I find it difficult to believe that there are many runners out there that wouldn't like to run "injury free.". I especially think that any runner who pulled their calf muscle five times last year AND got shin splints that hurt enough that even the doctor thought it was a stress fracture REALLY needed to attend a seminar called "Injury Free Running," by Mathew Nark of Plaza Fitness in Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany NY. The evening of the St. Patrick's 4 mile run I had the opportunity to go to just such a seminar that the Triple Cities Runner's Club sponsored. I was bound and determined to walk out of there with at least three big things I could change, and I was not disappointed.Probably the most fascinating piece of information I got out of it was the idea of muscle activation. Mathew stated something along the lines of (I don't have an photographic memory) "About half of the people I see come in for injuries - aren't injured. They have muscles that simply aren't firing properly. Think of an army with 100,000 people. If only 20,000 are working - then it isn't going to be doing its job well. This is also true with Muscles - if only 20,000 of 100,000 muscle fibers are working - the muscle isn't going to work as well." Muscle activation is the idea of increasing the number of "working" or activated muscles fibers. Even if you only get it up to 60,000/100,000 fibers - you are going to be able to do MUCH more than if you were at 20,000/100,000. He then demonstrated with someone who had a recurring IT Band problem (and stressed that this is not guaranteed to be someone's issue just because they have IT Band pain, but that it WAS worth looking into if you did) come up as a "volunteer." With this person, he
