Bambi is back

I’ve been having some problems with my knee lately when running and although it seemed to improve a bit with proper stretching afterwards, it was still niggling me and I decided it was time to see my sports therapist, Lorraine Kirk, and get it checked out properly.  I first saw Lorraine about a year ago when I was getting pain in my left knee when running and she diagnosed that I had what she called a ‘Bambi leg’, which was basically my left leg being much, much weaker than my right leg.  This only showed up when I started running as you have to use both legs evenly, unlike something like cycling where you can get away with the stronger leg doing all the work.  It’s a long and boring story as to why my left leg had seriously depleted muscles, but once we knew what had been causing the problem Lorraine gave me some exercises and eventually the leg became as strong as the right one.

The problem now seems to be that if I stop running for any period of time, such as through December when I couldn’t get out because of the ice and snow, then the muscles seem to waste away again pretty quickly.  The problems I’ve been getting over the last few weeks had seemed to improve a bit with stretching and concentrating more on good running posture, but I felt it would be best to get Lorraine to check it out before I start cranking up the mileage, especially as some of the niggles had been a bit different from last time. 

After checking me over it would appear that my leg has got weaker again and I need to go back to doing the exercises to improve the strength in it.  I had been getting an additional tightness in the back of the knee as well and I have also pulled or twisted the small muscle that runs horizontally along the back of the knee at some point.  My quad muscles in my thigh are also weak, which means that my hamstring is doing too much work trying to lift my leg when I run, although that’s not showing any sign of damage yet.  And finally my kneecap is loose!  This should improve as the leg gets stronger, but by this point I felt like a catalogue of disasters!  The good news is that everything is fixable by working on making my leg stronger and not aggravating the problem by doing too much running at the moment.  So long runs will not be able to be further than they currently are and short distance speed work will have to be done at a not very speedy speed! 🙂   I need to make sure I do some dynamic stretches at the start of my runs (these are stretches where you stretch the muscles by actually using them rather than them being static and you stretch them) so that I’m thoroughly warmed up and also do my static stretches to help the muscles cool down and not tighen up after running.

Everything would also have got much worse if I’d left it and not got it checked though and tried to increase my mileage and speed; better to take a few weeks out now to get the Bambi leg back to full fitness than have to take more out later on.  It was quite scary to be told if I’d left it there was the possibility I could have been out of running action for nearly three months, and that is time I really don’t have to lose. 

So, time to put in some hard work on the bike and with the swimming and take each session as it comes with the running.  I will have to listen hard to my body and back off or stop the session if it starts hurting and get back to doing the leg exercises every day to improve strength.  Whilst initially feeling rather down about it and scoffing a whole big bag of Monster Munch, I’m now feeling more positive.  Although it will be hard to attend club sessions without being disruptive to the rest of the goup as I’m already the slowest one there, I shall see what I can find that works for me and doesn’t hold everyone else up too much.  The benefit is that in the long run my running will be better as the strength in my leg improves and I’ll be less likely to get injured. 

Onwards and upwards and time to get this leg from a Bambi one back to a Thumper one! 😀