The weekly park run is the perfect place to check out people's body compensations
Elle X
Just to clarify you did read that title correctly. The body’s compensations when it comes to carrying a poo bag out running!
Here at Move Well we are always looking to see what joints are moving too much and what joints aren’t moving enough and WHY this might be the case. Let me share an observation I made about myself and my body’s compensations when carrying out my last park run.
Park run happens every Saturday morning at 9 am across the UK throughout different venues. They are full of people just starting their running journey to members of local running clubs who take their times and positions quite seriously. Dogs, kids and buggies can all be seen running the 5K route which is manned and run all by volunteers. It is a brilliant opportunity to get some exercise in early on in your weekend.
As you can imagine me being so body and movement obsessed I see a lot of compensations happening. I often see the flapping wrist, the kicked out foot or feet and the over dramatic one arm drive amongst other compensations. As I run round I like to think why they might have come about. I was delighted when I had my own compensation to start plotting! Let me tell you more…
I always run with Ruby (the dog) she is actually an exceptional running partner. She doesn’t pull on the lead, she has an elasticated lead that attaches round my waist and runs just to the side of me. So no one sided compensations clocked up from a pulling hound!
What I suffered from was the poo bag arm swing!
Yes – the poo bag caused my injury. WHAT and WHY I hear you say. The bag was carried in the left hand which caused me to lock down on my left side and left arm. This meant my right arm was having to work overtime to rotate my ribcage. Every time I took a step the left had been taken out the equation so the right arm worked harder. When I had finished crossing the line for the final sprint I noticed I felt sore round my right arm pit. My compensation injury had become clear – Chub Rub from my over working right arm!
It just goes to show how clever the body is at compensating. If you lock down some joints through old injury or poo bags then somewhere else in the body has to pick up the slack and move more. Now interestingly it wasn’t the site of my pain I needed to address it was the arm holding the poo bag that needed to move more. How often do you have your site of pain looked at and blamed for the pain?
At Move Well we know that pain is the body’s cry to make a change somewhere but not necessarily where you feel the problem. If you find that your pain is not going away or you are getting it in other areas of your body and you are ready to try a new approach, please get in touch – you sound like just our sort of person!
Until next time …
Knowledge is absolutely power but only when ACTION is taken
Elle x