorbing
the forces that the ground isplacing on your body.
And a lot of runners think, oh,If I do strength training, I
should probably strengthen mycore or my quads or my calves.
And all of those things aredefinitely important.
But your hips are really boththe steering wheel and the shock

(04:40):
absorbers of your stride.
Like they do a lot of reallyimportant thing they like, they
provide.
The support and the propulsionto, to make sure that you're
stable and not just wastingenergy all over the place.
And they also provide the mainmuscle.
Your glute max is the mainmuscle to help propel you for
it.
It's the largest and strongestmuscle in your body.

Kevin (05:00):
And I remember when I was working out in high school, like
my two key exercises that Iwould do if I went to the gym,
'cause I'd like to go to the gymwith my dad and lift the big
things that I would do for mylegs.
Were machines in the firstplace.
And it was leg extensions for myquads.
And then you'd lay down and youdo hamstring curls.
Like those were the two big onesthat I would do.
And then they had a thing forcalves, but I, that, that

(05:22):
machine was annoying, so Ididn't even like using that one.
But those were, that's what Iwas trying to hit, was like
quads, hamstrings, and thenmaybe calves.
And my sister had.
had knee issues and so she hadthis like band that she would
put around our door and dodifferent, like swings to try
and work her hips.
My hips didn't bother me andtherefore I didn't do hip
things.

Angie (05:42):
Did your hip, did your sister have knee issues or hip
issues?
Hip issues, sorry.
Okay.
you said knee?

Kevin (05:45):
Yeah, no, she had hip issues, so she did hip
exercises.
My hips never bothered me.
Yeah.
So I didn't do the hipexercises.

Angie (05:51):
but your knees sometimes acted up.
So you did quads and hamstrings'cause those were the muscles
that were.
Controlling your knee.

Kevin (05:57):
Yeah.
'cause those all touch the knee.

Angie (06:00):
And that's what a lot of physical therapists even, back
in those times, back in the day,really thought were the key for,
to help.
Treat knee pain.
Like your VMO and your quads.
Like these were some of theexercises that I learned early
on in PT school and then reallywhen I was in PT school,
graduating PT school and likeearly on in my practice, more

(06:22):
and more started coming outabout the importance of the
hips.

Kevin (06:25):
Yeah.
Now that I think back on it whenI was, when I would work out
over the summer, there was avery cool machine That you like.
You could.
It looked like a clock, and youcould move the pad to being in
front of your knee or be, or infront of your thigh or behind
your thigh, and you couldessentially do knee lifts.
Yeah.
Or like like kickback exercises.
And I would do those over thesummer because I saw other

(06:48):
people doing it, and thatmachine looked cool.
That was literally the mainreason I did it, is that machine
looked cool and thinking backnow, I was actually building hip
strength when I did that.

Angie (06:56):
Yeah, that was actually a hip strengthening machine, which
is fantastic.
It just looked cool.
Oh I'm so glad as a high schoolboy, you were looking cool in
the gym with your kickbacks.
I'm so disappointed sometimesthat I didn't know you earlier.

Kevin (07:13):
Yes.
Yeah, every, everything aboutthat was good.
Like the bleach blonde hair andthe frosted tips.
Yes.
That, hold on.
Lemme go to the gym with my dad.
everything about that justwould've been, that's adorable.
Yes.
And then I was trying to, benchpress more than the bar.
That was always a good,

Angie (07:28):
always adorable.
Oh,

Kevin (07:30):
this, he's impressive.

Angie (07:31):
Always adorable.
So running.
Okay, so going back to Kevin'sstory since we're there.
This is really where my interestin the hips and running started
to come together.
Kevin, do you wanna tell alittle bit of your story, like
in college, briefly of what yourrunning experience was like in

(07:52):
college and then what happenedfrom there?

Kevin (07:55):
sure.
Short, briefly, short version, Iwas trying to hang onto a team
that I wasn't really capable ofhanging onto.
I ended up over training almostentirely.

Angie (08:05):
Meaning, meaning you felt like you couldn't keep up?

Kevin (08:07):
I could not physically keep up with the all Americans
on my team because

Angie (08:11):
they were much faster.

Kevin (08:12):
I tried to go back to our recovery episode a few episodes
ago.
I was never recovering.
Easy days were not recovery forme.
Everything felt like it washard.
And that eventually led to myknees being in pain.
And so then I'd go see thetrainer and they were doing
various things for me.
Heat and stem, your favorites,my favorite.
and it didn't fix.

(08:33):
And so then I would have to taketime off and I would come back
and it wasn't a problem until Istarted building up my mileage
and running really fast.
And then my knees hurt again.
Heat and stem didn't do anythingfor me.
Time off.
That was my cycle.
And I did that until Iliterally, I stopped running and
then I got back on my own.
I was in control of my owntraining and when I tried to
ramp it up post-college, I wasliving down in Miami by with you

(08:55):
and.
As I started to ramp my mileageup and train harder and harder,
that achy, that same exact acheand pain in my knee, stabby pain
right in the middle of my knee.
Came back and I was like, youhave to fix this.
You are becoming a doctor.
Please make my knee stophurting.

Angie (09:11):
So that's what we did actually.
So basically I was taking mynewfound knowledge of the human
body and body mechanics andkinesiology and running gate and
all the things.
And so I started putting Kevinthrough some tests.
Because what one of the thingsthat I realized in my education
is that running is really asingle leg sport like we started

(09:32):
talking about at the beginningof the episode, and when you
break down the running, when youlook at the running gate cycle,
you are spending.
A hundred percent of the time onone leg.
That's what differencedifferentiates running from
walking in.
Walking, you're, when you gofrom one foot to the other,
there is a brief part, phase intime where both feet are on the

(09:54):
ground, right?
Where you're pushing off of oneleg and the other leg is already
on the ground running.
There's a float phase.
So there's this.
Phase in the middle of the gatecycle where both feet are off
the ground and that's whatdifferentiates running from
walking, especially racewalking.
if you've ever watched Olympicrace walking and the awkwardness

(10:14):
of Olympic race walking, you cansee the importance of the hips
because those race walkers, theysure as heck have a lot of hip
movement.

