More than 50% of runners every year deal with an injury that impacts their training. While accidents like ankle rolls or falls are out of our control, most injuries come from overuse. It’s common for runners to brush off small niggles, hoping they’ll just go away, but too often it develops into an injury that stops us from running.
Understanding how to a) prevent niggles from occurring in the first place and b) what do to when you have a niggle, is key to ensuring you avoid injury and can keep training consistently.
Whilst this video wont offer you any magical formula that guarantees injury free training, it will give you a solid understanding of what needs to be considered to minimise your chances of an injury.
First thing we need to understand is the concepts of Overload vs adaption
Training is a process of applying stress to the body, prompting it to adapt and become stronger or fitter. While some stress is necessary to trigger this adaptation, too much—whether in a single session or over time—can lead to breakdown rather than improvement.
There are a number of different ways training stress can be increased including
– increase in weekly training volume
– increasing the distance of the long run
– increasing the number of runs per week
– increasing the intensity of one or more runs during the week
– increasing the amount of vert per week
– changing terrain ( more road less trail or vice versa )
– reduction in sleep
– insufficient calorie intake
– increased altitude
– increase in temperature and or humidity
– addition of strength training or an increase in volume of strength training
– addition of other activities to the training week – eg team sport
– increase in volume density ( doing the same volume per week in fewer days )
– back to back harder sessions or back to back long runs
– change of shoes ( this doesnt increase training overall training stress but can change the loads on the different muscles which then results in an increase in training stress for those muscles )
– increased alcohol intake
– increase in stresses external to running
Injuries usually occur from either
a) a slight increase in a number of those factors
b) a significant increase in one or two of the factors
All of the these factors increase training load by either increasing the physical load or decreasing the ability of the body to recover. Most people understand that increasing running volume or intensity increases training load. What’s less widely understood is that when external stresses increase, it effectively increases the training load, even if running volume and intensity remain the same. This happens because the body’s ability to recover is reduced.
I have often seen injuries occur with no physical increase in training load but a reduction in recovery capacity due to sleep, stress, alcohol and diet changes.
Whilst some of those variables are easily controlled and monitored ( eg distance run , intensity etc ) factors such as sleep , external stresses , increased alcohol intake may go unnoticed by a coach and not thought significant as an athlete. A training diary where these can be noted is helpful . Simple measures like rating your external stress out of 10 each day helps identify trends . Most watches have sleep trackers so sleep can be measured and written in a training diary or automatically uploaded to software like training peaks. Regular communication with the athlete on diet and alcohol is vital to ensure the athlete is not sabotaging themselves.
How to increase training load safely
One should only increase training load when there are signs the body is ready for an increase.
Signs that indicate it’s ok to increase training load include
– finishing runs feeling like you could easily continue with only a minimal increase in fatigue
– a desire to run more
– no niggles
– reduced muscular soreness
Signs that suggest you should not increase training load
– niggles that aren’t going away
– increased levels of fatigue
– decreased motivation
– a reduction in usual hours of sleep
– fighting off a illness
– increased external stress levels
– increased muscle soreness
– poor diet , increased alcohol intake
Our bodies often signal when it’s not safe to increase the training load, but we tend to overlook these warnings. We should listen to our bodies’ signals rather than follow a training plan that increases the training load without considering how we feel.
Too often I hear from athletes that they could feel a tightness during a run but they wanted to finish the session so pushed on . Unfortunately that often results in the tightness progressing to a pain and injury.
The better option would have been to cut the session short , change the next few days to just short easy runs and let things settle. Instead the decision to continue means for example a calf strain needs which needs a week off training and a few weeks building back up again.
The fitness benefits of finishing that one session is completely outweighed by the week off and easier weeks building back up again.
If you are feeling a tightness/ niggle etc that may impact your ability to run the training session then cut the current run short. Catching niggles who they first present themselves is key to consistent running.
Often we can train through a niggle by modifying the training load – eg reducing volume , keeping runs easy or reducing vert. This means you are not losing any fitness. The alternative is to keep training normally and hope the niggle goes away. If it doesnt and gets worse it’s likely you will be stuck on the sidelines for a while waiting for the injury to recover. A reduced training load that keeps you running is a far better option than normal training load followed by an injury and a few weeks off training.
Don’t ignore niggles is the golden rule.
Guidelines for safe increases in training load
The 10% rule is frequently recommended as a way to safely increase training stress, but there’s no scientific evidence to support it. ( See the video and long run videos for more discussion on the 10% rule ) So what do we use instead ? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer as multiple factors need to be considered but lets cover some basic principles first to help guide our decisions on training increases.
Consistency in training week after week is key to improving performance. Any increases in training load should be managed carefully to maintain that consistency. When it comes to ramping up your training, it’s best to err on the side of caution.
Consider whether the proposed increase in training might leave you more sore or fatigued to the point where it could impact your ability to train effectively the next day. If so, it’s probably too much.
Many training plans have weekly increases, however, there’s no scientific evidence to support the idea that our bodies can fully adapt to increased training stress in just 7 days. For most of us keeping training load the same for two to three weeks before increasing again is a good strategy to decrease the risk of injury.
Another metric we can use is Ramp Rate – which is a measure of how quickly an athletes training load is increasing.
