I will be the first to admit that exercises can sometimes look
silly. Humorist Bill Bryson writes in length in his autobiography, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid,
about his father becoming interested in a practice called "Isometrics" in the
1950s. According to Bryson, his father made a show of getting up in public and
finding the nearest wall against which he would push with all his might.
According to his father, pushing against an unyielding object would build
strength.
I am not going to sit here and tell you to go ahead and start pushing
on walls, but I do have an exercise that is both fairly silly looking and also
incredibly useful for every distance runner: the clamshell exercise.
This exercise begins with you lying on your side with your legs
together, pulling your knees up so your thighs are perpendicular to your
stomach and bending your knees, forming is a 45° angle. Now you will raise your top knee up, while keeping
your feet together; lift slowly until you feel the exercise in your hips, then
return to the original position. The exercise should look like a clamshell
opening and closing. If this is not challenging enough, you may wrap an elastic
TheraBand around your knees to add resistance. Do 2-3 sets of 15 clamshells on
each side of your body.
Though this exercise's name and
appearance may seem dubious, it strengthens a necessary muscle for runners: the gluteus medius. This
is a muscle that lies toward the back of the upper hip and is necessary for
stabilizing the hips and legs as we run.
Many injuries have been found to stem
from a lack of pelvic control in the frontal plane, which is often due to a
problem with the gluteus medius. Basically, this weakness leads to a runner's
stride becoming uneven, which causes certain muscles to be overworked.
Two
prominent injuries related to issues with the gluteus medius include "Runners
Knee", also known as patellofemoral pain syndrome, and achilles tendinopathy.
These injuries can be debilitating, so being preemptive about preventing them
is important for every runner.
The clamshell exercise is a great
way to strengthen the gluteus medius and prevent injuries associated with weak
hips. Completing this exercise twice per weak can help to keep you injury free
and ensure that you are able to run healthy and strong. For more insight into
the importance of hip strength and a list of a few more exercises, check out this article.