The "Kneed" for Alignment

Posted by: Lindsay

The other day as I was finishing up my run, I heard someone call out from behind me, “Hey, a little tip!” A fellow runner catches up to me and points to my right leg. “I’m a PT and I noticed you run with your foot turned out. You should pull your foot in or you could damage your knee.”

I replied that I had been told this before and shrugged, since I tried my best to keep my foot straight (apparently to no avail) and I didn’t know what else to do. She ran one way, and I ran the other, wondering how long before I did that damage to my knee.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. Dr. Dan is teaching me some Foundational Movement Practices, having me “twist and turn” and feel the connection between my hip bones and my legs. I’m twisting and turning in my seat and then he has me twisting and turning as I walk.

“Like the models on the catwalks,” says Dr. Dan. We have a laugh about how more people need to walk like models.

The next day on my run, I decided to “twist and turn” as I jogged down the sidewalk. Why not, after all? This practice is designed to help me move better, so why not see how it does that?

Not even a minute into my new, FMP-powered run, I noticed that my foot was landing straight. I stopped twisting and turning from the hip and tried to see if my foot turned out again and sure enough, it reverted back to what it was doing before. I started twisting and turning again and felt the alignment from my foot to my hip. I must have looked like a gangly crazy person, hopping and jumping down the street.

But then I noticed how much easier it was to run, how much power I felt I suddenly had. My feet would hit the ground and almost sink into it a little bit and then rebound up as if propelled. I felt like  runner. (A big deal for someone who vehemently despised running for almost all of her life.) Two words that capture this experience: more leverage.

The Foundational Movement Practices get you (and got me) more connected. The different parts of your body can work together the way they should, with and not against gravity, in fluid and dynamic tension, in order to give you more power.

And after just one short lesson, I was running correctly, with gravity, with more power. I won’t have to worry about damaging my knee. Instead of needing therapy to exercise, exercise is now my therapy.

Since then, I’ve been hoping to find that PT who initially called out to me. Just to say, “Look! Look what I’ve learned!” And then to recommend she send her clients over to see if some of our care might help them in the same way.