How To Avoid Running Injuries

Posted 30 January 2017 in Training

There are many thoughts about why we get injuries. How come it is always those who exercise regularly? The fitter you are, it appears that you’ll eventually end up in the physio chair or the surgeon’s table.

One thought process is the relationship to exercise overload. For example: When you don’t service your tyres on your car, they often run out of alignment, leading to wear and tear on certain parts of a tyre. This can eventually cause alignment and balance issues. This is the same with the body as there’s multiple elements in which one must maintain to try and avoid injury. Too much of one thing is never a good idea.

It is important that we focus on 4 areas when we exercise. You must try and spend the same amount of time per area. Think of this like a gauge in your car, we want to try and keep it in the middle, not too much in the red or too little in the black. Aim for 2 hours of each type of exercise per week.

Flexibility – often this is an area neglected in training, as everyone usually thinks strength training or cardio. However it’s important that we maintain our flexibility with trigger point therapy, stretching or massage. Trigger point releases on stretch have been shown to be the best option.

Strength – everyone’s favourite. This is often an area over compensated and thought to provide the key answers to everyone’s injuries. “Which strength exercises should I be doing,” is a commonly asked question. Perhaps what is more important though is “what strength don’t I need? And “ which areas am I neglecting?” Yes there are individuals who do require specific strength training and are treated accordingly. Just remember that the whole body should be trained not just one area.

Cardiovascular – often people try to get into the gym without any fitness and load up on other areas. Get your cardiovascular fitness in order to further enhance all other aspects. There are of course many other great health benefits associated with this.

Multiplane movements – a runner will never just run, run and run. They often do exercises that require other directions and muscle memory. Varying your training from running, to yoga, to dancing to aerobics is an excellent way to gain diversity in your program.