Ideally, your quadriceps (your thigh muscles) should be about 25 percent stronger than your hamstrings. In other words, if you were to go to a gym, you should be able to lift 25 percent more when doing leg extensions (which work the quadriceps) than when doing leg curls (which work the hamstrings). But running can overdevelop your hamstrings while doing relatively nothing for your quads. An imbalance in the strength ratio between the two muscles might show up as chronic knee pain because the tendons around the knee can become strained by having to work extra hard to compensate for tight, too-strong hamstrings and relatively weak quads. When your quads are stronger, they can absorb more of running’s impact shock that is otherwise distributed to the knees.
If you have an imbalance in this area, try this at-home remedy. Fill a gym bag with shoes. While sitting on a chair, dangle the straps of the bag across the top of one foot. Lift the bag by straightening that leg. Do this exercise 12 times for each leg.
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