With New Year's resolutions underway, here are a few beginner running tips to help avoid injury:
- Start Slow: when you begin training for long-distance running, ease into the mileage slowly. Short bursts and hard workouts upfront are a frequent cause of injury.
- Shoe Wear: limit mileage on running shoes to 250-300 miles. Shoes take a beating and will lose the ability to provide control, cushion, and prevent injury.
- Listen to Your Body: pain is a great indicator that injury is at the door. Stop running and switch to cross-training, then ease back into running slowly.
- Cross-Training: swimming, cycling, etc., are great ways to burn calories, allow for healing when injured, and maintain cardiovascular endurance.
- Strengthen Your Core: Pilates, yoga, and weight-training help to decrease injury and are proving to be beneficial in improving running performance.
- Know Your Limits: there are many foot and body types, but not all are great for running long distances. Where some are able to run a marathon, others do much better and remain injury free when running 5-10K races.
Practice these safety tips, and if you need extra support, we create dynamic custom orthotics for patients. Orthotics can be the perfect compliment to a good running shoe and can greatly improve performance and limit pain and injury.
-Dr. Huff