Kevin (10:21):
There is an incredible amount of hip movement.
Also, if you're gonna watchOlympic race walking, don't do
it in slow motion.
and just see how almost everystep, they have a float phase
and both feet are off the groundand every runner in the race is
cheating.

Angie (10:35):
But we're gonna just ignore that for this podcast
episode and just talk about,sorry, personal pet peeve.
That's what's different betweenrunning and walking.
So as a runner.
You are spending a hundredpercent of the time on one leg
because when you are on one leg,the other leg is either kicking
behind you or swinging forwardin front of you.
So your, all of your weight, allof your balance, all of your

(10:57):
muscle on that side have tostabilize you and propel you
forward.
When you understand that and youunderstand how you are taking
somewhere likely between 150 onthe lower end, up to 200 steps
per minute, total, so that ifyou divide by two, that's about

(11:18):
90, we'll just say 90 Onaverage, if we take 180 is the
average step per minute.
That's 90 steps per leg, perminute.
So depending on how long you'reout there, that's a lot of
steps.
And so your.
Basically your body has tostabilize itself.
All of the muscles have to turnon, all of the muscles have to
activate, all of the muscleshave to push you forward in a

(11:41):
split second, like literally asplit second.

Kevin (11:44):
Yeah, if you say that your foot's landing.
we do the numbers easy becauseit's 180.
It's not the magic number, butthe math works out really nice
on it.
So if it's 180, that means yourfoot's hitting the ground three
times every second.
That is, that's a really rapidtime.
Yeah.
if you try and just stand on oneleg and wave your arms around
like you're running, if you havestrong arm movement for a run,

(12:06):
just standing still on one leg,you start feeling like you're
falling down.

Angie (12:10):
That is actually a great exercise.
I know it

Kevin (12:12):
is a wonderful exercise, but if you just do that and you
feel like you're unstable, nowimagine doing that.
But your foot has to not only beon the ground, it has to
transition from like the rearfoot to the forefoot so it can
push off, and it has to do thatthree times every single second,
right?
Exactly there's so muchstability needed.

Angie (12:28):
And so the other thing too is that with every step,
because you are essentiallyjumping from one leg to another
over and over again, it's notjust your body weight that's
going through that leg.
It's two to three times yourbody weight is the amount of
force that's actually going up.
Through your body, through thatleg, all the way up your body.
So your body has to be verystrong and be able to stabilize

(12:53):
two to three times your bodyweight.
So if you weigh 150 pounds, thatis 300 to 450 pounds of force
that is going through your legwith every single step.
And that requires a lot ofdynamic pelvis control.
It requires hip stability tohelp prevent knee collapse.
So a lot of people think, oh,they see, oh, my knee's
collapsing.

(13:13):
I probably need.
More support in my shoe.
That's what a lot of peoplethink.
That's what we were trained,even as physical therapists, oh
look, if there's too muchpronation here, if there's too
much knee collapse, we put a anarch support in and everything
is fixed.
When in reality, the mainproblem is a lack of dynamic
control in the hip, and it's alack of trunk control.

(13:35):
Also, like people always thinkabout the core and they think,
oh, I've gotta do sit-ups, butsit-ups are actually not a great
exercise for runners.
I actually hate sit-ups forrunners because it's not a
functional way.
That's not how your abs actuallywork.
During running your abs arecontracting isometrically to
help stabilize you, yourobliques and everything.
All of these muscles in your.

(13:55):
Corn in your trunk are most ofthe time, contracting
isometrically, which meansthey're just bracing you.
They're just stabilizing yourbody.
They're not creating a lot ofmovement.
You have some rotationalmovements from the shoulder and
from the hips, that need tobalance each other out, but
there's a lot going on.
And so going back to the storywith Kevin.

(14:16):
I realized that a lot of hisknee pain, I'm like, lemme test
his hips here.
Because Kevin had very strongquads and very strong
hamstrings.

Kevin (14:24):
Thank you.

Angie (14:24):
Yeah.
So you know, kind of thosemuscles right around the knee on
the front and the back thatactually touched the knee like
he was talking about.
Those were strong.
It's okay, that doesn't makesense'cause those muscles are
strong.
So where is this knee painactually coming from?

Kevin (14:37):
It's because it looks cool when those muscles are
strong.
You get race photos, you know myfavorite muscle.
It you get.
Like strong quads.
And while your face is oftengonna look a little funky during
race photos, if they catch youjust right and your quads are
popping, your legs look great,

Angie (14:51):
your legs look great.

Kevin (14:53):
The, your hips, those aren't showing up in a video.

Angie (14:55):
Those are covered by your shorty shorts.
They,

Kevin (14:57):
they're mostly covered by my shorts.

Angie (15:00):
Yeah, exactly.
So I put Kevin this, I rememberthis.
Day, do you remember this day?
We were like, yes, I do in mybedroom, and you were lying on
my bed.
And I was like, okay, now liftyour leg.
I had him like lying on his sideand I was testing out the
strength in his hips, and he'swhat?
was it the clamshell?
Or was, okay.
So I was asking Kevin to do aclamshell, so his knees were

(15:21):
bent and I was asking him tokeep his feet together and just
open his knees, like aclamshell.
And

Kevin (15:26):
I did.
I totally did.
I was perfect.
But in order to do it.
I rolled onto my back,

Angie (15:32):
so that was not perfect actually.
So that was a completecompensatory pattern.
'cause I like to use big words.
So his body was compensating,right?
Because the muscles that weresupposed to do that motion,
which are his hip externalrotators, were so weak that they
couldn't do it.
So he was rotating his wholebody to try to make his knee
lift up

Kevin (15:51):
in an act of amazing bedside manner.
She said, what are you doing?
that is, I vividly remember thishappening.
I was trying to get my left kneeto lift up off of my right knee
in order to do it.
I tilted my left shoulder backso that I could tilt backwards
and my knees separated.
I could actually do theclamshell.
And you literally looked at me,you said, what are you doing?

