Running Injuries: Could Video Analysis Help?

Running injuries can be frustrating.

Your knee hurts when you reach 5 km. Your Achilles settles with rest but flares again when you increase your training. Or perhaps you’ve had treatment before, but every time you return to running the same problem comes back.

At Dorset Physio, our aim isn’t simply to identify where it hurts. We want to understand why you’re struggling to run and what you need to get back to it.

Assessing the whole picture

Running injuries aren’t always caused by one particular movement or biomechanical “fault”.

Training load, strength, previous injury, recovery, mobility, running habits and changes in terrain, distance or speed can all be relevant.

That’s why a running assessment may include:

• your injury and training history

• strength and capacity testing

• joint movement and mobility

• balance and control

• running-specific functional testing

• your current training programme

• video analysis of your running

  
  

What does video running analysis show us?

Running happens quickly.

Recording you running allows your physiotherapist to slow the movement down and look more carefully at what happens throughout your running cycle.

We can review your running from different angles and consider those findings alongside your symptoms, strength and clinical assessment.

There isn’t one “perfect” way to run, and seeing something different on a video doesn’t automatically mean we’ve found the cause of an injury.

Instead, video analysis gives us another piece of information to help build a more complete picture of you as a runner.

Turning assessment into rehabilitation

The important part isn’t the video itself, it’s what we do with the information.

Your rehabilitation programme might include progressive strengthening, running-specific exercises, training-load advice, mobility work where appropriate and a graded return to running.

In some circumstances, we may also explore changes to aspects of your running technique.

Our goal is to help you build the strength, capacity and confidence your body needs for the running you want to do.

From your first 5K to your next challenge

You don’t have to be an elite athlete to benefit from sports physiotherapy.

You might be starting Couch to 5K, returning after injury, running regularly for fitness, training for your first marathon or simply wanting to keep doing something you love without constantly battling the same niggle.

At Dorset Physio, we can assess the injury, look at the demands of your sport and build rehabilitation around getting you back to doing it.

Running assessments and sports physiotherapy appointments are available at Dorset Physio in Weymouth.