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Welcome to the Return 2 Sport PT blog, where our goal is to keep you, THE ATHLETE, at your best. Here, we share insights and tips to improve your movement quality, alleviate pain and dysfunction, and equip you with the knowledge to maintain a pain-free and active lifestyle for the long haul.

Part 2: What Does the Rest of the Running Evaluation Do?

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March 31, 2025•3 min read

Part 2: What Does the Rest of the Running Evaluation Do?

What if you only did video gait analysis and gave tips for form, etc, but you didn't address any of the underlying issues that are causing "bad form?" Wouldn't that be a pretty bad overall assessment? What about hip mobility, ankle mobility, core stability, foot/ankle strength, and hip strength? Often times these are the leading causes for abnormalities that contribute to less than ideal running form.

Why It's Important To Do Both

I want to start with an example. Many healthcare options offer the idea of decreasing pain. Think about a massage, chiro adjustment, etc. And there's nothing wrong with decreasing pain, the problem is that their goal is to decrease pain rather than solving the problem. With a problem-solving approach, we can focus more directly on the reason that person is in pain in the first place. This is HUGE. We put it all together with this approach applied to everything we do.

How Our Approach is Different

We focus on the WHOLE picture. Yes, we want to look at running form and help you with all of the easy fixes, but we also want to dive way deeper than that. We take the running data and combine it with mobility, strength, and stability testing to give you a comprehensive picture of where you can improve. We utilize functional testing measures and give you goals to work towards. With our comprehensive assessment, you'll leave with no doubts that you're addressing the right things to reach your goals.

Why This Could Help You Get Faster

If you've ever sat and watched people run in a park, I'm sure you've noticed just how different everyone's form is. Some people look like they are gliding along like gazelles and others look more like they're having a fight with gravity. Why is that? My hot take is that there are things limiting their mobility and strength causing limitations that are keeping them from accessing their speed. How can you have top end speed if you don't have good hip mobility? How can you get to top end speed if your strength is not good enough to push faster without breaking down? We often see great athletes that still have these limitations and most of them could get to their breakthrough moments if they could solve these equations.

How This Keeps You Injury Free

Injuries happen due to a few different reasons. When muscles are overloaded past their ability they will fail and this causes tendon pain. When muscles are tight, they can't do the demands required of them mechanically and cause undue stress and mechanical changes. When muscles are weak they do not stabilize and cause a cascade of mechanical changes that lead to most all of the running related injuries. Lastly, and least often is injury due to overuse. If you can get on top of these things and make your body a well-oiled machine, it is an amazing vessel that will allow you to push it to your limits.

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