(16:13):
Don't move your shoulder andlift your knee up.
And I'm like, it doesn't movelike that.
That was the issue.
You're like, no, just lift yourknee.
I'm like.
All right.
I'm staring at my knee.
I'm trying to make it move.
I can't lift my knee.
I literally, I couldn't do anunweighted clamshell.
That was the problem withoutmoving my shoulder.
I thought I was doing them.

Angie (16:31):
to be fair, it was against gravity.
gravity,

Kevin (16:35):
it was fine.
That's and the

Angie (16:37):
weight of your leg?

Kevin (16:38):
Yes.
With my huge quads.
With those huge quads.
Yes.
We've already covered the hugequads.
Yes.

Angie (16:42):
So your poor little hip rotators were not strong enough
to overcome the massive.
Volume of your quads.
Alright,

Kevin (16:49):
so my glutes were withered is what we're covering
here.

Angie (16:52):
Withered glutes.
So I start poking Kevin, okay.
Is actually what happened.
I'm like, this muscle, I'mcontract this muscle right here.
So I'm poking it.
and granted, like he does, hedid at the time and still does
have a nice and glute max.
But like I was trying to gethim.

(17:13):
Thank you.
You're welcome.
He got a cute tush.
but I was trying to get him toactivate his gluteus medias,
which is the main, like the hipexternal rotator.
There's obviously some deeperexternal rotators, underneath
all of that are not palpable.
But I was trying to help himactivate the muscle to actually
rotate his hip.
And so I was like putting myhand there and on the side of

(17:34):
his hip and I'm like pressingthere.
I'm like, you feel this?
This is the muscle I need you toactivate.
And he's I have no idea whatyou're talking about.

Kevin (17:40):
No, that is not exactly how that went.
You tried to poke my glute Mead.
Mead, yeah.
And I started laughinghysterically.
Oh, that's true.
Because I am incredibly ticklishand that spot is ridiculously,
so I'm laughing hysterically.
So

Angie (17:55):
again, I say, what are you doing?

Kevin (17:57):
I'm like, stop poking me there.
That's really ticklish.
Which Andrew responded by pokingme there Five more times.
And she's okay, you have to stoplaughing and breathe and now I'm
going to gently press the muscleI was trying to give you, I

Angie (18:12):
was trying to give you biofeedback.
You

Kevin (18:13):
were trying to give me biofeedback.
I was trying to not wet myselfon your bed.
It's really'cause I was laughingso hard.
it was funny.
And then you think it's funny tocontinue tickling when I'm
laughing already.
So you may have continuedpalpating.
No, but so you can both use bigwords.

Angie (18:30):
But the funny thing about it was like after Kevin's tickle
bug gets activated, I don't knowwhy I just called it a tickle
bug, but your tickle trigger,Yes.
Like once Kevin's.
Tickle gets triggered.
Sounds very inappropriate.
For some reason

Kevin (18:46):
why?
That seems fine to me

Angie (18:49):
then it's like anytime I touch him, no matter where it is
on his body, he is sohypersensitive.
So it's like we're, I was tryingto get back to like my testing,
me and my very serious PTstudents.
Yeah, she had a notebook

Kevin (19:04):
and a clipboard,

Angie (19:07):
so we were trying to get back to my testing.
And help him figure out how toactivate this muscle.
But I think we had to take abreak because you just couldn't,
you were laughing too hard.

Kevin (19:16):
I, we may have had to take a break and then you may
have called your roommate in toshow her that I couldn't do a
clamshell.
It is also very possible.

Angie (19:21):
that was super manly, right?
you felt just like a total,manly men at that point, he

Kevin (19:27):
was a house full of ridiculously smart girls
training to become doctors.
Yeah.
So that was, it was, I did notmind being a patient.
I don't think any of theboyfriends of that house minded
being practice patients.
Yeah.

Angie (19:37):
and you're, you are great because you can see so many of
your muscles.
So Kevin was like our anatomymodel in the process of it all
too, because you could just takeoff your shirt and we could see
lots of different muscles onyou.
Yes.
Due to your lack of fat.
Thank you.
So Anyw who.
Kind of the conclusion of thatstory is once we did finally get

(19:58):
Kevin, able to activate thatmuscle, then I gave him some
exercises to help strengthen hisglute, especially his glute mead
and his hip external rotators,which then allowed him to have
more dynamic control of his hipsand his pelvis, which then may
made his knee pain go away.
Because a lot of times whathappens when runners have.

(20:20):
A lack of hip strength whenthere's weakness in the hip
stabilizers.
You, we see a lot of these,compensation patterns.
So things like I mentionedalready, is the knee collapsing
in?
I had that one.
Yes you did.
so the knee collapsing in is,one of the most common things
that we see.
We also see rotation of theknee.
So a lot of runners don'tunderstand how to differentiate

(20:42):
between the collapse and therotation.
Oftentimes they go togetherbecause it's the hip that's.
Controlling both of thosemotions.
Yeah.
The

Kevin (20:49):
knee collapsing in is really easy to visually see.
Yeah.
If you've ever, if someone'sever taken a picture of you from
straight on and the from the hipdown to the knee is angled and
from the knee to the ground isstraight down, you are
collapsing in.
there's some high level.
Female marathoners especially.
Yeah.
That have absurd knee collapsingin and they're setting world

(21:10):
records, so there's ways toovercome, Yeah.
But that it is such a clearsign.

Angie (21:15):
Yeah.
It's definitely a clear sign andwomen are more prone to this
versus men because we tend tohave wider hip.
And so we have what's called awider Q angle, which is like the
angle between the knee and thehip and the pelvis.
And so the, we do have moreincidents of this and it can be
a normal gait deviation for somepeople, like Kevin mentioned,
like it doesn't have to causeproblems, but it can be a sign

(21:36):
that there is weakness.
And linked to that is also overpronation because when that knee
collapses in, oftentimes thefoot collapses as well.
and then.
There's also a pelvic drop thathappens.
So when all of your weight is onone side and you can have a
pelvic drop or over pronationwithout the knee collapse as
well.
oftentimes a lot of these thingsare seen together, but basically

(21:59):
when your in single leg stance,when all of your weight is on
one leg, as your other leg isswinging through as you're
running when.
Your hip muscles have tostabilize that pelvis.
If they are too weak, the hipdrops down.
So what is whatever leg you'recurrently standing on in, which
is called stance, phase of gait,the pelvis will drop to the

(22:23):
opposite side because themuscles on, say your, all of
your weights on your left legand your right leg is.
Swinging through your left hipmuscles are weak and so that
pelvis, it just doesn't havecontrol of it.
So if you think about, like atable with a glass of water on
it, the goal is to keep thattable level and the muscle's job
is to contract to keep the sideof that table strong.

