Your "quads" are four muscles on the front each thigh:
The rectus femoris
The vastus medialis
The vastus lateralis
The vastus intermedius
This muscle group is also known as the quadriceps femoris, the quadriceps extensor, or simply the quadriceps.
A quadriceps muscle group on a thigh moves two joints:
the hip joint;
the knee joint.
The quads on your thigh:
bend (flex) your hip joint;
straighten (extend) your knee;
help to absorb the energy of your impacting the ground.
In a paper presented at the 1998 North American Congress on Biomechanics, J.A. Mercer et al. from the University of Oregon reported on the effect of fatigue on the quadriceps and hamstrings during running. Two conclusions reached in the paper dealt with what happens when you run at your preferred stride rate or cadence:
You minimize the metabolic cost of your running.
You do NOT minimize shock attenuation during your running.
So your quads are in a "Catch-22" situation when you run.
Sports physiologists generally agree that the movement of a leg during running can be divided into three phases:
Support
Drive
Recovery
The quadriceps muscle group on a thigh is engaged only during the support phase of that leg's movement. Called the "extensor paradox" in running, this means that the body essentially disengages the quads after your body weight moves forward of the supporting foot and does not re-engage those quads until that foot strikes the ground again (and thereby re-enters the support phase for that leg).
So your quads are crucial to your running, but they are not the be-all and end-all of the muscles that you use when you run. This can lead to your taking your quads for granted, but you should not do this, for the Law of Attraction tells us that we attract what we appreciate.
If you want your quads to serve your running as well as they possibly can, then it will pay to appreciate them regularly. A simple way to do this is to make a list of statements of gratitude for your quads and then to take time daily or weekly to read each statement on the list, pausing before advancing to the next statement to reflect on the positive emotions that you associate with that statement. Here are some statements to get you started:
I am truly grateful for how my quads flex my hip joints and straighten my knees as I run.
I am thankful that my quads help to absorb the energy of my impacting the ground as I run.
I appreciate that my quads are caught in a "Catch-22" situation regarding metabolic efficiency versus shock attenuation.
I love to take care of my quads with appropriate cross-training and stretching exercises.
I am grateful for the role that my quads play in the support phase of the movement of a leg during running.
Maximize the power of this list by learning all you can about the quads and then editing and extending these statements to make them your own.
Author Resource:-
Kirk Mahoney, Ph.D., loves to walk and run, and his SpryFeet.com website provides practical research for runners and walkers. By going to http://www.SpryFeet.com/Reports/, you can get his FREE "Pace Tables for Runners and Walkers" special report, letting you look up paces needed to complete several different race distances within given durations and for different micro-level-pacing methods.
(c) Copyright - Kirk Mahoney, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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