From Runner’s World Online
Too many runners repeatedly make the same mistakes in their training,
following the same pattern of training, injury, and recovery, secure
in the fact that they can always "fix it" afterwards. Here, taken from
Joe Ellis' book Running Injury-Free, are seven ways to avoid injuries
from the start.
1. Find a Friendly Surface
The best surfaces for running are firm (not mushy or slippery),
relatively flat (without camber), smooth (without ruts or holes), and
provide some degree of shock absorption. The more angled the surface,
the steeper the incline, the harder the surface, the greater are the
chances of an injury.
Grassy areas such as golf courses make relatively poor running surfaces. This
may surprise some people who choose grass because it's soft. But grassy surfaces
are also uneven. And many of us--more than half the population--have some
biomechanical abnormality. So running on grass makes the muscles and tendons
in your feet and legs work harder and leaves you more susceptible to injury.
Roads are also notoriously poor surfaces, not only because of traffic hazards
but because they are canted so that water will run off the center of the road.
This slant causes the "upward" foot to pronate more and the "downward" foot to
supinate more.
Provided you wear good shock-absorbing shoes, sidewalks tend to make better
training surfaces than roads because they are flat. The problem, of course,
is that cement surfaces are significantly harder than asphalt or other man-made
surfaces.
Here, ranked in order from most desirable to least desirable, are various running surfaces:
1. Soft, smooth cinder track, unbanked
2. Artificially surfaced track, unbanked
3. Soft, smooth dirt trail
4. Flat, smooth grass
5. Asphalt street or path
6. Hard dirt track or trail
7. Concrete sidewalk or road
8. Banked or cambered surface
9. Hard-sand beach
10. Rough, pot-holed dirt trail or grass
2. Warm Up and Cool Down
The chances of having an injury are greater when their muscles are cold.
There is a simple physiological reason for this: When you first get up in
the morning, your muscles and soft tissues are tight. In fact, your muscles
are generally about 10 percent shorter then As you start moving around, your
muscles stretch to their normal resting length. When you start to exercise the
muscles, they stretch to about 10 percent more than normal resting length. This
means that from the time you get out of bed until the muscle is warmed up the
muscle stretches as much as 20 percent.
A longer muscle is much less likely to become injured than a short, tight muscle.
Further, muscles are designed to move bones on either side of a joint. Through
basic laws of physics, a muscle is more efficient and much less likely to become
injured when it is longer, since it can exert more force with less effort.
Likewise, it is disastrous to finish a training run and just stop. Many runners try
to get the most out of their runs by sprinting the last couple hundred yards or
so. Then they stand and try to catch their breath. This is asking for injury.
It is also the time when susceptible individuals are most at risk of having a
heart attack. Almost all exercise-related heart attacks occur just after runners
stop running, not while they're actually running. This is because when you
exercise, your body relies on your muscles to help pump or push the blood from
your legs to your heart and brain. When you stop running, that muscle action stops
and your heart and brain suddenly get less blood and oxygen. (This is an excellent
reason for a cool down period of slow jogging or walking.)
The cool down helps keep the blood flowing to the muscles and allows your body to
work its way down from a state of high exertion to the eventual resting condition.
Keep walking for a few minutes, at the very least, after every run until you have
cooled down. than their normal resting length.
3. Stretch Firmly but Gently
The best time to stretch your muscles is not before you exercise but after a run
when your muscles are already warmed-up and elongated. Flexibility exercises always
stretch the muscles slowly and gradually.
Stretching movements should never be jerky, stiff or hard. The proper way to stretch
is to stretch the muscle gradually for 30 seconds at a time to allow it to lengthen.
Do this three or four times per area, daily.
If you stretch or pull hard on a muscle, it sets up a reflex where the muscle pulls
back, shortening and tightening. This is not what you want. It will give you a
stronger muscle, but not a looser, longer, more forgiving muscle.
4. Keep Your Training Schedule Flexible
The easiest way to avoid injuries is never to train hard on a day when you feel any
pain when you roll out of bed. As easy and simple as this advice sounds, you'd be
amazed how many people ignore it.
Let's say that you are training for a certain race and your training schedule calls for
a 10 percent increase in mileage this week. Yet you're feeling a little twinge
in your hamstring.
Do you go ahead and follow the schedule? Or do you alter it based on listening to your body?
You know the right answer. Yet many runners insist on adhering to the printed training
schedule as if it were gospel. They refuse to deviate by a single mile from that
written program, believing any modification of it would ruin their chances of
running a good race. In fact, the reverse is true. They're far more likely to
miss the race by slavishly following a predetermined schedule than by adapting
it to current needs.
All good training schedules assume that you aren't experiencing any unusual pains
before, during or after the run. If any of these pains occur, don't hesitate to modify
the scheduled workouts.
5. Alternate "Hard" and "Easy" Training
If you try to improve to your maximum potential, some pains are inevitable. These can
occur several hours after a hard workout or race--or one or two days later.
All this really means is that you need some recovery time. Then you will be off and
running again.
This is why most experts recommend never performing hard workouts two days in a row.
Give yourself at least one day of easy running or rest between hard workouts. This is
known as the "hard-easy" method of training. If you run fast one day, train slowly the
next. If you run long one day, go short the following day.
Never run long two days in a row or fast two days in a row, and don't run long one
day and fast the next. You'll simply cancel out the gains of the long or fast
workout, because your body is desperately trying to recover. You're stressing
weakened tissues that the body is trying to repair.
6. Pace and Space Your Races
You can and must push your limits sometimes in order to progress. But you can't do
this too often or by too much.
In other words, you must pace yourself. This is true both for individual runs and
over periods of weeks, months and years.
The most important time to pay attention to proper pacing is while racing. At races,
you can easily get caught up in the emotion of the crowd and be drawn into starting too fast.
Pacing also has longer-term applications. Racing is very hard and potentially damaging
work and you put your future at risk if you race too often. So you must "pace" your
races in terms of frequency. Give yourself plenty of time to recover after any race.
The general rule: Take one easy day or rest day for each mile of the race. And
certainly don't race again until that period has passed. For example, allow an
entire easy week following a 10-K race and an easy month after completing a marathon.
Top marathoners believe they can only run two or three good marathons a year; this
grueling event takes that great a toll.
7. Keep Records of Your Running
Runners have long been teased about being compulsive. After all, you don't normally
see tennis players and basketball players logging their playing time, courts played
on, weight and pulse, feelings and injuries.
But it makes perfect sense for runners to keep logs. Charting your distance, pace,
type of course, running weather, choice of shoes and other key factors gives you a
much-needed perspective. With a running log, you can objectively trace your progress
and detect errors.
Your log can also help you determine if you're training too little or too much. Review
it weekly with an objective eye. Pretend it is someone else's training program you're
reviewing and you're checking its effectiveness and safety.
Ultimately, the most important "book" you'll ever read is your own personal training
diary. It can tell how you were injured, how you recovered and how you can keep this
part of your history from repeating itself.
For more on injury prevention, treatment, and recovery, as well as the full text of
this article, check out the book Running Injury-Free by Joe Ellis, D.P.M., Runner's
World advisor; and Joe Henderson, Runner's World columnist; published by Rodale Press.
For more information, or to buy the book, please visit the Rodale Bookstore
Reviewed by: Amy Fletcher, M.S., ACSM-certified, CSCS.
Fitness Specialist, Health Iowa/Student Health Service
Reviewed by: Sarah Hansen, MA, CHES (Certified
Health Education Specialist), Health Iowa Coordinator
February 14, 2005