(22:44):
And if they're weak, they justoverstretch because they don't
have the strength to hold ontoit.
And that table just tilts alittle bit, which will allow
that cup of water to slide downto the opposite side.

Kevin (22:54):
Okay.
So I was trying to f.
Do this myself as you were goingthrough that.
So can you repeat one more time?
if I'm landing on my right foot.
Okay.
I'm still in, in stance phase.
Is my right hip lower than myleft hip?

Angie (23:09):
if you're landing on me, my right

Kevin (23:10):
foot is on the ground.
Okay.
Is my right hip low or, my righthip is high.

Angie (23:13):
High.

Kevin (23:14):
My right hip's high.

Angie (23:14):
Yeah.
So your left hip is dropping iflike it's whatever leg is on the
ground.
That those are the muscles thatare active because those are the
muscles.
your other muscles are a activealso trying to help the leg
swing through.
But in this specific gaitdeviation with the pelvic drop,
we're seeing that the pelvisdrops to the opposite side.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay.
Along with that too, can be awhat's called a lateral trunk

(23:36):
lean, which means you're leaningtowards one is one side or the
other to, again, a lot of thesethings all go together because
when your pelvis drops or yourknee collapses, your body just
naturally compensates.
Your body is amazing because itsgoal is to always keep you
upright and moving forward.
And so your body just naturallymakes a lot of these
compensations and that's why alot of these things are tied

(23:57):
together.
They can be, Separated, butoftentimes you see a lot of
these things in combination.
and then overriding would beanother compensation as well,
because people are trying to runfaster and they're not able to.
get their leg back underneaththem quick enough.
So there's a lack of strength inthe hip.
that can lead to Overstriding aswell.

Kevin (24:17):
And Overstriding is only gonna make bigger issues because
if you over stride, you're gonnaactually increase the forces
going through your body becauseyou then have more braking when
the foot lands out in front ofyou.
Even just going at faster paces,which was often why.
I didn't have the same injuriesin college over the summer
because I wasn't running at thesame speeds.
Yeah.
I could handle a lot of easymiles, which, I can still handle

(24:39):
a lot of easy miles.
Yeah.
But I've also actually have somestrength in inappropriate places
now, but I could handle easymiles over the summer.
I could even.
Some speed over the summer.
I just couldn't handle thatmuch.
It was when everything became sofast that it, I didn't, I never
had the time to recover.
And then it just, it snowballed,

Angie (24:58):
right?
Because the faster you run, themore force is generated and the
more force is going through yourhips and your knees and your
core and all that, and thequicker you fatigue also.
And so as your muscles fatigue,whether you're running faster or
you're running longer.
When those muscles get tired,they're not doing as good of a
job stabilizing your body andalso propelling you forward.

(25:21):
Which is why oftentimes yourpace slows down.
But since they're not doing agood job stabilizing you,
they're also not doing a greatjob absorbing all of those
forces that are going throughyour body.
And so there's more wear andtear on the knee and the other
joints, the hip, the lower back.
That's another piece of that.
people don't always think about'cause there's a lot of common
injuries.
That are linked to weak hips, sothings like it, band syndrome,

(25:45):
glute medias or piriformis pain,trocanter, bursitis like that,
hip bursitis, runner's knee,like what is what Kevin really
had, issues with Achilles shinsplints.
Low back pain also is anothervery common injury due to weak
hips because your hips are notdoing their job.
So more force.
Is going through your lowerback, your spine, so then your

(26:06):
back extensors and your lowerback muscles kick on are trying
to do jobs that they're notsupposed to be doing because
they're trying to essentiallyhelp the hips out, right?
Because the hips aren't strongenough to do their job.
So the lower back muscles andother muscles like the hip
flexors and those kinds ofthings try to tighten up and
stabilize the area and do thework that they're really not.

(26:27):
Supposed to be doing.

Kevin (26:29):
Alright.
I got one question off the wholelist and I think I have the
answer to it also, so I'm justgonna ask and answer my question
and see if I'm smart enough.
Love it.
Let's do it.
Okay.
Achilles issues, you're like,you're a whole joint removed
from the hips.
Like you're below the knee, twojoints down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like you're all the way down atlike the ankle.
Yeah.
When you get to the Achilles isthe issue with Achilles inju
injuries.

(26:49):
Issues that your calves aredoing too much work because
they're trying to overcompensatefrom weakness up the chain.

Angie (26:56):
Yes.
That is one of the reasons, likethat's, there's definitely
multiple issues, but that is oneof the big things is that
because your glute max isn'tpushing you off, if you have
weak, a weaker glute max, and soyou're not getting enough hip
extension to power you.
Then your gastroc and yoursoleus, your calf muscles, then
it's their job to push off evenharder.

Kevin (27:18):
Oh.
Then so essentially, which isalso gonna cause the shin
splints, it's just a matter ofwhich side of the, your lower
leg the pain shows up on.
Yeah.
'cause you're trying to toe offentirely with your foot instead
of your glute.
That's not helping.

Angie (27:30):
And so this is like one of the things that happens with
the body, and this is again, oneof the reasons that so many
runners get injured because theydon't have the proper strength
in order to absorb the force,especially when they start to
increase some aspect of theirperformance.
Whether that's distance, whichis where a lot of it shows up
when people start to train for.
Longer races, like halfmarathons, all of a sudden they

(27:52):
don't understand why am Igetting injured?
I was fine.
I've run for years and I've beenfine.
And it's yeah, your body wasstrong enough if you're doing
five Ks and 10 Ks and doinglower distances.
But as soon as you start rampingup the mileage and your muscles
start fatiguing and you're notstrength training or you're not
giving your body enough time.
And recovery to catch up to thenew load that you're placing on

(28:14):
it.
Then some of these things startto break down.

