Running Medicine and Performance Program

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What We Offer Runners

Your journey as a runner is unique to you. We offer a wide range of services for your customized treatment plan, including:

• Running-specific evaluations
• Running injury rehabilitation therapies
• Strength training for runners

Running-Specific Evaluations

Understanding your physical status is a first step to helping you overcome an injury or improve your performance.

Some evaluation techniques we offer include:

• Physical exam
• Imaging studies (such as x-rays)
• Visual and video gait analysis
• Strength and range-of-motion evaluation
• Other functional tests focused on running

Following an evaluation by a physician or physical therapist and discussion about your running goals, your provider will create a treatment plan with you.

Running Injury

To help you improve biomechanics to reduce risk of injury or rehabilitate a past running injury, we offer traditional and advanced therapies for runners that may be part of your custom treatment plan:

Injection Therapies

Orthobiologics:

Substances found naturally in the body offer a healing alternative when anti-inflammatory medication and physical therapy haven’t been effective. These substances can treat injured muscles, tendons, and ligaments as well as help manage pain from cartilage damage or loss. Sometimes referred to as Regenerative Medicine, our providers can help you determine if orthobiologic injections are a treatment option for your injury.  These injections and procedures may include Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) injections, Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC) injections, as well as others.

We offer:

• Platelet rich plasma (PRP) injections: These injections use your own platelets and the growth factors contained within them to help your body return to a healthier pre-injury state.
• Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC):  Cells obtained from your bone marrow are used to help heal damage and relieve pain related to cartilage loss, arthritis, or muscle or tendon injury. 

Viscosupplementation: A gel injection of hyaluronic acid is used to help reduce inflammation and restore smooth motion in your joint. 

Prolotherapy: This alternative therapy provides pain relief for injured muscles, tendons, ligaments, and soft tissues. Your physician injects an irritant such as sugar into the injured tissue where your tendon or ligament attaches to bone. The foreign substance activates your natural healing abilities. Several studies have shown this treatment to be beneficial in select patients, including those with muscle strains, plantar fasciitis, lateral epicondylitis, IT band syndrome, and other tendon conditions.

Corticosterroid: An anti-inflammatory medication injected directly around the site of pain. Steroid injections can be a beneficial part of the treatment plan for short term reduction in pain and inflammation.

Running-focused physical therapy: This customized physical therapy concentrates on running biomechanics to find the root cause of your injury, lower the risk of recurrence, and promote long-term health. In contrast to traditional physical therapy, this includes a detailed video gait analysis of your running, going beyond the typical standard of care for a physical therapy patient. Treatment may include some forms of traditional physical therapy such as strengthening, stretching, joint mobilization, dry needling, and/or manual therapy but will also include running-related drills and movements.

AlterG® Anti-Gravity Treadmill: This treadmill reduces the effects of gravity on your body as you exercise. It allows you to train without pain and reduces stress on your joints and muscles. It’s ideal for injured athletes who want to maintain cardiovascular fitness and reduce risk of re-injury.

Strength Training for Runners

Our strength training program, offered through our Sports Performance Program, was developed by our athletic performance specialists in coordination with our physicians and physical therapists who are runners.

Strength training can benefit a runner in many ways including improving performance, optimizing biomechanics to reduce risk of injury, and rehabilitating a past injury.

 An athletic performance specialist will work with you to safely increase your strength and power output through one of three programs:

Better Than Before Program: During 30-minute sessions, you will focus on injury reduction/injury rehabilitation specific to the endurance athlete. This program could be a bridge from physical therapy, providing more advanced exercise as you progress back into running. 

Introduction To Strength Training: This general eight-week strength block introduces endurance athletes to strength and conditioning. Sixty-minute sessions focus on form, basic strength development, introduction to plyometrics, and injury reduction. These training sessions will help increase your rate of force development, power output, and muscular endurance, all of which will translate to increased endurance performance. 

Competition Training Program: To help you prepare for an upcoming race or endurance competition, this seven-to-eight-week individualized program includes periodization, a peak week, and a de-load week. These components will help ensure that your body is in peak condition, allowing the endurance athlete to perform at his or her best. You will work on strength, plyometrics, mobility, stability, and core exercises tailored to your needs. If you have a running coach, we can coordinate workouts with your training schedule to help prevent any conflict with workouts and manage fatigue and/or soreness.

Make an Appointment

Get on the road to recovery or on the path to optimized performance today by making an appointment with a running specialist.

Runners With a New Injury

Please call our office or schedule online with one of our running medicine physicians if you:

• Have a new running injury
• Have an injury that has not been evaluated by a physician
• Want to seek a second opinion from a physician who specializes in running
• Or are not sure where to start to help get you back running following an injury