Home physiotherapy in Juhu for runners and beach walkers — soft sand, the beach camber, tennis elbow and the October restart

People who run at Juhu tend to describe it as gentle — soft sand, sea air, no traffic. Biomechanically it is one of the more demanding surfaces available to a recreational runner. Dry sand absorbs the energy you put into push-off, so the calf and Achilles have to generate more force for the same speed, and they get almost nothing back. An hour on soft sand is not an easy hour. It is a heavy calf session that does not feel like one until the next morning.

The second feature is camber. The beach slopes towards the water, and almost everybody runs along the shoreline in a straight out-and-back. That means one foot is consistently landing lower than the other, which functionally lengthens one leg, increases pronation on the seaward side and loads the two Achilles tendons differently. When somebody presents with pain on one side only and cannot think of an injury, the camber is usually the first thing I ask about, and 'I always run with the sea on my left' is a very common answer.

Third is the barefoot decision. Juhu invites you to take your shoes off, and plenty of people do, often for the first time in years. Going barefoot removes heel cushioning and heel-to-toe drop in a single step, which raises Achilles and plantar fascia load significantly from the very first session. Barefoot sand running is not harmful in itself. Going from forty kilometres a month in cushioned shoes to barefoot sand on a Sunday is a load spike, and load spikes are what tendons dislike most.