One of the most common questions I get as a running physical therapist is, "What shoe should I wear?" Although my patients don't like it, the answer is almost always the same: it depends. The shoe itself is a tool. Like any tool, its job is to help you accomplish a specific task. Some shoes are built for daily mileage, some are designed for racing, some are intended for trails, and others are designed to provide a different running experience altogether. Footwear companies us

Runners have more information available to them than ever before. We can track our pace, cadence, heart rate, sleep, heart rate variability, recovery scores, training load, stress levels, and even how symmetrical our running mechanics are. AI-powered coaching platforms can build training plans in seconds and adjust workouts based on our performance. This technology has made training more accessible and personalized than ever before for so many runners. I love that. I also thi

Pain deep in the glute can make a run feel terrible. For runners and non-runners alike, it is common to assume the issue is sciatica because the pain sits near the path of the sciatic nerve. But pain in the glute region can come from several different structures, and many of them feel very similar during running. The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the body. It originates from the lower back, travels through the pelvis and posterior hip, and continues down the back of t

In my PT clinics we always know when a big race is coming up because one-two weeks before race day the phone is ringing off the hook. Pain or small injuries that could be ignored when mileage was low start to get louder and more difficult to run through. Why does this happen? Training Fatigue Most of the time our clients try to pin point the one thing they did that caused the injury, but it is usually not from one single workout - it is overall training fatigue. During the p