Take good look at these gals. The gal on the left (in blue) looks like she has a level pelvis, but look at the upper body. She’s leaning to the left and has a great deal of torso rotation backward. One of the clues is the abduction of her left arm. Also note how her right arm crosses across her body. We wonder how she looks in right foot stance.

The gal on the left (in red) has a subtle dip of the right side of her pelvis and also has over rotation of her upper body. Her right on crossing the body is a good reason to believe she will have a crossover gait if viewed from straight on.

While both of these gals may have adequate strength, we question how much endurance they have as well as available rotation in the hips and lumbar spine.

This is an excellent, referenced review of some of the current literature and controversy of strength and injury risk. A good read and certainly worth your time to get caught up on what’s current. We would love to see you study on endurance and injury risk.

“While muscle strength may improve tolerance of loads during running, another reason for inconsistencies in the reported relationships between strength and injury risk may be that strength is typically assessed isometrically. It’s unclear how much of an influence peak isometric strength has on the dynamic task of running, and specifically on prolonged running in the presence of muscular fatigue. Schmitz et al found that, while isometric hip strength values were similar between novice and experienced runners, hip internal rotation motion during running was higher in the novice runners, suggesting isometric strength may not correlate strongly with muscular control and kinematics during running.”

http://lermagazine.com/article/lower-extremity-strength-and-injury-risk-in-runners