Kevin (28:17):
it's a very easy trap to fall into because it feels like
a 5K involves more power.
I'm going faster.
I need the power.
So strength training logicallymakes more sense for something
shorter and faster like a 5K.
And why would I need to strengthtrain as much?
I don't need as much of.
Power to do something longer andslower like a marathon.

(28:37):
And so I think a lot of peoplego into a marathon thinking they
need less strength training thansomething as fast as a 5K and
that doesn't make any sense.
that was my assumption is I didnot need to strength train as
much if I was going longerdistances.
But you arguably need strength.

Angie (28:53):
Because your pace is slower, because your pace is
slower,

Kevin (28:55):
like therefore you don't need the same level of power.
But the problem is you're outthere for so long that the
muscles fatigue.
So if you can increase yourpower, then when you're
operating at sub maximal effortsfor a long period of time, you
can keep operating for a longperiod of time before your body
just breaks down and says, wecan't do it anymore.

Angie (29:12):
Because one of the benefits of power training and
strength training is increasedmuscle activation and muscle.
Recruitment, right?
So you have more muscle fibersthat are activated, so you have
more muscle fibers trying to dothe same job.
And when you have, think about,I always like to use the analogy
of lifting up a couch.
You could probably lift up acouch by yourself or with two
people, but if you've got fourpeople on the job, it's gonna be

(29:34):
a lot easier and you couldprobably lift it up a lot.
More repetitions, right?
Like a lot more times when youhave four or five people doing
that job.
And so it's the same thing withmuscles.
It's like when you strengthtrain and when you powertrain,
you're recruiting more musclesand more muscle fibers within
those muscles.
so you're just able to endurelonger because you have more

(29:55):
muscles doing the job.
So the job gets shared acrossmore.
I don't wanna say people, butfibers.
More

Kevin (30:00):
fibers, yeah, more fibers to share the load.

Angie (30:02):
Exactly.
And so if your hips are weak,like yes, you could end up with
an injury.
Or you could also start noticingthings before the injury shows
up.
Things like feeling sloppy onyour long runs, like just
feeling like your body don'thave as much control.
noticing that you're losing yourf running form, especially when
you get tired.
You might notice that your paceis slowing down even though your

(30:24):
breathing is fine.
Like your heart rate's fine,your breathing's fine.
Why is my pace slowing down?
It could be because your musclesare fatiguing, right?
having difficulty with hills,especially because your body
needs more strength on thehills, especially from the
glutes.
Your glutes are the main musclesthat are gonna help propel you
up hills.
And if your glutes aren't doingtheir job, then again, this is
one of those instances whereyour calves are gonna kick in

(30:45):
more and you might end up with.
Other issues like in the calfand the Achilles because you
don't have as much power andpush off from the glutes, and so
other muscles have to jump inand take up the slack.

Kevin (30:56):
Yeah, that feeling sloppy on a long run is how I know that
I'm slacking too much onstrength training.
If I finish a long run that Idid all at a comfortable pace,
not a long run that I put stuffinto, but an all at comfortable
pace and I feel just spent and Ifeel like I'm not getting my
knees right.
Foot's not moving smoothlybehind me.
I'm like dragging myself in.

(31:17):
That's not usually a fitnessissue.
That's a strength issue almostevery time for me.
That is gonna be, I'm notspending enough time in the
weight room.

Angie (31:25):
Yeah.
and speaking of that, weprobably should, you should
probably be spending some moretime in the weight room.
Yes, that's true.
Leading up to your a hundredmile race in January.

Kevin (31:33):
Yes, that's true.
Yes,

Angie (31:34):
that's true.
And I wanna take a minute justto Note why this is even more
important if you are a runnerover 40.
and it's how, like this isimportant for runners of all
ages, right?
No matter how old you are.
We have our high school kidsdoing hip strengthening.
I do single leg strengthening,especially with all of our high
school kids.
So this is important no matteryour age.

(31:56):
And if you're a runner over 40,it matters even a little bit
more be, especially if you're awoman, because when your
estrogen levels decline inperimenopause and menopause,
there is a reduction in tendonstiffness.
There's a reduction in musclemass, and there's also a
reduction in neuromuscularefficiency.
So your body's just notoperating the same that it did,

(32:19):
and so you have to be even moreintentional to.
Do these things to make surethat you're doing the proper
exercises to help promoteincreased tendon stiffness,
increased muscle mass, andincreased neuromuscular
efficiency so that your body's,you can make up for some of
those natural losses due to thehormone changes that's.
That are going on.

Kevin (32:38):
Yeah.
I'd argue that hips arenaturally weak in a lot of
distance runners.
And so if you start with alreadyin like the yellow danger ish
zone and then you add, a declinein estrogen and that.
It just naturally reduces musclemass, then you're gonna start
causing problems real, realquickly.

Angie (32:56):
Yeah, exactly.
And this is one of the reasonswhy single leg control is one of
the pillars of inside of ourstrength program.
it's in all of our running plansand it is extremely important
and there's really.
Like four main aspects that wehave to look at when it comes to
single leg control.
The first is your overallstrength.

(33:17):
So this is getting on a fullbody strength program, things
like squats and lunges and splitsquats to really strengthen your
glute max things, to doingexercises to help strengthen
your glute mead, your deeprotators, your lateral hip
muscles, all of these things.
It are very important just withoverall strength.
You also need to be doingstability, okay?

(33:39):
or your single leg controlincludes like helping your body
stabilize itself, a, being ableto maintain that level pelvis
that we're talking about andhelping to maintain knee
alignment.
As your training load increases,as the load on your body,
whether that's speed or distanceor time, like whatever it is,
you're increasing the load thatyou're increasing on your body.

