Eighteenth Physical Therapy 🏋️

When I woke up this morning, my heel hurt a bit less than yesterday, but it still hurt. I’m still wearing the Straussburg Sock every night, which I hate. But maybe it’s helping.

In this physical therapy session, Ruth did a running analysis of my comfortable jogging pace. I ran on the treadmill for about 5min and then she took some slow-motion video of my running and footfalls and then analyzed the video while I did other recovery exercises.

Ruth found that I have a cadence of about 152 steps per minute, and I should aim for 170 or slightly above that. The optimal running cadence averages between 170 and 180 steps per minute for people of average height (see more). So, I’m going to work on slowly increasing that rate to reduce ground contact time. I should only increase it by 10% at a time, over the course of weeks, and I can do that by choosing a song at a target BPM and then running to that.

I looked back on my months of running data and apparently I’ve been consistently around 155spm for the last year. Interesting. I never knew about this average/target.


She also says that I’m moving my arms more than I need to, and that it’s a waste of energy, so I can cut down on that. Otherwise, running analysis looks good! I need to strengthen the inner lower-leg muscles so that my foot doesn’t slap down from the outer edge to the inner edge as quickly. 
It’s a normal motion but mine might be rolling a bit quickly.

Unknown location (probably inside)