How to Tell if You Are Quad Dominant

• If you’re not sure that you belong to the quad dominant group, here are some things to look out for.
• In a reclining core exercise, where your back is flat on the mat, you feel your hip flexors muscles. Hip flexor muscles is a group of muscles that run around your groin area and attach the upper legs to torso.
• You always feel the front of your legs when you squat and lunge but nothing much in the back of your leg.
• You feel a strong stretch in the front of your legs when you go into a bridge position.
• Your quads and hip flexors are sore after running and walking

What Causes Quad Dominance

Quads are the muscles across the front of the thigh that are responsible for flexing your knee. The muscles at the back of your legs, hamstrings, and glutes, are responsible for extending your knee and extending your hips. When your body relies primarily on the front on of your leg for extension and flexion of the knee and hips, that’s what’s called quad dominance. In simple terms, there is an imbalance between quads and hip flexors, and hamstrings and glutes.

The muscles in front of your body try to take over every movement even when its none of their business. Our bodies like to take the path of least resistance. When you have weak muscles in your body, the stronger muscles take over the work of weak muscles.

Modern humans like to sit for extended periods of time. All the sitting at the office desk shortens and weakens your hip-flexor muscles and shuts off your butt muscles. This results in a muscle imbalance in your legs and leads to quad dominance very quickly.

Runners and Quad Dominance

Quad dominance presents as overstriding for runners. Overstriding means that the runner’s leg is falling too far in front of the body with an overly extended leg. This results in the knee absorbing most of the landing force which stresses the knee. Overstriding can lead to injuries. Coach Caitlin Sapp explains it well in her blog, “your leg is the pendulum which should move equally in front and behind your body at any speed. When we overstride, the pendulum is swinging more forward than it is backward, as we are not getting the leg behind us while running.”

Another reason why quad dominance doesn’t work for runners is it leads to fatigue early. Quadriceps muscles are made for power and mostly consist of fast twitch muscle fibers which fatigue quickly. Glutes have mostly slow-twitch fibers and are supposed to endure. Relying on your quads results in less endurance and poor aerobic capacity.

Quad Dominant Running Injuries

Whenever I tell someone that I am a runner, people always tell me that they can’t run because it hurts their knee. The painful knees aren’t due to running. The painful knees are a result of poor posture and quad dominance. When a runner is running at speed, a lot of force is required from the muscles to extend the hips. Because of the poor posture and weak gluteus muscles, runners favor the quads to do the work instead of the glutes. This results in sheer forces at your knee which can lead to many injuries for runners.

The most common running injury because of this postural asymmetry is an adductor or quad strain.  Other common injuries seen in quad dominant runners are shin splints, tibial stress fractures, knee osteoarthritis and plantar fasciitis. Notice that these running injuries are in the front part of the legs, the muscles that are overused.

Bottom Line

Strengthening the weak muscles and placing your hips over your feet when you land, can relieve the knee pain, and avoid these leg injuries. Next time you go on your run, make a video of yourself running from a lateral view. Check if your legs are following the full pendulum swing or not.

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Trail running is more technical than road running. It would help if you had different gear and metrics to measure your performance on trails. It involves more stress on your body and mind because you always pay attention to the terrain with all the twigs and turns.

Some of the tips for transitioning to trail running are:

Go Easy with Mileage – We all want to get the same mileage as the road on the trails. I am learning that’s the mistake I’ve been making. Build the mileage slowly on trails to avoid injuries. Running on the trails requires more effort and energy.

Change Your Shoes – Road running shoes are lightweight and keep you fast on paved surfaces. On trails, you’ll need stability, traction, and durability to protect you from uneven surfaces. Visit your running shoe store to get fitted for a good trail running pair. You can check out some trail running shoe recommendations here.

Go Hybrid – You don’t have to ditch road running altogether. A hybrid approach where you alternate trail running days with road running can be great for your body. The softer trails will give your joints the cushioning they need. You will be able to work different muscle groups on the trails and paved roads, leading to a better running economy on the road.

Strength Train – While strength training is essential for all runners, it’s crucial for trail runners. Try glute activation exercises with bands and plyometric exercises to build glute strength. Strengthening the lumbopelvic hip complex, especially the lower back, with exercises such as dead bugs and planks will pay you a high dividend in the form of better performance. Add agility drills for better reaction time.

Performance Metrics – Trail running calls for different metrics. Your pace will be much slower than your road runs, and it won’t be as steady either. Monitoring power and heart rate will give you a better measure of the running workload on trails.

You might be surprised that trail running doesn’t feel as natural as road running initially. Don’t be discouraged; your muscles will get stronger, making your trail runs much more pleasant with a little bit of practice and time.

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