Biomechanical Guru

To say Chuck Wolf is a “biomechanical guru” is like saying a lit match in a gasoline refinery could cause disaster. Uh, heck yeah!

After discussing my history for over an hour, I began what would be a 2.5 hour physical assessment. The start to this illuminated everything that was to come. With his clipboard in hand, Chuck told me to walk about 10 meters and turn around. As I was walking back towards him, the expression on his face was as if I had 6 heads. ?
“What? What’s wrong”, I asked.
“Is that seriously how you walk?”, Chuck asked.
I thought he was just taunting me.
“Yea”, I said.
Chuck’s expression then looked as if I had told him I was planning to live on fried pork rinds forever, and he scribbled vigorously onto his notepad.

Uh-oh.

For more than 2 hours I went through endless motion tests, and Chuck was amazingly thorough. I did various lunges and movement patterns with changes in foot positions, all of which involved measurements to adjoining body parts. The amount of detail to it all and the information derived was unlike anything I had ever seen.

His findings were overwhelming. In short, I am a mess, as he told Joanna on the phone. The longer version: I have no tibial internal rotation, very little dorsiflexion and I am missing forefoot abduction on the right side. This covers just my feet. Then, I have virtually zero hip extension which means my calf can’t load, so there is no rotation to the opposite side (less thoracic motion). This is largely why I am such an inefficient (and SLOW!) runner — my stride is too short with my horrifically tight hip flexors; I have very little thoracic hip rotation which limits my transverse plane running power. Essentially, I have an extremely limited running form. The good news, Chuck says, is if I can fix these issues, I will be an entirely different runner. My ability is much greater than my results have shown. That was encouraging… He also believes that once we get my glute to engage (I have a “dead butt”), many of my back issues will disappear. Music to my ears.

A lot of these things I already knew, however. Certainly not all of it, but a lot. I have seen so many doctors/therapists that each had pointed out portions of these things. What makes Chuck a bit different from the rest is that he asks WHY this is. When my right foot lands, my knee goes in while my hips stay neutral. This isn’t optimal movement, so WHY does this happen? Chuck looks at the “chain of movement” of physiology to try to determine and fix the root of the problem, not necessarily what is happening as a result.

From there, exercises and stretches were given, and Chuck has been working several hours a day with me on them, making sure I am doing them correctly, and yelling at me like a strength coach yells at his defensive line. “God!”, he shreeks, “Get that stick OUT OF YOUR ASS when you walk! What do I keep telling you!” I laugh as I correct my form.

I have a ton of work in front of me… I have 2-weeks of ONLY these exercises, 30 minutes a day. That is all. Uuug. Chuck and Joanna keep reminding me that I am in rehab mode. There is no ‘training’ when you are in rehab. Everything I am doing will make my training stronger when I am able to return, but until these issues are fixed, I will continue to backtrack. Perhaps this is why I had made no improvements thus far?

I am exhausted, and this is only the beginning.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 3:50 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.