(34:01):
Your body has to be strongenough in order to stabilize
itself to help absorb tho thoseforces.
And minimize the wear and tearon the joints.

Kevin (34:09):
So one of my favorite exercises on this, and you can
correct me if I'm putting theexercise in the wrong spot, but
one of my favorite exercises forstability is a single leg
deadlift.
And it also highlights a lack ofstability on a lot of kids on
our CrossCountry team.
Yeah.
Because they have the hamstringstrength to do a deadlift, but
as soon as they go onto a singleleg, they're hip.

(34:30):
Of the foot that's not plantedon the ground just flares up.
They essentially look like metrying to do the clamshells back
in the day.
They open up so much becausethey can't maintain their pelvis
at an even level.
As soon as they put weight ontoone foot, they're completely
wobbling all over the place andthey're like, no.
I have to hold the heavierweights.
And it's no.
You can't hold the heavyweights, your body's not able to

(34:51):
actually stabilize that.
Yeah.
And you're always talking aboutmake sure that you have a heavy
enough weight, that the exerciseis challenging for you, and they
don't feel like it's challengingto pick it up, but it's so
challenging for them to pick itup and not wobble all over the
place.
Which.
Is why it looks like they'rewobbling all over the place when
they head out and run.

Angie (35:07):
And I think that the other part about it is when
they're doing the exercisewrong, maybe it doesn't feel as
challenging because they'reusing a lot of other muscles to
compensate for the weakness.
Is it compensatory?
It's compensatory thecompensatory patterns if you
wanna use the full fun term.
The other thing that we'relooking at too, with single leg
control is coordination, whichinvolves your nervous system.
It's the message from your brainto your body, and then obviously

(35:30):
from your body back to yourbrain.
So your nervous system isimportant to help control like
the timing of your movement,your balance, your motor
patterns.
So like Kevin was mentioningwith the single leg deadlift,
that's just a fantasticexercise.
That is one of my favoriteexercises for runners.
And yes, it does highlightstability, but it really
highlights all of these things.
It highlights stability.

(35:51):
strength and coordinationbecause you need to have the
proper motor pattern, otherwiseyour body is going to compensate
if you don't understand what ahinge movement is, which is what
we're shooting for.
When it comes to a deadlift or asingle leg deadlift, we want a
hinge pattern happening.
We want that motion and thatcontrol really coming from the
glutes and the hips.

(36:11):
A lot of people will overusetheir back muscles and you'll
see them round their backs oropen up their hips because
they're not strong enough tomaintain the proper motor
pattern.
So good single leg control isthe ability to maintain
alignment in the body, properalignment, and generate force
without those compensations.

(36:31):
And this is where, it getsreally important to understand
where you are with your.
Strengthen your single legstability, because if you're
compensating, then there's aweakness there, right?
So the key then is to find thatweakness and then you do
targeted exercises to helpaddress that weakness so that

(36:51):
your body can operate.
The way that it's meant to.
And that can also help todecrease pain in a lot of areas.
A lot of people have a lot oftightness or a lot of pain, and
it's because again, thosemuscles are trying to kick in
and do jobs that they're notsupposed to be doing.

Kevin (37:06):
So this is where people can fall into the pa.
The issue of they're doingstrength training.
But no one's checking to makesure their form is actually
working correct.
Or they're not even sure whatthe correct form is.
Yeah, so they're doing it,they're upping weight from,
every couple of weeks the weightgoes up.
they're increasing what appearsto be strength, but they're
doing it with so manycompensations that they're not
actually working the musclesthat need to be worked.

(37:27):
It seems like they're doingexercises that should be
targeting hips, but they'redoing it with.
Poor form.
And so they're strengtheningtheir back, which is not really
helping them in this case, or,

Angie (37:36):
or they're not strengthening their back and
they're actually just puttingmore strain on their back.
Y

Kevin (37:40):
strengthening slash hurting their back is really
what's happening.

Angie (37:43):
Exactly.
the place that you're gonnawanna start out is by testing
your hip and single legstability.
So I would love, I'm gonna giveyou guys a couple suggestions
for some tests, and these aretests that we give our clients
as soon as they join our programbecause it's really important
for us to figure out wherepeople are, where, I give single
leg exercises to every singleclient no matter where, you

(38:05):
know, no matter if they haveweakness or if they're doing
pretty well.
Even if people come in, which Iwill tell you the number of
people that have come into theprogram without some sort of
single leg weakness, I'm prettysure is zero.
I don't, I like to avoidgeneralizations, but I'm pretty
sure that there's not one personin the program, like including

(38:26):
myself, right?
I'm including myself in this.
I'm not saying, oh yeah, my hipsare amazing.
my hips don't lie either, butyour

Kevin (38:32):
hips are amazing.

Angie (38:33):
but.
we all have some sort of hipweakness and I think it's
important for us to understandlike that's, this is part of it,
right?
This is just something thatwe're gonna be continuously
working on.
So here are a couple of myfavorite tests.
So the first test, and thisone's one of my faves, is the
single leg sit to stand.
So basically you're sitting in achair and you stand, like you

(38:54):
use one leg, you lift one leg,and you're all of your weight is
on one leg, and you try to standup from that chair, and then you
try to sit back down in acontrolled way.
And I would highly suggest thatif you're gonna do any of these
tests, or when you do thesetests, you film yourself.
So set up your iPhone so thatyou're filming yourself so that
you can go back and watch this.
I used to tell people to do itin front of a mirror, but.

(39:14):
iPhones are way better becauseyou can do it.
and then you can go back andactually watch yourself doing
it.
And you can look and see, okay,are your hips level or are you
getting one of your hipsdropping?
Is your knee straight or is thatknee collapsing in?
Do you notice that your foot islike gripping the ground?
because your, you don't haveenough strength in the hip, so

(39:34):
your foot and your leg muscle,your lower leg muscles are
trying to compensate, right?
So look at the quality of thatsingle leg sit to stand.
One step up from that would bethe single leg squat.
So this is again, just.
Lifting one leg.
If you're standing up, lift oneleg, balance on one leg and then
try to squat and then come backup.
Same thing.

