Setting running goals and achieving them can be an extremely rewarding experience. Sometimes unrealistic expectations, injuries or pain can create a physiological and psychological hurdle in achieving these goals. To aid your running experience, here are some tips and things to avoid, ensuring you meet those running ambitions!
- Ignoring strength training as part of an overall training routine
- Often strength training gets overlooked in fear of ‘bulking up’ or lack of awareness of the benefits to runners. A 2017 study looked at long term strength training (40 weeks in duration) on strength, speed, running economy and body composition (body mass, fat, and lean mass) in competitive distance runners. The results demonstrated that strength training improved efficiency, speed and strength without ‘bulking up’ or putting on additional muscle in long distance runners.
- Strength training not only improves performance but has a massive influence on reducing sports injuries to less than one-third and close to halving overuse injuries.
- Setting realistic timeframes
- Careful consideration must be made when setting a running goal to avoid overloading body with sudden or large increases in training load. There is a correlation between changes in weekly training load (reported as a percentage of the previous weeks’ training load) and the likelihood of injury Gabbitt, 2016). When training load was fairly constant (ranging from -5% to +10% than the previous week) athletes had <10% risk of injury. However, when training load was increased by ≥15% above the previous week’s load, injury risk escalated to between 21% and 49%. In order to minimise the risk of injury, athletes should limit weekly training load increases to <10%.
Source:
Gabbett TJ. The training—injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder? Br J Sports Med 2016;50:273-280.
Beattie, K, Carson, BP, Lyons, M, Rossiter, A, and Kenny, IC (2017). The effect of strength training on performance indicators in distance runners. J Strength Cond Res 31(1): 9–23.
Lauersen, J. B., Bertelsen, D. M., & Andersen, L. B. (2014). The effectiveness of exercise interventions to prevent sports injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Br J Sports Med, 48(11), 871-877
Title: Running Mistakes to Avoid
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