Saturday, April 17, 2010

Injury Prevention


I thought it would be appropriate for me to post a blog about injuries.

I started running a couple of years ago now, and have gone through quite a few injuries, some preventable and some just silly. So not to scare any new runners, but I just thought I would share a few pointers on what I did wrong and how you could prevent some very common injuries.

Here are a few tips I picked-up along the way:
#1 piece of advice - Never run through any pain. Typically if you are feeling pain, your body is trying to tell you something.
The next rule of thumb is - try to avoid increasing your speed, incline or distance more than 10% per week.
I have also been told never to stretch cold muscles....so I now always run 1-2 km before stretching and always stretch after my runs. (Hold your stretch for a min of 20 seconds.)

Here are a couple of injuries that I suffered from #1 being inactive for close to 5 years, and also taking on a bit more than I could chew (I tend to push myself a little to far from time to time)

  • Stress fracture (right shin) - increased distance and incline (HFX 10K) too rapidly
  • Bursitis right foot - not enough calf stretching after or before my runs
  • 2nd stint of bursitis (After PEI 1/2 marathon) - who knew PEI would have such huge hills...probably the only ones on the island!
I also did a 10 KM hilly race a couple of weeks before the 1/2 marathon. I thought I would be prepping myself, but I probably put too much strain on my body before the race.

These injuries were not too serious, and pretty common, but they could have all been prevented.

Here are a couple of good sites that have some good injury prevention articles etc:
Runner's World
Sports Injury Clinic

Please share any advice or injuries you might have gone through.

I wish everyone a very safe and injury free training!
Addie

2 comments:

  1. Everything hurts by the time I reach the end of the street - what am I supposed to do! LOL

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  2. Great post Addie. So far I have been able to avoid running related injuries, partly due to mostly smart training and partly due to good genes I think but I did want to add to your post for those new runners who may be experiencing shin splints -because this is so common - buy new shoes!! Back to my feet first blog... Old shoes are very often the culprit!

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