Understanding Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is incredibly common, but chronic injury is not. That would be like having a cut that never heals, which is incredibly uncommon! Unfortunately we do not have a common and well-understood model for explaining ongoing pain, and so most people who have ongoing pain feel like they have a long term injury. This means that they avoid load, and we know that load is one of the most important determinants of recovery. Avoidance becomes a kind of positive feedback loop. It can be a strong contributor to chronic pain.

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Pain, Injury, GeneralDave Moen
Strength training for runners

A regular strength routine helps build more robust movement systems. It creates changes throughout your body, including: improved nervous system functioning and muscle/tendon biology. This means that you can adapt better to variations in load, which might be more hill running, increasing kilometres or adding speed work. This all helps to improve your running efficiency and performance.

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RunningDave Moen
How to run uphill

Running uphill needs a different technique to flat running. There are two key differences.

First, you will take shorter strides. You want most of your power to come from pushing down and back. This works best when you put your foot down underneath you or just in front of your body. 

Second, you will naturally land more towards a forefoot strike. The slope of the hill makes this happen, you don’t need to change your foot angle. 

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RunningDave Moen