As a guide a ramp rate of \>3 is not sustainable for very long and means training needs to be reduced BUT it’s not a number that can be applied for all athletes . I have had athletes with ramp rates of well over 5 as they build back into training after a race for example and have no issues and other athletes with a ramp rate of 2.5 get injured.
But if you track ramp rate with your athlete over a longer period of time you can start to see patterns in ramp rate , injuries or how well the athlete is handling the training and determine individual safe ramp rates for each athlete.
We will talk about ramp rate more in the training metrics section
Increasing intensity.
Increases in training intensity come with a higher risk of injury especially when speed sessions are first introduced into a training program.
For example, a speed session targeting 5km pace that increases from 5 x 1km to 8 x 800m is likely well tolerated but if you havent run any intensity for a while then starting with 10 x 400 at 5k pace has a much higher risk of injury.
In this example we should gradually increase the speed throughout the 400m reps so only the last few are at 5km pace. Over a period of 3-4 weeks we can build to the point where all reps are at 5k pace.
Another common mistake I see is runners going too hard in the first few reps of a speed session. This leads to greater fatigue earlier on in the session and a corresponding higher risk of injury later in the session. Better to start slower and get faster than vice versa. It’s almost always better to finish high intensity sessions feeling like you could do more rather than 100% spent.
Increasing Vert
Significant increases in vert via the long run or hill repeats or just adding in more hills throughout the week come with an increased risk of injury. For example going from a weekly vertical of 1500m to 2500m might be tolerated but increase it the following week to 3000m and you might start having issues.
There is no definitive guide on how much you can increase it safely. You could even keep it the same but instead of spreading the 1500 throughout 4-5 runs do it all in one run and you may run into trouble.
Ask the athlete how their legs and particularly knees are feeling with any increase in vert to get some gauge on how their body is handling the training load.
What to do if you have a niggle?
If you currently have a minor niggle that you can feel but is not affecting your running I would be very hesitant to increase your training load. Any increases you do make should be small.
Key signs to watch for are
1) the niggle taking longer to warm up
2) feeling it more towards the end of a run
3) noticing it more when getting out of bed the next day
3) muscular soreness on one leg but not the other
All of these are signs that you have increased training load more than your legs can tolerate and would be wise to reduce training.
When is a decrease in training load advised?
If you’ve been dealing with a persistent niggle that isn’t worsening but isn’t improving and is hindering your ability to increase your training load, it’s recommended to cut back on training for a week or two. This will give your body a chance to heal and repair the injury. Obviously if the niggle is worsening then a reduction in training load is strongly recommended.
When external stresses increase – eg sleep deprivation , stress , illness then it may be wise to reduce training to a lower level. Sleep is when most of our musculoskeletal repair occurs and if that is compromised then we are more likely to suffer an injury.
Red Flags in training.
If you experience any of the following it is strongly advised to stop your run immediately and walk home as a more serious injury is imminent.
– A muscular pain or tightness that increases throughout a run
– A sharp shooting muscular pain
– any pain that forces you to change the way you run
It is very unlikely any of these will be resolved by running further. The most likely scenario is you will turn a minor strain into a more serious one that needs a week or more off running.
Aside from monitoring training load how else can we can reduce risk of injury?
There are a few other ways that many claim will reduce our risk of injuries. The two most common are making sure you stretch after a run and making sure you do a proper warm down. Neither of these have any scientific backing.
However warming up before a harder session is advised. You can do this via a light run followed by some dynamic mobility work or some strides.
Strength work is often recommended to help prevent injury and whilst we still need more research to identify what kind of exercises are best it does seem that some strength work will help reduce risk of injury. However it wont make up for large increases in training load and can actually increase the training load so care must be taken to introduce strength work into the plan ( see the strength training video for more information )
The evidence on foam rolling is less favourable and whilst it probably isn’t going to do you any harm , it not likely to have a noticeable impact on recovery or injury prevention.
Running biomechanics and injury.
The current research is inconclusive on the link between running biomechanics and injury prevention. The current evidence based recommendation is not to change the running form of an uninjured runner to prevent future injuries.
For injured runners there may be an argument to change running form but that should be determined on a case by case basis by a professional.
Heel Strike vs Mid foot strike
There is a lot of misinformation especially on social media that heel striking causes injury and we should all switch to mid foot.
We will go into more detail on foot strike and running biomechanics in the running form video but for this video I will leave with the summary
It seems that heel strikers are more prone to knee injuries whereas mid foot and forefoot strikers are more prone to calf and achilles injuries. Changing form may just switch one injury for another.
I would not suggest we encourage our athletes to change running form unless there is a very good reason to do so.
Shoe Type and effect on injuries
Shoes can be classified into a number of different types including minimalist, maximalist , stability , motion control ,neutral ,cushioned , hard, soft , carbon plated and rockered.
There is no strong evidence that a certain shoe type can prevent injuries better than another. As a coach I would steer away from any specific shoe recommendations and instead suggest the athlete tests different types to find what works for them.
There is some evidence however that rotating ones shoes can reduce risk of injury.
Golden rules to avoid injury
Don’t ignore niggles
Consistency in training is key.
Run today with tomorrow in mind.
Increase training load based on when the body feels ready not when the training plan says to.
Reduced recovery means need to reduce training load