(39:55):
Film yourself.
Notice, where's your kneetracking?
Is it collapsing in?
Is your pelvis staying level?
Is your torso upright?
Or are you leaning to one side?
Are you co compensating byleaning to a side?
test number three would be thestep down test.
So if you're honest.
Step and you just step downforward.
you can actually do a forwardstep down and also a side step

(40:16):
down.
And again, filming yourself,looking at where your hips are,
is your pelvis level, where'syour trunk?
where's your knee tracking?
Are you noticing some, anycollapse at the foot?
and then test number four wouldbe the single leg bridge hold.
So where you're lying on yourback, excuse me.
Lying on your back with bothknees bent, and then you lift.
You straighten one knee so thatone foot is not touching the

(40:39):
ground, and then you lift yourhips up.
So you're just pushing throughone foot and you lift up your
hips and try to just hold itthere.
So can you keep your hips level?
Do you notice your hip dropping?
How long are you able to holdit?
Do you notice any hamstring,cramping?
There's a lot of people thatwhen they do this, their
hamstring cramps up on thembecause their hamstrings are
compensating, and that's areally.

(41:01):
Common muscle that tries to kickin and help when your glutes are
weak.

Kevin (41:06):
Yeah, it's fun.
If you try to do single legbridges after you've already
done exercises that highlightyour glutes because you're like,
I can totally do single legbridges, they're fine.
But then you do a couple ofexercises that strengthen the
glutes and they're exhausted bythe end of the workout, and
suddenly you do that same singleleg bridge and your hamstring
just seizes up on you.
It's it's an interesting one.
It's fatigue.

(41:26):
The only thing that I would addto that is.
You said talk about filmingyourself from straight on.
the camera would be set updirectly in front of you.
Yeah.
So that you can see if your hipsare staying level.
Yeah.
Just for some clarity there.

Angie (41:36):
Yeah.
Thank you.
I appreciate you adding that in.
and then the good news is a lotof these tests can also be used
as exercises, So then this isone of the ways, once you figure
out where you are.
then it's okay, now do I doabout it?
What exercises do I need to addin order to improve my hip
strength and my single legcontrol?
So we go back to thefoundations, we go to glute
bridges, we go to single legglute bridges, we go to

(41:58):
clamshells.
Kevin's favorite exercise,clamshells that, have gotten a
lot of hate from some of theonline physical therapists'cause
they're like.
Clamshells are not functionalexercises for runners, which is
true.
there's never a point in runningwhere you're lying on the ground
and lifting your leg.
But if you are having a hardtime activating that muscle like
Kevin did, they're a very goodfoundational exercise.

(42:20):
That's not the same exercisethat you should continue doing
for more, but it is a goodactivation exercise.
Do you still do Those activationexercises before you run, like
every time you run.

Kevin (42:31):
Not before, every time I run.
Now that I don't have a herniaanymore, I don't need all those
activation exercises beforeevery run.

Angie (42:38):
So t talk a little bit about what we're talking about
first.
Okay.

Kevin (42:40):
So bef give us

Angie (42:41):
a background.

Kevin (42:41):
Sure.
what, two, two years ago I had ahernia.
And when I would head out torun, that led to all sorts of
compensatory patterns.
Yes, it did.
Okay, perfect.
and my biggest issue, what Ifigured out is if I did a whole
bunch of exercises, all of theseguys basically is sideline hip
head deduction, clamshells.

(43:02):
Quaded hip extensions.
What looks like, the firehydrant is what I always call
the one thing.
Yeah.
if I did a whole bunch of thingsfor my hips, I could go out and
run eight to 10 miles without aproblem, and if I didn't do a
full set of exercises somewherein the middle of the run, I
would get that stabbing painfrom my hernia and.
I don't know what the connectionis because I'm not a doctor, but
I'm sure that you're like, theobvious connection is because

(43:25):
you had the wi weakness in here,and so you're over-relying on
muscles that are gettingweakened, that are not warmed up
to begin with, that areoverstretched and all these
things, and so essentiallybecause of where my hernia was
and the weakness in all the hipex hip muscles.
It would then at some point intime, essentially without
getting graphic pop and causelike stab in the gut with a

(43:47):
knife pain.

Angie (43:48):
Yeah, that doesn't sound fun.
Yeah,

Kevin (43:49):
it was not.

Angie (43:50):
Yeah.
So by Kevin doing some likemobility opening his hips up,
like getting those musclesfiring and activated, like
there, there's a little bit ofquestion mark and out there
about hip activation exercises.
Like your muscles are alwaysactive, but.
There are sometimes, like withKevin's example that we used

(44:10):
where those muscles aren'tfiring properly, they're not
firing at the proper time, orthey're firing in on a, in a
delayed fashion, right?
So they're really not doingtheir job.
So the more you can target someof those muscles to get the
activation patterns in the motorpatterns firing.
Better, more, more timely andstronger activation or stronger,

(44:30):
contractions, that's gonna be agood thing.
other single leg strengthexercises that I love, like I
mentioned, the single legdeadlift is one of my favorite
exercises for runners.
step ups and step downs.
Also fantastic glutestrengthening exercises,
especially if you're someonethat doesn't like squats or
can't do squats.
Step-ups actually activate theglute muscles.
Even better than squats do.

(44:52):
'cause again, they're a singleleg exercise.
And because of like physics andthe lever arm and the fourth
generation, all that good stuff,step-ups are a super effective
exercise.
Bulgarian split squats, reverselunges, single leg glute
bridges, all of these things arereally important strength
exercises for us to be doing asrunners.
And then to take it one stepfurther.

(45:14):
We also wanna make sure that ourglutes are creating power for
us, and so that's when we startto integrate plyometrics and
power progressions into theworkout.
You don't wanna do these tooearly.
Because they are, again, a lotmore force that's going through
the hip.
So you wanna build, have afoundation of strength first,
and then you can start to add insome light plyometrics.

(45:35):
But things like lateral hops,like side to side hops, single
leg hops are very good for you.
Bounding, skipping these kindsof things to help with power
generation.
and really power is strengthplus speed, right?
It's the ability to.
Yeah.
Use your strength in a speedyway, essentially.
physics teacher,

Kevin (45:54):
I'll take

Angie (45:54):
it, bring the power in.

