I need a stretch… got one handy?
I set out this evening to do some speedwork, either 400m or 800m repeats at a junior high track I discovered recently. After gearing up, doing some warmups, and stretching gently, I headed out to discover that my right leg was bugging me. It felt like the inside of my quad, but according to Gray’s Anatomy it looks like its either my pectineus or my adductor longus. A groin stretch does nothing, and a regular quad stretch just works the center and outer muscles. Any suggestions?
Anyway, I ran the 1.4 miles to the school nice and slowly, around a 10:00 pace, to warm up some more - its in the low 40s outside at best right now. Once I got to the track I stretched a little more, did some drills, and then set off to do my intervals. I had decided to do 800s, but on the first one I was still feeling stiff so I cut it short, did more stretching, and then made it a 400m day.
That initial lap took 1:54, petering out after about 300m. The next three were done at 1:46, 1:42, and 1:40 as I was getting more comfortable. Running seemed to help. I was doing a 100m walk between each one. I did four more intervals but my watch battery died in the middle of lap number five, so no times there - I’m guessing they were around 1:40, or about a 6:40 pace, but who knows. It turns out that that’s right around where they should be according to McMillan.
After eight laps I did more stretching and headed for home. I ran some, did some backwards uphill running for a while to try to loosen things up, and even walked a bit while waiting to cross a surprisingly busy road. Call it about five miles.
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Feb 2nd 2005
7:47 PM
Richard, be careful with your mysterious muscle pain. It sounds like it’s in the area of the psoas muscle, injury to which I suffered in the summer. It felt to me like I had a hitch in my stride, like I was dragging the leg around a bit. Speedwork aggravates such injuries, of course, so be careful about that kind of thing. The groin stretch that you do on one knee (the injured leg) with the other leg in front of you at a 90 degree angle to the ground and foot on the ground, and a lean forward with a straight back gets right to the area we’re discussing.
Feb 2nd 2005
7:51 PM
Hi Richard (again, I’m posting twice in two days!),
I know exactly where you’re talking about on your quad…
A couple ideas:
1) Modify the regular quad stretch. You can vary this stretch to reach the various portions of those quad muscles. By putting your heel to your rear end, with your toes pointed backwards, that’s normal. If you rotate your toes either left or right, you’ll feel the stretch move back and forth across the quad muscles. Rotating your toes inward (and perhaps holding your ankle with the other hand, even) should stretch the inner part of your quad.
2) Do you know the triangle pose in yoga? You can find pictures if you Google it, I’m sure. The key in this pose to getting to the inner part of your quad is to make sure with the leg you are leaning into, that your toes are pointed outwards. Also key is to relax into your hips. If your hips stay tight, you’ll feel the stretch into your groin. If you relax into your hips, the stretch should extend down into the inner quad.
Are you going to try the 800s again?
Good luck!
Meghan
Feb 2nd 2005
7:56 PM
I was going to suggest yoga — since I started going three times a week (except for today, when a I had a conflict with the dentist’s drill), it’s helped with all those mysterious little hitches.
Feb 3rd 2005
9:27 AM
Thanks, Meghan. I tried the twisted quad stretch you described - it helped a little, but I just didn’t feel like I was really reaching the muscle properly. Something else to play around with. As for the 800s - no, probably not. I think that my plan for the next ten days is to run pretty much everything except my “long” run at marathon pace. I’d like to get into yoga at some point, but now is probably not the best time :-)
Feb 3rd 2005
11:13 AM
Haven’t got a clue about the mystery pain. I was going to suggest what Jay said because I know I feel a stretch right where you describe the pain while I am doing my psoas stretches.
Hope it fixes itself quickly.
Feb 4th 2005
5:31 PM
When I read your post, I thought-”that’s it!” I’ve had the same pain. This morning at the gym I think I finally stretched it…I had finished my ball crunches, and I sat on the ball with both legs out to each side. As I pulled my head down between my legs toward the floor and then to each knee, turning my toes in and out, I could get the stretch. It’s hard to describe, but it worked for me. Good luck!