Running Series 2022 – Part 1
by Jess Ackad
It’s run season! With two of the biggest runs in our beautiful city on the near horizon, City2Surf in August and the Sydney Running Festival in September, not to mention countless other wonderful events both on and off road. I love running – it has always been my happy place; for both the physical and mental benefits. But running is also the most common culprit for the lower limb injuries that I see in the clinic. And its not just me – numbers in the research vary but some studies find that up to 80% or regular runners sustain injury; which is much higher than most other forms of sport or exercise.
There are two main categories where people tend to make errors in their running training which can start them down the path to a problem.
- Training errors
- Recovery errors
Training errors are super easy to make. These are usually issues with increases in training. There are several ways that we can increase our training load by changing up frequency, duration and intensity. For running that looks like running more often, for longer, faster.
Typically if you increase one or all of these aspects too much then a few weeks into the change (usually about 8-12 weeks – which based on the length of most training programs coincides with right before race day), something is going to break down, usually a tendon.
A good rule of thumb is not to increase by more than 10% week to week. Another good rule is to look at what you are doing and remove the ‘junk’ k’s. Take a look at the running you are doing across the course of your week – whether it is a program you are following, or you are just running without really thinking or planning it out. Anything that doesn’t serve a specific purpose and is just there to pad out some extra volume probably doesn’t really need to be there. If you need help working this out – just ask me, I’m always happy to chat running 😉
And hand in hand with this is recovery errors. Generally a lack of planned recovery. Your body actually needs recovery in order to rebuild and re-strengthen. To be able to create the adaptive changes that your training is stimulating. Without building recovery into your training you are just continually beating your tissues down and eventually they will breakdown on you… Often just removing the junk k’s out of your week will fix this one. But again if you need some help seeing where to put this into your program reach out 🙂
Finally – some targeted strength work is never going to go astray. This will look different for everyone, but if you are curious to know more or to improve your foundation for running then come along to our next workshop you can register your interest here, a date will be finalised soon. Or check out our online 8 week run-proof your body program! This program is specifically designed for runners to help them protectively strengthen the areas which are likely to lead to breakdown and or injury. We will assess you individually and prescribe for where you are at given your specific set of needs and areas of weakness. The results we get from this program are phenomenal, our runners come out more efficient, stronger and faster. Check it out here.
Jess Ackad
Physiotherapist
Peak Health Services.