avoiding-running-injuries

Your running injury questions answered

As with all other sports, running can pose the risk of injury. Overtraining or using incorrect running gear can lead to problems with your body. Overcoming these in the right way can take some time before you are able to run freely again. Here, we answer a couple of your questions relating to getting back into running following an injury.

I have been injured for a while and don’t want to lose my aerobic fitness level, what can I do?
Mandy, London

Answer: It depends greatly on the seriousness of your injury and what treatment you are getting. Rest plus the correct treatment are the quickest ways to a full recovery. However, if the injury is not too serious but is just hanging around, there are certain things you can attempt. But these must be with the blessing of your doctor and/or physiotherapist.

These include wet vesting – running in water with a wet vest on – which will help keep your aerobic fitness topped up. This is possible because there is no weight bearing on the injury involved. Multi-gym work, using only arm and abdominal exercises if it is a leg injury, or leg and abdominal exercises if it is an arm injury. You can also use an exercise bike and/or rowing machine depending on the nature of your injury to keep your aerobic fitness level and muscle tone-up.

I am 45 and have not run for 20 years but feel the need to get fit again through healthy running. How should I start?
Bob, York

Answer: Well let’s assume that you have some kit and if not then the first thing is that you’d better go out and buy some! Then you need a physical check from your doctor to ensure that you have no health worries. I would then start running three times a week for up to a month (12 sessions). This would be easy running or walking for between ten to 15 minutes.

Once you can handle this fairly easily then on two of the sessions increase the time run to 20 minutes and keep the middle session at 15 minutes but increasing the pace. Using this progressive format the next month you can either increase the time run, or the number of sessions, or the speed of your run. Then you can continue developing the programme.