The key to progression and improvement for runners is consistency. Consistency can sometimes be down to time commitments or motivational issues but more often than not it is as a result of injuries. This article looks at common running injuries and prevention measures to help reduce the chance of getting injured.
Things to do to prevent getting injured:
There is not one key way of preventing injuries. Sometimes injuries are inevitable but there are various ways of helping reduce the risk.
Planning – short and long term/patience.
Careful planning between you and your coach, both short and long term can play a massive part in reducing the chance of getting injured as a result of increasing your weekly mileage too quick and monitoring progression from year to year. A great way to do this is keep a training diary, which you can reflect back to from time to time and also it’s a good idea to plan your yearly training and races on a wall chart or computer programme such as Excel. Patience is important in running and in some cases it can take time before building up to your desired training level and achieving your race goals and aims.
Warm up/cool down
Muscle injury’s can be reduced with suitable warm up’s to reduce muscle stiffness. A good warm up should consist of a 10-15min jog followed by 10-15minutes of dynamic stretching and drills. For a runner these should be event specific and consist of lower leg drills and technique drills. Follow this with a series of short strides focusing on correct running technique. As well as reducing the chance of picking up injuries a good warm up can help improve performance during your session/race.
Following your session it is important to have a good cool down of 10-15mins easy jogging, designed to lower your body’s temperature and remove waste products from your muscles. Following this 5-10mins of static stretching to prevent muscle stiffness is important.
Listening to your body
No one knows our bodies better than ourselves, so it’s important to listen and feel your body throughout training rather than going off the set schedule or what your coach says. The trick is getting the balance right between hard training and over doing it.
Recovery – Stretching/Ice Baths/Nutrition
Ice baths are highly beneficial to recovery when exercising hard. When you get into an ice bath for five to 10 minutes, the icy cold water causes your blood vessels to tighten and drains the blood out of your legs. After 10 minutes your legs feel cold and numb. Once you get out your legs fill up with ‘new’ blood that fills your legs with oxygen to help aid recovery and ensure cells function better. At the same time the build up of lactic acid is drained away.
Nutrition can play a vital role in recovery following a hard race or session. By appropriately re-fueling your body you reduce the chance of getting injured or picking up an illness. A good meal high in carbohydrates and protein is ideal
Maintenance – S&C – Imbalances/weaknesses/general work/Massages/Yoga/Pilates
Strength promotes endurance and speed, and helps prevent injuries, so it’s important to perform core exercises and strength exercises on all of your major muscle groups. The main aim of this is to provide an all round body workout to help improve strength and endurance and make the athletes more resistant to injuries. Although variation is key as a runner try and include certain exercises each week such as press ups, plank, and various types of core work along with leg strength and stability exercises to help develop, calf, hamstring, glute, hip and abductor muscles.
It’s worth having an expert in the industry look at you running gait and carrying out various S&C tests to analyse any weaknesses you may have to help with any imbalances. The Treatment Table in Liverpool have some great advice on the pages of the JM Run Club I’d highly recommend reading through.
Simple stretching can prevent muscles getting tight and maintain suppleness and regular sports massages are also beneficial to help reduce muscles soreness, fatigue, tension, inflammation, flexibility and recovery time.
Motivation – Stay on it – physio recommendations etc
We’ve all been there, coming away from the physio with a list of new drills, strengthening exercises and stretches with every intention to carry them on for the foreseeable future. In truth it’s all so easy to loose motivation once the injury has disappeared. It’s important to stick at it and maintain the exercises you employed to get rid of the injury in the first place. More often than not the weakness will remain and potentially return if you don’t maintain the exercise routine.
Cross Training – Maintaining training load
Cross training can be seen as an ideal way of helping to maintain training levels when a runner is injury prone or coming back from a serious injury. Cross training can also be an ideal way to sustain fitness levels while injured. Podiatrist Stephen Pribut recommends the following activities with specific injuries.
Runner’s Knee
Yes, usually okay: Swimming
Sometimes okay; let pain guide you: Stationary Bike, Elliptical
No, usually not okay: Rowing Machine
Iliotibial-Band Syndrome
Yes, usually okay: Swimming
Sometimes okay; let pain guide you: Stationary Bike, Elliptical, Rowing Machine
Calf Strain, Achilles Pain
Yes, usually okay: Swimming, Stationary Bike, Elliptical, Rowing Machine
Plantar Fasciitis
Yes, usually okay: Swimming, Stationary Bike, Elliptical, Rowing Machine
Shinsplints
Yes, usually okay: Swimming
Sometimes okay; let pain guide you: Stationary Bike
No, usually not okay: Elliptical, Rowing Machine
Stress Fracture
Yes, usually okay: Swimming
Sometimes okay; let pain guide you: Stationary Bike
No, usually not okay: Elliptical, Rowing Machine
