My friend Lauren is a chronically injured runner. In her case, ITBS on her left leg has been the issue that has plagued her on and off for nearly 10 years. Though she might not admit it herself, Lauren is also a phenomenal runner – easily one of the top female runners currently in the state of New Hampshire. She’s one of those runners who deserves to be healthy, if for no other reason than to see what she could accomplish if she were able to string together a solid and uninterrupted stretch of training and racing.
In talking with Lauren about her injury history, she indicated that despite seeing a number of professionals to help her solve her knee problems, she had never had her gait filmed. I’m no doctor, but I offered to film her on a treadmill just to see if anything obvious stood out. We shot some video of her running from the side and the back, and pored over it. A couple of things stood out, but given that neither of us are trained physical therapists, it was difficult for either of us to determine what, if anything, that we saw in her gait might be responsible for her lateral knee pain.
Lauren and I thought it might be fun and potentially informative to post her videos on the blog and let people take a look and share their thoughts. For a bit of important history, she had a knee reconstruction done 14 years ago on her left leg after rupturing her ACL, medial collateral ligament, and medial meniscus. Here’s you chance to be the PT – take a look at the videos below and let us know what you think. Just so you know, Lauren is seeing a PT here in NH, so we’re not devising a treatment plan or anything crazy like that (I know my limits, and don’t plan on overstepping my qualifications…). However, given that her PT doesn’t do video analysis, we thought that having some extra eyes take a look couldn’t hurt – have at it!
Slow Motion Gait Analysis – Side View in Nike Free Run+ from Runblogger on Vimeo.
Slow Motion Gait Analysis – Side View in Socks from Runblogger on Vimeo.
Slow Motion Gait Analysis – Rear View in Nike Free Run+ from Runblogger on Vimeo.
Slow Motion Gait Analysis – Rear View in Socks from Runblogger on Vimeo.
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