Train Your Nervous System to Avoid Injury

We’ve all been there. You just finished a climb and are now cruising downhill. It feels good. You aren’t working hard like you did on the climb. The muscles you felt working intensely during the climb are relaxing. Your effort level is about half what it was before. You enjoy the sounds, the smells, the scenery. Then you hit the bottom of the downhill and something feels off. Your ankle is tweaked. Your knee or hip is jacked up. Your abductors are unusually tight. You were feeling good on the downhill but feel flat at the bottom.

The question is immediate. What happened? You try to remember if you rolled your ankle, had a funny stride that through your hip or overextended your knee. You can’t think of anything.

In his book “The Science of Running”, Steve Magness provides a potential answer. He describes the role of the Central Nervous System (CNS) in running.

The CNS controls every movement in our body. A lot of these movements are built-in patterns that the CNS knows, meaning we don’t need to think about them. A good example is walking or breathing. You don’t need to think about every step you take because your CNS knows that movement. You don’t need to think about every breath because your CNS knows that movement and the signals to send. It is on autopilot.

The CNS sends signals, known as action potentials, to the different muscle groups. Those muscle groups contract, creating the movement. The muscle groups send feedback to the CNS about its needs, such as fuel requirements and fatigue levels. The CNS, then, makes small adjustments to meet the needs of the muscle group to keep the body moving.

When you hit the bottom of the long descent and your body felt jacked up, the answer to what happened is likely found in the process described above. Your CNS received feedback about fatigue, likely from the climb, and made slight adjustments beyond your conscious knowledge to regular movement patterns. This slight adjustment changed your running gait, and you are experiencing the pain of an irregular movement.

There is a solution to this problem. You can train the autopilot of your CNS.

On your long run, when you start experiencing fatigue or pain, pay attention to your form. If you pay attention, you will notice the slight, unconscious adjustments your CNS is making. Perhaps your cadence slows and your stride lengthens. Perhaps you start striking with your heel rather than midfoot or toes. Perhaps your leg swings to the outside. Whatever the adjustment, you will notice it if you pay attention.

When it happens, consciously override your CNS and force yourself back into proper running form. Doing so will train your CNS in this situation. Practicing it over-and-over in training, your CNS will learn to maintain proper running form on autopilot.

Maintaining conscious control and training the autopilot of your CNS will help you avoid injury and run more efficiently.