Five Important Lower-Body Exercises for Runners

When you think of lower-body exercises, quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves are the top-of-mind muscle groups to work, right? Well, yes and no. Each of these muscle groups are important and depending on the runner one group may need to be worked more than another. But, there's an entirely different group of muscles that often get overlooked by most runners. These muscles (abductors and adductors) are found laterally on the outside and inside of the legs. There is not one abductor and one adductor muscle, rather they are a collection of different muscles that work to pull the legs away from or toward the body or to create internal or external rotation of the leg. They also work to provide stability and balance in the lower body. The glute medius muscle is a hip-abductor muscle that provides stability in the whole pelvic region when walking and running. It's when this muscle is tight or weak that often results in runners knee. Adductors running down the inside of the leg help provide stability as well as help with acceleration when running. Adductors are the only muslces in the lower-body that are continuously firing throughout the entire running stride cycle. Keeping these muscle groups well conditioned will not only help make you a more efficient runner, it will help decrease the chance of  injury and falling. The video below shows five simple exercises that are very effective in working your abductor and adductor muscles. Check it out!

Exercises for Better Running

I recently discovered a great blog—The One Mile Runner Blog—hosted by David O'Meara. The site inspires older athletes (30+ years old) to learn how to avoid injury, recover quicker and develop functional strength. David says these attributes are essential to achieving peak performance in any competitive sport and I couldn't agree more. David uses his personal experience as a coach, trainer, and masters runner to evaluate exercises, techniques and products to help you exceed your performance goals.

Looking through the site I discovered some great functional exercises perfect for making you a stronger and more agile runner. The first is something David calls The Toe Touch Matrix. David says this exercise really works the proprioceptors in your feet. (Proprioception means "sense of self". Proprioceptors are sensors that provide information about joint angle, muscle length, and tension, which is integrated to give information about the position of the limb in space.) The Toe Touch Matrix mobilizes your hips, knees, and ankles. Instead of touching with your hands in a balance reach, The Toe Touch Matrix has you touch 10 matrix spots with your toes. David says to pay close attention to the back corners of the matrix as those spots really hit difficult areas of your body. Again, this is a multi-directional, multi-joint, and multi-muscle exercise.


At the end of 2008, David met with a foot doctor who wanted to immobilize him in a "walking boot" for one month due to his injured Achilles tendon. Not liking that scenario, David searched for a second opinion and that is how he met Juan Ruiz Tagle. Juan, who is now the training consultant at The One Mile Runner, changed David's training program and his running to a "stiffer" and more powerful running style. Take a look at this video showing a few of David's running exercises.

For more great video clips of functional running exercises and stretches, be sure to check out David's site The One Mile Runner.