There are numerous health benefits to running, but of course it also carries an inherent degree of injury risk. Most injuries arise from overuse rather than trauma. Broadly, there are three main categories of risk considered to cause running injuries: biomechanical factors, anatomical factors and training error.
Over the course of the next few blogs I will look at specific running related injuries, but for now I want to elaborate on the categories sited above.
UP TO 50% OF RUNNERS EXPERIENCE AN INJURY EACH YEAR.
Biomechanics Factors
Running biomechanics, in other words how you move and position different parts of your body and also often called “running form”, will determine your pre-disposition to injury. Several common injuries such as patellofemoral pain, iliotibial band pain, and stress fractures of the shins (or tibia), have been linked to specific running biomechanics. Therefore focusing on, and improving, your running form can reduce your run related injury risk.
Anatomical Factors
Some anatomical features, such as flat feet or knock knee, are considered to increase your running injury risk factors. But this contention has not been proven by scientific research. We do know that our bodies adapt to training stimulus and accept our own anatomical designs in the process. Therefore simply building up training gradually would likely allow your body to adapt around and specific anatomical anomalies you may have.
Training Error
Uncontrolled and excessive fluctuations in training load are a common mistake. Running repeatedly subjects your body to impact forces that cause tissue breakdown and require time to recover and heal. When you overtrain the repair and recovery process can no longer keep up with new tissue breakdown being caused by the latest training stress. This weakening leads to injury.
Injury Sites
Unsurprisingly, most running related injuries affect the lower body. The most common sites being the knee, followed by the ankle and the foot. However, depending on your biomechanics you may be more prone injuries at other sites. Men and Women are of course built differently and therefore each gender has a different propensity to different types of injury. For instance data from the US indicates that Females suffer a greater incidence of knee injury than Males.
Almost one third of running injuries occur at the knee. Female runners are more prone to injury at the knee and hip , whilst males of higher propensity to issues involving the shin, ankle and foot.
