Osteopathy for Runners

Runner’s knee, ITB pain, shin and Achilles trouble and low-back ache are very often symptoms further up or down the chain, not problems with the painful part itself. Each joint has a job — the ankle and hip are built mainly to move, the knee and lower back mainly to stay stable. This joint-by-joint view, central to Gray Cook’s Functional Movement Systems, is how we read a runner. The classic example is a stiff ankle: if it can’t bend enough (dorsiflexion), the knee takes the rotational stress the ankle should have absorbed — so the knee becomes the symptom of an ankle problem. Higher up, a hip that won’t extend makes the lower back extend to finish each stride, and weak single-leg control lets the pelvis drop — cascading into the knee and back. Even a stiff big toe changes how you push off and ripples all the way up.