I feel that I have finally diagnosed the knee and hip issues that I have been having. The first sign of trouble was back in June during an 8 mile run. My hip felt out of place at the beginning of the run and during the last few miles, I began to experience hip and knee pain. I wasn't sure exactly what the issue was but didn't really think too much of it until it kept reoccurring. Not every time I ran but fairly frequently. In addition, I had a loss of mobility in my leg and some knee pain along with it. And so I focused on the knee, thinking that was the source of the issue. So, I began some knee exercises which I'm sure was great for me and my knee and leg muscles in general but didn't really seem to help with the reoccurring knee and hip pain much. The climax of my issues occurred when I went for a 6 mile birthday run and experience some knee pain. The next day, I had to call in sick to work because it was excruciatingly painful to move or put weight on my knee. Now, I was really concerned.
Clinging to hope that this wasn't the end of my long distance running, I thought that one of the things that might be causing me problems was that my my current running shoes, the Hoka One One Cliftons, were approaching 500 miles and that perhaps the cushioning was depleted to the point that it was causing me problems with my knees. I considered going back to the Brooks Adrenaline GTS because I had had a couple of pairs of them and they had worked well for me but decided to do a bit of internet research first. As I researched, I began to find that many folks had had knee issues when running in the Hoka Clifton's. It turned out that people either loved and swore by the Hokas or had issues with them, the most notabe issue being painful knee problems.
I decided to go with some Brooks Adrenalines and so I headed over to The Running Well store which is where I have been getting most of my running shoes over the past 5 years. They recently began carrying Hokas so I talked to them a little about them versus the Brooks. It turns out that the Hoka Clifton's are a neutral shoe and the Brooks Adrenaline are a stability shoe. Although I have been assessed as a neutral runner (at that very store), which means that I should be able to run in any type of shoe, it is almost certain that running in the neutral Hokas is the cause of my problems and that I need to be running in a stability shoe like the Brooks Adrenaline GTS or the Asics Gel-Kayano both of which are stability shoes and both of which I have run in in the past and have had no issues with. I pretty much just switched to the Hoka's because I wanted something that might give just a bit more heel cushion for very long runs and there were a lot of very favorable reviews on them. Big mistake and lesson learned. If you have a particular shoe that is working for you, DON'T MAKE A CHANGE! Incidentally, I am losing confidence in The Running Well Store because they really don't educate folks enough in my opinion. I feel that I didn't get complete information regarding shoe types until I had issues and began asking questions. I feel like cautions should be given up front like, "Your treadmill stride evaluation classifies you as a neutral runner which means you should be able to run in any type of shoe. We'll have you try the Brooks adrenaline which is a stability shoe and see how it works for you. Although a neutral runner should be able to run in any type of shoe, some still need a stability shoe so try it out and see how it works. If you have issues, you may need to switch to a running shoe." Something to that affect. I mean, they are supposed to be experts who educate people and I didn't learn all of these things until I started asking very specific questions and challenging the sales person.
At any rate, I'm now I am back in the Brooks Adrenaline GTS and am hoping this will help solve at least part of the problem.
The other thing I found was that running in a neutral shoe when you should be running in a stability shoe (or vice versa) can cause a lot of problems with something called the IT (Iliotibial) band which is something that I had no idea even existed. Turns out that issues with this band (or ligament) are fairly common among runners. You can read about it here: Iliotibial Band Syndrome. The issue I was having were described exactly in the symptoms of IT band syndrome and I read of many accounts of folks changing shoe types only to irritate the IT band in doing so. Finding this was actually great news. a good exercise that works well to keep my hips and lower back aligned. I've had issues over the years where my hip feels out of place and my left leg is shorter than my right. I found an exercise that works very well for me: Leg Swing Exercise The very first time I did this exercise, I felt my hip and lower back realign and now I am performing this both before and after runs. I started off slow for the first couple of weeks-- one short 3 mile run once a week and am going to try to start a half marathon training plan this week.
I'll try to post updates about how it is going with the IT band as I progress through the plan.
Thanks for reading!
