My hip is not square

As you recall I hurt my knee running in the half-marathon this spring.  And I hurt it again running a 10k on the 4th of July (did manage to still get a PR though).  And these two examples are not the only times I have had an issue with this knee.  So I decided to ask my PT friend if there was anything I could do to prevent this.  She got her PT colleague who works with runners to take a look (for free no less-pays to have the right friends!).  Anyway after a bunch of tests and video analysis of me running we found that the angle of my hip varies while running from one side to the other.  Further evaluation showed poor endurance in the left hip.  And long story short, weakness in the hip transfers down to the knee and causes problems there.  So in fact, there is nothing wrong with my knee.  Just my hip.  I was given one simple exercise to do and to come back in a month.

Today, while the strength was good, the angles were still different.  But we checked the endurance and it was much better this time.  So although I have an anatomic imbalance it seems that so far we have found a way to compensate for it.  So I was declared "fixed" and am to continue doing the exercises and don't need to return unless I have more pain.  I'm still kind of nervous about running on it hard but I guess eventually I'll have to.  I did manage to run a 5K this weekend faster than I have in a year (and with no pain) so I guess that's a good start.

The whole process was quite interesting and I must say I have a whole new respect for the physical therapists comprehension of anatomy, physics, and kinetics.  He really put my grasp on those subjects to shame!