Social jogger, race pace runner or Olympic athlete, how can Rebounding help improve your running posture, performance and prevent injury?
Rebound Fitness Master Trainer James Winfield joined forces with Nick Anderson at Saucony to talk all things running and how Rebounding can keep you on track to smash your PBs race after race.
Here are just 6 of the many ways regular Rebounding can improve your running performance and help keep you injury free:
Core Strength
We all tend to train our abdominals lying on the floor but this isn’t really functional and this isn’t how our abdominals are built to function. When we’re running we have to be upright and able to stabilise the important muscles of the pelvis and the spine by strengthening your core in a functional position. This is what the Rebounder is incredible at. When bouncing on the Rebounder your core engages constantly and involuntarily – if it didn’t you would simply not be able to stay on the Rebounder!
Active Recovery
A gentle 10 minute Rebound workout post run is the perfect way to dissipate the lactic acid that builds up in the lower limbs during a run. The body is weightless at the top of the bounce causing the lymph valves to open, and at the bottom of the bounce your functional bodyweight is effectively 3 times heavier than when standing and your lymph valves are forced to close. This provides an incredible lymphatic flush which removes all of the toxins and waste products that accumulated during our run.
Glute Activation
Your glutes are the powerful muscles that drive you forward when running. Strong gluteal muscles are crucial for a strong, stable stride pattern. Glute activation is again involuntary and constant while working on the rebounder. Constant contraction of this powerful muscles helps to create a strong foundation to quickly improve your running.
Pre Run Warm-up
Warm up with a high knee jog on the Rebounder. The low impact surface allows you to safely mobilise the joints without risk of jarring your knees, ankles or hips. A high knee jog followed by some condition exercises before your run will help your body to pump blood into the muscles where it will be needed most and ensure that your core unit and stabilising muscles are warm before you start pounding the pavement.
Injury Prehab & Rehab
Working on the unstable surface of the Rebounder challenges the stabilising muscles in an around the ankle, knee and hip complex. By strengthening the medial and lateral stabilisers of the ankle, knee and the hip and improving overall joint stabilisation we dramatically reduce the risk of injuries like a rolled ankle whilst also improving balance.
Cross Training
In order to improve in any one sporting element we need to vary our workouts and training in order to challenge our body and push it to become better – this is know as The Variation Principle. Rebounding reduces 87% of the shock of impact compared to running on a hard surface so can be great complimentary training for runners on rest days or when your knees need a rest from pounding the pavement.
