Physical Therapy for Runners

At First Coast Running Medicine, we take a detailed, step-by-step approach to analyzing your running form, helping you move more efficiently and pain-free:

Comprehensive Video Assessment
We start by capturing slow-motion videos of you running from multiple angles. This allows us to thoroughly evaluate how your body moves and pinpoint any inefficiencies or potential causes of pain.

Detailed Breakdown
Using specialized software, we analyze key components of your gait, such as your foot strike, stride length, cadence, and posture. We’ll also assess how your strength, flexibility, and mobility influence your running form.

Tailored Feedback
Based on the findings, we provide personalized feedback, explaining exactly what needs improvement. We offer clear, actionable steps to help you make adjustments to your form, such as optimizing your cadence or switching from heel strike to midfoot strike to reduce stress on your joints.

Relief from Overuse Injuries
Trigger point dry needling is highly effective for treating overuse injuries and repetitive strain injuries common in runners and athletes. Overuse often leads to the development of tight, painful knots in the muscles, called trigger points, which restrict blood flow, limit movement, and cause discomfort. Dry needling also promotes muscle activation and thereby helps to address muscle imbalances before they become bigger issues. It’s an excellent tool for injury prevention, especially for runners who experience repetitive stress on their muscles.

How Dry Needling Helps: Dry needling releases these tight areas by inserting a fine needle directly into the trigger point, causing the muscle to twitch involuntarily. This improves blood flow, modulates pain, and promotes faster healing of the injured tissue.

Result: You’ll experience less pain, better mobility, and quicker recovery, allowing you to return to running or training sooner.

After fully assessing your active and passive joint range of motion, joint mobility, and muscular strength and coordination, we will have a comprehensive understanding of the variables that are likely contributing to your pain experience.

You’ll then receive a customized program of exercises and drills designed to address any deficits, strengthen weak areas, and reinforce proper running mechanics. Our goal is to not only help you improve your form, but also provide you with the understanding of how to navigate flare ups and prevent future injuries on your own.

Our goal is not to just give you exercises that are cool or flashy or hard for hard's sake. We want to give you a comprehensive program that will address your specific impairments as efficiently as possible.