If you talk to people who can recall the 60s and 70s they’ll tell you that joggers were a rare sight, occasionally seen plodding along in flat tennis shoes and not quite enough clothing. Women runners were frowned upon by society. The current “wisdom” of the day deemed that women just didn’t have the physiology to enable them to run safely. If we fast forward to today, you could drive along the beachfront any time of day in any weather and you’d be guaranteed to see hordes of runners, most of which would be women. There has been a strong rise in the popularity of running in Australia. The number of Australian runners, 16 years and older doubled from 2006 to 2012 with 8% of Australians participating in recreational running over the last 12 months.
With an increase in participation in any activity you’ll always see an increase in the number of injuries. Running is no exception to this rule. Each week we see runners presenting with a range of small niggles through to relatively serious injuries sustained while in pursuit of their runner’s high. Don’t get us wrong –we are runners and we love running. We would like to see more people running and less people being injured.
It’s interesting that most runners attribute their injuries to; a lack of stretching, the wrong choice of footwear, too much training, or a lack of warm up. There is little evidence to support that stretching or footwear has any bearing on running injuries. Warming up and being sensible about your training volume certainly have benefits. So what’s causing runners to get injured?
Knee pain (known as patellofemoral pain) is by far the most common injury sustained by runners. Injuries to the foot and ankle region, and the lower leg are a distant second equal. While shoe manufacturers will try and sell you this season’s latest anti-pronation, high-density foam in the trendiest colours there is very little evidence that shoe designs deliver the support that the manufacturers claim. The advice that we most often give our patients is to choose a shoe that is comfortable for them. Doing too much too soon is a common problem we see. If you’re new to running you’re much more likely to get injured. Running subjects the body to forces of over five times your body weight. So logic follows, if you’re a bigger build and new to running, build up your running volume slowly. Gym work is the perfect addition to running. High amounts of strength are a must for runners who want to stay injury free.
Running technique is often overlooked by health professionals dealing with running injuries. In our opinion a thorough running assessment is essential. Trying to figure out what is going wrong when someone runs without actually seeing them run is often not possible. Over striding -stepping too far with each stride, and running with the feet and knees too close together are some of the most common technical faults that we see in our clinic.
Last but certainly not least we would stress the importance of lifestyle factors on running health, and all health for that matter. A key study of Californian adolescent athletes showed that sleeping less than 8 hours per night almost doubles the risk of injury. High stress levels and sporadic training has also been associated with an increase in stress fractures.
If we can help you get back to running or help you with your running journey please contact us at Kaizen Exercise Physiologists 07 5479 3411
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