Your Body Will Find a Way: How Movement Deficits Can Lead to Injuries

Running is repetitive.

Even an easy run can mean thousands of steps, with your body solving essentially the same movement problem repeatedly. That repetition is part of what makes us better runners, but it also means that small limitations can become more meaningful when they're repeated thousands of times every week.

Your body is incredibly good at finding a way to get the job done.

If your ankle doesn't move well, you'll still run. If your hip doesn't extend as well as it should, you'll still move forward. If you lack strength or control in a certain position, your body isn't just going to stop.

It finds another way.

And sometimes that's where problems begin.

Compensation Isn't Automatically a Bad Thing

The word compensation gets thrown around a lot in the fitness and rehab world, usually as if any deviation from "perfect" movement is something that needs to be fixed.

That's not how I look at it.

There isn't one perfect way to move, and every asymmetry or mobility restriction isn't going to cause an injury. The human body is adaptable, and being able to find different movement solutions is generally a good thing.

The question is whether you're repeatedly asking another area of the body to do more work because something else isn't contributing enough.

For a runner doing 30, 40, 50 or more miles per week, those small differences are being repeated tens of thousands of times.

That's when they can become worth paying attention to.

Limited Ankle Mobility

One of the first areas I look at with runners is ankle dorsiflexion, or how well the knee can move forward over the foot while the heel stays down.

You need this motion every time you land and move over your foot during a stride.

If the ankle doesn't have enough available motion, your body still needs to get over that leg somehow. That can mean changing how the foot moves, changing the position of the knee, altering stride mechanics, or finding movement somewhere farther up the chain.

That doesn't mean limited ankle mobility guarantees knee pain, shin pain, or a foot injury.

It means you've potentially reduced the number of options your body has for dealing with the forces of running.

My goal isn't to create the most flexible ankle possible. It's to make sure you have enough mobility for the task you're asking your body to perform and enough strength to control that range.

Hip Extension Matters Too

The same concept applies at the hip.

As you move through your stride, the hip needs to extend behind the body. If you don't have enough usable hip extension, you're still going to move forward.

Your body will find a way.

That might involve changing pelvic position, getting more motion through the lower back, changing stride mechanics, or reducing how effectively you're able to produce force behind you.

Again, the goal isn't extreme mobility.

More range of motion isn't automatically better.

The goal is having enough motion for running and being strong and controlled throughout the range you use.

Running Is a Single-Leg Sport

Running is essentially a long series of single-leg landings.

Every stride requires you to accept force on one leg, stabilize yourself, move over that leg, and then produce enough force to propel yourself into the next stride.

That makes single-leg strength and control incredibly important.

The foot and ankle need to manage the ground. The calf needs to absorb and produce force. The knee needs to tolerate load. The hip needs to control the femur and pelvis. The trunk needs to help keep the entire system organized.

If one part of that system doesn't have enough strength or capacity, another part may end up taking on more of the workload.

This is why I care much more about usable movement than simply whether someone can touch their toes or hold a deep stretch.

Mobility Isn't the Goal

This is where I think a lot of runners get mobility wrong.

The answer isn't necessarily more stretching.

You can have plenty of passive flexibility and still lack the strength or control to use that range while running. On the other hand, you don't need to be exceptionally flexible to be a durable runner.

What we want is movement capacity.

Enough mobility to access the positions your sport requires.

Enough strength to control those positions.

Enough tissue capacity to repeatedly handle the forces you're putting through them.

And enough variability that your body has options when you're tired, climbing, descending, running technical terrain, or increasing training volume.

That's a much different goal than simply trying to become "more mobile."

Movement Is Only One Piece of the Injury Puzzle

It's also important not to oversell biomechanics.

Running injuries are rarely caused by one thing.

Training volume, intensity, sudden changes in workload, previous injuries, strength, recovery, sleep, nutrition, terrain, footwear, and individual anatomy can all contribute.

You can move beautifully and still get injured if your training load consistently exceeds what your body can recover from.

You can also have movement patterns that aren't textbook-perfect and run for years without a problem.

That's why I don't believe in looking at a movement assessment and trying to find everything that's "wrong" with someone.

I'm looking for the things that matter.

Is there a meaningful restriction?

Is there a strength deficit?

Is one side significantly different from the other?

Does the limitation make sense in the context of the athlete's symptoms, training, injury history, and goals?

And most importantly: is changing it likely to make them a stronger, more capable runner?

If the answer is yes, then it's worth addressing.

Build More Options

The goal of mobility and strength work shouldn't be to create perfect movement.

It should be to give your body more options.

Improve the ankle mobility that's limiting you. Build strength through your available range of motion. Develop stronger calves, hips, hamstrings, quads, and feet. Improve your ability to control yourself on one leg.

Then progressively expose those tissues to the demands of running.

The more capable the system becomes, the less we must rely on one structure repeatedly picking up the slack.

Your body will always find a way to accomplish the task you give it.

The goal is to make sure it has plenty of good options to choose from.