Kevin (45:56):
it's work over time.

Angie (45:57):
Okay.
It's work over time.
So again, it's strength, butYeah.
Strength and speed.
I know.
But if you

Kevin (46:02):
change the, all the terms that is, that's force and
velocity, that's also gonna workfor

Angie (46:05):
you.
Yeah.
That works for us.
Perfect.
it's one of those things thatis.
Super important, right?
And so hopefully by the end ofthis episode you really
understand how important yourhip strength is and how
important it is for you to dosingle leg exercises as a
runner.
That's really our goal here.
With this episode is really tohelp bring that awareness so

(46:25):
that you can start doing some ofthese things in your weekly
routine.

Kevin (46:29):
Yeah, and you listed a whole lot of good exercises
there and you moved into theplyometrics.
Plyometrics, because you'rehopping, it's even more than
running that power.
We talked about two to threetimes your body weight when
you're bounding.
It's even more than that, whichmy suggestion if you're really.
Doing some bounding and someskipping.
Try and find an incline becausethat reduces the impact on your
body Also, like if you're gonnaget into really trying to bound

(46:52):
for some distance, if you do itup a hill, you're gonna then
make it a little bit nicer onyour body also.

Angie (46:57):
Yeah.
And then of course, whenever weare doing single leg strength,
we can't forget about mobility.
Anytime, like strength andmobility go hand in hand because
it's silly for you to just focuson strength if you don't have
adequate range of motion in yourjoints, like it's important,
like mobility is the, yourjoint's ability to move fluidly

(47:19):
throughout your full range ofmotion.
And so this is where things likehip flexor tightness.
Plays a role, right?
Like it's very important for youto try to open up your hip
flexors and improve your hipflexor mobility, which is the
muscle on the front of your hipin order for you to activate
your glutes.
Because if your hips are reallytight, it's gonna be harder for
you to activate.
I shouldn't say activate.

(47:39):
It's gonna be harder for you toget the proper amount of
contraction in your glutesbecause your hip extension is
gonna be limited by thetightness in your hip flexors,
right?
Things like.
Thoracic mobility working on,the mobility of your mid back
and upper back is also going toenhance your hip stability
because of the rotationalpattern, because your shoulders.

(48:01):
And your upper body offset, notoffset, counterbalance your
lower body and your hips.
So if you are limited with yourthoracic mobility, it's going to
limit your hip mobility.
So all of these things areconnected.
Your ankle mobility is going toinfluence your knee alignment
during single leg things likerunning.
So if you don't have the properamount.

(48:23):
Of movement in your ankle, thenthe muscles around your ankle,
which also attach up near theknee, those are going to again,
go into compensatory patterns.
I think that must be the,

Kevin (48:34):
that is the phrase of today is that

Angie (48:35):
the drinking, the game of episode number 436, quite
possibly.
how often should you be doingthese things?
At least two to three strengthsessions a week.
I like to include single legstrength in all of our.
Strength sessions for ourclients.
I like to te there's certain,when I design a strength program
for our clients, it, I tickcertain boxes and single leg

(48:57):
strength is one of the boxesthat I make sure that we
incorporate at least somehow inevery single exercise.
So maybe that's through a stepup.
Maybe that's a split squat.
Maybe it's a single leg calfraise.
Maybe it's a single leg GLbridge or a.
Single leg, sit to stand or asingle leg deadlift.
There's so many differentvariations, that we're

(49:18):
definitely working on single legstrength in every single one.
so keeping in mind, actually,I'm gonna stop that.
So if you are someone that wantsthe exact exercises to do, you
want step-by-step guidance, youwanna a plan, I'd invite you to
go over to real life runners.comand check out our different
coaching options.

(49:38):
if you're want, to test thewaters before you commit to
anything, we have our 30 dayrunning reset, and that's gonna
give you.
A running plan, a strength plan,plus lessons on, mindset and
nutrition and recovery to help,those five really important
things that you need tostrengthen as a runner if you're
someone that is ready to commit.
We have our coaching program,our group coaching, our

(49:59):
one-on-one coaching, and again,all of our plans include all of
the strength exercises that youneed, including all of the
single leg strength exercisesand balance exercises that you
need.
And, it's really fun.
Not only do these things benefityour running, but they also
benefit you in real life.
And I think that's one of myfavorite things hearing from our
clients, is not just how theirrunning is improving and how

(50:22):
their pain is decreasing andthey're running without knee
pain that they've had for 25years, but also, how much.
They, how they, it wasbenefiting, them getting up and
down the ladder, getting theChristmas decorations out of the
attic, or getting up and downoff of the floor when they're
playing with their grandkids,right?
Because these things affect yoursingle leg balance and strength

(50:43):
and control is really importantin all aspects of your life, not
just running.

Kevin (50:47):
Every aspect of Christmas decorations really relies on the
strength training that I've beenworking for the rest of the year

Angie (50:53):
in the hip rotation, getting the box up and down, and
I

Kevin (50:56):
mean, twisting, trying to get some of those boxes into the
small opening that is the.
Open the attic space.
They're very heavy boxes and youhave to, it's like threading the
needle with them while balancingyourself on the ladder.
And at some point it is in facta single leg stance so that you
can get yourself and the box upand down the ladder.
Yeah.
So yes, it is.
It is all there.
It's perfection right

Angie (51:17):
there.
So head over to single or headover to real life runners.com,
to check out our coachingoptions and the ways that we can
help you to take the things fromthe podcast and actually show
you how to apply those in youreveryday training in your
everyday life.
we would love to be your coachesand be your guide, so we.
Head over there and check itout.
And if you found this episodehelpful, we would love it if you

(51:39):
were to leave us a comment onApple Podcasts or leave us a
comment on Spotify, and a ratingand review to help other runners
find the podcast and help us tocontinue to grow and help other
people around the whole world.
So as always, thanks for joiningus.
This has been The Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
436.
Now get out there and run yourlife.