Injury Prevention 101

SCRR Advisory Committee

Know Your ResourcesAs running coaches or even as personal trainers, we are

not able to diagnose or treat injuries. As a general rule, it

is also not a good idea to ask friends for advice if you

have a nagging injury that is hindering your

performance.

The best thing that you can do is get a referral to a sports

medicine physician or a physical therapist for a proper

evaluation, diagnosis and treatment plan if indicated.

A proper diagnosis and treatment plan can save you a lot

of time and frustration in the long run!

Why do people get running injuries?

Most commonly, runners experience injury as a result of

poor form, muscle imbalances, running surfaces,

overtraining, or lack of cross training.

What does an ideal

routine look like?

Dynamic Warm-ups 

Stretching

Form Drills

Strength Training

Cross Training

Rest

Mindfulness

The Power of Habits

Stretching

A lot of times, the habits that we choose are small, seemingly

insignificant tasks that don't have an immediate impact on our

goals. Just like the habits that we mentioned earlier they are

easy, mundane training components that won't change our stride

or speed overnight. However, the power of habits lies in the

consistency with which we apply them to our routines.

When we commit to doing the habits that will help us perform

better over time, we will see better form, faster paces, and

hopefully many years of running ahead of us.

If you want more information on this topic, I highly suggest the

book The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

We perform a head to toe dynamic warm-up session before every

Saturday run. This warm-up gets your blood flowing and warms your

muscles preparing them for your training. This helps to decrease your

injury risk during your workout.

Strength and Cross TrainingRunning is a repetitive motion in one plane (saggital plane

moving forward). To balance out that stress, it is

recommended that runners compliment their training with

strength exercises that support primary muscles but also

challenge the body to move in different planes so that

muscles can be balanced.

Some of the key points that runners will want to focus on

includes core stability and core power, posterior chain

strength including the glutes and hamstrings, lateral

movements, balance movements, and plyometrics if you

feel comfortable adding in those moves. We will provide a

separate reference with strength training ideas.

If you find that running 4-5 days does not work for your

body but you like to work on your cardio endurance, cross

training is a great way to build out your training week.

Spinning, swimming, stairs, and the elliptical or ARC

trainer are all great options if you prefer to spend less time

on your feet pounding the pavement.

Sample Core Stability Exercises

Sample Glute Strength Exercises

Heel Taps

Dead Bug

Plank Drag

Anti-rotation Squats

Mini Band Side Steps

Mini Band Glute Kickbacks

Mini Band Clamshells

Sample Balance ExercisesSingle Leg Reach

Reverse lunge to knee drive

Single leg deadlift

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XLEnwUr1d8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5xbsA71v1Ahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6RGyIzZ6M8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nbroXChxMQhttps://www.suunto.com/sports/News-Articles-container-page/8-essential-running-form-drills/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxSkSyJ1z7whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeFRJpza23shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDJKAczVXP0&t=25shttps://www.suunto.com/sports/News-Articles-container-page/8-essential-running-form-drills/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo4P9Y_AQt8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhZvT_NkOshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViVhUZGk6i4&t=49shttps://www.suunto.com/sports/News-Articles-container-page/8-essential-running-form-drills/

Form DrillsWe will perform our form clinic soon to demonstrate form and drills.

It is important to remember that form changes take time to

implement. One of the first keys that you want to focus on for form

changes is making sure that your cadence is about 165-180 steps per

minute depending on your speed.

In addition, you can practice good form by doing drills such as A

skips, B skips, C skips, power skips, single leg hops, and knee driving

drills. We will provide demonstrations of these drills at the form

clinics.

A great resource for this is the book Meb for Mortals

Or this article from Suunto with videos

https://www.suunto.com/en-us/sports/News-Articles-container-page/8-essential-running-form-drills/https://www.suunto.com/sports/News-Articles-container-page/8-essential-running-form-drills/

Rest and MindfulnessNo matter how good your training plan is, unless it is customized to you

specifically you will need to monitor your response to the training loads.

Rest is one of our most overlooked training tools. It is during periods of

rest that our body is able to adapt to the training demands.

You'll notice that most training plans call for 1-3 days of rest per week. In

addition to that, every 2-4 weeks there will be a cut back week where

training intensity and volume is decreased to allow for recovery before

new training loads are added.

You should schedule an easy day or off day between hard workouts. If

you ever feel like your body needs a rest day, always listen to it! It's

better to be undertrained than burn out

Sleep is another underestimated training tool for recovery. The research

on the importance and benefits of sleep tells us that quality sleep hours

are necessary to support many body functions.

A lack of sleep, lack of rest, or high stress levels can actually cause your

performance to decrease. If you are seeing decreases in performance

that are otherwise unexplained you should first look to these details to

see if you need to adjust anything before changing your training plan.