What Caused My Running Injury?
When trying to determine the cause of an injury, I often put on my detective hat. You see, most running injuries appear very gradually over time. This can make it difficult to determine what may have brought on the pain. But by playing detective and diving into some of the events in your life leading up to the injury, we can often start to piece together the cause.
Read on to find out more about:
Running Injury Considerations
There are three main areas we want to consider when looking at the causes of running injuries.
Your Training
Your Recovery
Your Life Outside of Running
Training
Let’s look closer at your training. We need to first look at what you’re currently doing.
How many days per week are you running?
How much are you running each day?
Are you doing any interval training, or tempo workouts?
How do you map out your week of training?
And most importantly, have there been any changes to your training program in the last 2-3 months?
These are all important questions to ask yourself when you start to notice pain coming on. Has anything changed recently? We usually need to look back a few weeks before the pain started because unfortunately a lot of injuries can take a few weeks before they start showing up. So if you recently added more mileage or speed work to your program and now you’re noticing a new pain, this could be a case of doing too much too soon.
Recovery
Recovery is another piece of the injury puzzle. This is an area that a lot of runners don’t consider about their training program, but the recovery is just as important (if not more!) as the training itself.
Are you taking any rest days during the week?
Are you aiming for easy runs or rest days between harder efforts?
Are you getting enough sleep?
What are your fuelling and hydration strategies?
Our bodies are capable of adapting to incredible amounts of load. But in order for that adaptation to occur, we need to ensure we are giving our bodies time to recover. Recovery is when our bodies get stronger, and I would argue it’s where the true improvements in performance occur.
There are a lot of fancy recovery options on the market these days, but in reality the best things you can do to make sure you are recovering from the training that you are doing are to get adequate sleep, proper fuelling with balanced meals, hydrate well throughout the day, and ensure you are spending time with the people you love.
Life Outside of Running
While it’s important to know what’s going on in your training, it’s also important to consider what’s going on with the rest of your life.
Are you dealing with higher than normal amounts of stress in your life?
Are you going through a particularly challenging time with a family member or friend?
These sorts of “life stresses” can affect your body’s ability to recover and adapt to training. In fact, a study looking at runners who experienced “negative life events” showed a decrease in running performance!
Runners are very dedicated individuals. They know that in order to achieve big running goals they need a certain amount of discipline. This can often lead them to keep pushing through to get their training in when what they may really need is to take a step back. When life is feeling heavy, it may be best to pull back on your running or modify your training to a lower intensity.
Common Myths About Running Injuries
There are many myths out there about what causes running injuries. Often we like to try to find that ONE thing that explains why we have pain. Unfortunately, humans are complex beings, and it’s never that simple.
Let’s dive in to a couple of myths that are often cited as the cause of running injuries.
Did My Running Shoes Cause My Injury?
While sudden changes in running shoes may lead to an injury, the shoe itself is not typically the culprit. Remember what I said earlier about changes to training loads? A sudden change to the type of shoe you are wearing is going to cause a change in loads in your body. For example, switching from a bulky shoe to a more minimalist style of shoe will wind up causing increased forces at the foot, Achilles and calf complex. While it is safe to run in a lighter or more minimal shoe, it’s important to consider the time that it takes for your body to adapt if you are not used to training in this type of shoe.
The key when it comes to running shoes, just like your training, is to make those changes gradually. It can take months to safely transition from that bulky shoe to a more minimalist style. Want to learn more about transitioning shoes? Check out The Running Clinic’s Minimalist Index for a more detailed guide to shoes.
Did Not Stretching Enough Cause My Injury?
Stretching is something that a lot of runners feel guilty about “not doing enough” of. But guess what? There is little to no evidence to support stretching as a way to prevent running injuries. Running doesn’t require a significant amount of flexibility. Since stretching aims to increase flexibility, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for runners to focus on this.
While it is common for runners to notice “tightness” in their muscles after running, this is rarely a result of the muscle being truly tight. Often that tightness is a result of the muscle becoming overloaded and fatigued during the run. And the best approach to help this is a consistent strength training program. By building up the strength in the muscles you need for running, you’ll be able to withstand the loads of running for longer, resulting in less tension in those muscles.
The Perfect Storm of Running Injuries
So what truly causes running injuries?
It’s often a perfect storm.
By looking at all of the factors I’ve outlined above, we can often start to piece together the puzzle. Very rarely is it ONE thing, but often a combination of several little things that come together at the perfect time, which results in our body experiencing pain with running.
Sometimes the training you’re doing hasn’t changed, but you’re not sleeping as much because of stress at work. And because of the increased stress, you find yourself running faster on your easy days than you normally would. Maybe you’ve become less focused on good nutrition after your run because you have to rush back to your emails. Do you see the storm starting to brew here?
Running injuries can be incredibly frustrating and they often come on at the worst time. But they do give us an opportunity to look into your training, recovery strategies, and lifestyle. By addressing some of these factors, we can often help to settle down the area quickly and get you back to pain-free running pretty quickly.
Want to learn more about running injuries? Check out my comprehensive blog, Everything You Need to Know About Running Injuries.
More About Emma Vaillancourt, Running Physio & Coach
Emma Vaillancourt is a Registered Physiotherapist in the Province of Ontario, Canada. As a runner herself, she has a special interest in the assessment and treatment of running injuries. She started Rehab to Racing as a way to provide virtual care for runners, focusing on finding the true cause of injury and working with runners to come back from their injury even stronger.
Emma is also a trained Athletics Ontario Endurance Coach. She approaches her coaching with a focus on long term development and finding joy in the process of training. After all, a happy runner is a successful runner! Emma works with runners of all age levels and abilities as well as all distances. She also works with runners who are returning to training after injury. Her goal is for you to remain healthy and happy throughout her training programs, while still finding success at whatever race distance or goal you have.
Interested in working with Emma? Book a complimentary discovery call today!
These articles are not designed to replace medical advice. If you have an injury I recommend seeing a qualified health professional.
