Running, biomechanics and pelvic floor in women triathlete

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For women who perform a sport that involves running, it is important to pay attention to the health of the pelvic floor, since the impact can weaken and deteriorate.

Our collaborator Miriam Sanchez tells us on this occasion the importance of pelvic floor care in women athletes

We all know that cuidar the biomechanics of the gesture of the foot race it is important for any runner, to avoid injuries, to run better, to perform more ... And this becomes even more important in women due to the Anatomical differences that make up the pelvis, and that cause a different biomechanical behavior because of that difference that makes us pay much more attention to the Pelvic floor care in women.

In a very basic and summarized way, the pelvic floor is the back of the perineum, with a dome shape (two domes, one in each half of the body) whose function is cushion the impact of the viscera that are inside the pelvis. This damping function has a special relevance in the women who practice impact sports, such as running on foot in the triathlon, since the forces that are exerted on this area in the support phase of the race multiply considerably, weakening and causing problems in the pelvic floor if its force tone is not adequate or the biomechanics is incorrect and we provoke the forces outside the appropriate axes.

Evidently There are many more factors that can affect the pelvic floor in women, such as pregnancy and childbirth, constipation, overweight, bad postures repeatedly (outside of sport), the use of belts continuously ... but in this article we will focus only on what refers to the subject of the sport itself.

And a weak pelvic floor that problems or symptoms can cause?

We can mainly find problems of Urinary incontinence during the realization of activities, genital prolapse, constipation, weakness of the abdominal girdle with problems of lumbar spine association, sexual dysfunctions .... Problems that usually talk little but that can become important, and especially considering that it is estimated that an 20% of women over a certain age have problems of this type, although they do not go to any type of specialist to try to solve it.

The biomechanical analysis of the running technique helps us to find out what factors related to running are influencing a runner to be injured more or less, or repeatedly, in addition to helping us to make runners more efficient over time. and therefore with a higher performance in terms of training.

As far as women and pelvic floor are concerned, we will focus on analyze the parameters that cause a greater or excessive impact towards these structures, to correct it through the retraining of the career technique if necessary.

In a basic way in women it is necessary to pay attention to three essential points that influence the impact on the lower pelvic area:

  1. El type of footprint. Although a priori any type of tread is valid to run within the "safe" limits, it is demonstrated that having a footstep tread increases the relative risk of injury in general, and especially increases the impact on the pelvic floor, the longer the stride is longer and the greater the impact of the heel on the ground with respect to the central point of the base of the sacrum (reference of center of gravity of the body).

Tread on the female runner, pelvic floor

  1. La verticality of the posture. To avoid injuries in general it is important the posture to run, keep the body and especially the spine within an imaginary line that would pass (in a general way) through the occipital area, shoulders, sacrum and ankle (if we are in phase of support for). For the pelvic floor it is also essential to maintain this verticality, to cause the weight distribution and the impact of the stroke to fall correctly on the posterior pelvic floor, which is the part designed to cushion the weight and the impacts produced on it. When we alter this biomechanics and the anterior area is the one that receives the weight, we will have many more possibilities of dysfunctions (prolapses, incontinence, pain ...).

Running position on woman runner

  1. El vertical displacement. The vertical displacement of the body when running could be said to be "what we jump when we run", that is, how we move up and down in addition to propelling and moving forward. As the objective to run is to go forward, we can intuit that the greater the vertical associated propulsion will be a factor that will reduce efficiency and performance when running. And of course, this factor is supposed to increase the impact on the pelvic floor and the forces that are produced on it, so, especially in women, this displacement we will have to try to always be as small as possible.

Pelvic floor woman runner exercises

Although you have to take into account many other factors and of course individualize each case, taking into account and correcting these biomechanical points can help a lot to take care of the pelvic floor.

The most important thing is preventively or when there is a problem, always consult a specialist in urogynecology, and when the problem is defined, there are also physiotherapists specialized in urogynecology who can help to recover and improve many of the pathologies of this type.

How? Reinforcing the pelvic floor through the use of electrotherapy, perineal balls, treatment with INDIBA, with special devices or pelvic belts, hypopressive abdominal gymnastics ... Regarding the latter, now that it seems that this type of strengthening is becoming “fashionable”, hypopressive exercises are one of the best methods to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, and they can help manage and solve many gynecological problems if performed on an ongoing basis.

Therefore, for women who perform a sport that involves running, it is important to pay attention to the health of the pelvic floor, since the impact can weaken and deteriorate it. But the good thing is that it is easy to take care of and solve problems when they appear, we just have to be aware of taking care of this part of the body, and eliminate many of the taboos that exist on this topic.

 

Mariam Sánchez

Further information:  institutoinnova.net

 

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