Gait Analysis with Bill Leach: Visit 1

Yesterday afternoon I had my first appointment with running coach Bill Leach for my gait analysis, and I'm eager to find out the results.

When you go see Coach Leach, he videotapes your running on a treadmill from the side; your running directly from and to the camera; your running to and from the camera at an angle; and all sorts of posture positions, which can include standing normally with your shoes off and balancing on one leg while touching the other foot with your opposite hand. All on video. I wobbled a little on the balancing stuff, and I'm bummed about it because I have better core strength than that -- and core strength is what he preaches. Oh well, we shall see what his detailed report says. (He actually hands you a small binder.)

Couple things:

1) To best view your body as it runs, he needs you to wear contrasting colored tops and bottoms, and they have to be situated on your body so he can see your hips. That means I had to tuck a loose -- not baggy, but loose enough -- shirt into stretch running pants. It all looks atrocious, because a) the baggy shirt bulges from underneath the stretch pants, and b) I have a very high waist. Nice visual, huh? And it's all on camera! Thankfully, only he and I see the video.

2) We watched the video, and the initial assessment of my running is that my foot strikes far in front of my body, which is bad. I was expecting that, b/c it seems that most runners have this problem. The other thing is my feet somewhat cross over each other when I'm running. I'd never have known without that video!

We'll see how he treats the latter. As for the former, I already have homework of exercises to do to get my body comfortable with my feet landing further back.

More homework. I'm balancing so much right now -- freelance projects, ad class homework, working out, another side project, quality time with my man, and more -- that the last thing I wanted was more homework. But here we are. And I'll get it done.

My next appt. is Tuesday. To be continued!