This is the first in a three-part series on training for the Pittsburgh Marathon.
It’s all about the butt. Hey, that’s what the doctor said.
Vonda Wright, M.D. - an author, team physician, UPMC
Sports Medicine specialist, and expert in Masters athletics and couch-to-race
enthusiasts when she isn’t working as an orthopaedic surgeon - is the one who
kicked up the butt fuss Saturday. She knows running. She knows the balance and
power and endurance of running such
long-distance races as the
Dick’s SportingGoods Pittsburgh Marathon and half-marathon all emanates from the posterior’s
and lower body’s muscles.
So on Saturday, when she led off the first of three
Marathon Seminars sponsored by Sports Medicine, she told the 100 or so runners
gathered inside UPMC Montefiore’s LHAS Auditorium that they essentially
were sitting upon the most vital running tool in their possession: the caboose.
It’s all about strength starting from the top, where the
legs are concerned. It’s all about balance and tone. It’s all about producing
force and absorbing shock. Dr. Wright then showed the crowd her video, among
several runner-specific snippets archived on
the Pittsburgh
Marathon website, entitled “A weak butt kills the runner.”
She called up volunteers from the crowd Saturday, many of
them Steel City Road Runners Club members after a 10-mile morning run. And she
proceeded to put a few of them through some rear-strengthening exercises.
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| Vonda Wright, M.D., far right. |
There is the “Monster Walk,” where you place an elastic
band around the ankles, squat with your knees bent and rump protruding
slightly, and either shuffle-stepping 15 yards to each side or forward. There’s
the “Runner’s Lunge,” where you take a long stride and push down the back knee,
for 10-15 times apiece. Then there’s the “Split Squat,” where you position
your legs in a long stride, push down on the lead leg and into the heel –
feeling the muscles tighten all the way up to you know where.
Among other stretches, she recommended that runners
perform squats against a wall at work.
“You can do wall squats all day. If you’re talking on the
phone, nobody will know you’re doing wall squats. Anything helps you when
you’re going up the Birmingham Bridge.
“They’re a little different,” Dr. Wright, a runner
herself, said of these exercises. “But they’re all good for your butt.”
