During the years when I ran competitively, I was always trying to do the absolute maximum amount of training that I could manage as I believed that more training was always better. For some reason, I tended to get injured two or more times each season. Now that I have returned to trail running for the enjoyment of it, I’m determined to put all those injury gremlins behind me.
The mindset at the root of nearly all injury risks for trail runners is trying to go too far, too fast, and too soon. Doing this sacrifices proper recovery, consistency of training, and incrementally increasing strength.
Let’s take a closer look at the 5 biggest injury risks so that you can avoid them and have years of injury-free running on the trails.
Avoid Wild Swings In Mileage/Intensity Consistency
I often find that I am most injury prone when I have massive swings in the consistency of either my total mileage or my intensity within my workouts. For instance, if I do massive up and down swings in my total weekly mileage it will put me at risk of injury. In other words, If I run 40 miles during a week, drop down to 10 miles or less in the second week, and then suddenly back up to 40 miles again. It is during the second week back up at 40 miles where I would tend to pick up some kind of niggle or injury.
When speaking to athletic coaches, it is usually the same type of pattern itself time and time again that leads to a runner picking up an injury. The same principle applies to building consistency when it comes to the intensity of workouts.
For instance, if I don’t do any hill sprint workouts for 2 months and then go and suddenly try and do my maximum highest possible intensity level of hill sprints, I’m just setting myself up for an injury. What I should rather do is build back to my intensity level over the period of a couple of weeks incorporating some efforts on hills during a longer run. That way my body can adapt to that kind of training stress before doing a hill sprint workout. Even when I do incorporate hill sprint workouts again I don’t go for my absolute maximum personal record on the first day out.
Run Fast Regularly So It’s Not Too Stressful
When doing fast and hard workouts, you have to be aware that these carry the highest injury risk of all the types of running training that you can do. Therefore, if you’ve taken some time away from doing hard workouts, the first time back doing your fast or hard workout will carry a significantly higher injury risk.
For instance, if you have just run a marathon, an Ultra, or a half marathon you will likely take a week or maybe even two of recovery time away from any training intensity. When you start incorporating intensity back into your training program, first build up the consistency of those sessions before ramping up the intensity level.
It’s the consistency of your fast and hard workout that reduces the injury risk because your body is more adapted to that type of load within your training therefore there’s not as much of a shock response to the higher levels of training stress.
Make Sure Your Easy Days Are Truly Easy
This was one of the biggest things that I needed to do as far as making adjustments to the way I train for trail running. I never used to make my easy days easy enough so that I could get the maximum benefit from my hard days. There is no exact pace that can be defined as easy. An easy day on the trails for me will likely be a slower pace than most of you run, though it might also be quicker. Therefore, what is easy for you is a largely subjective feeling rather than a specific place.
The easiest way to make sure that your easy days are truly easy, is they need to be controlled comfortable, and conversational. The entire duration of your run needs to feel as if it is completely under control and is not exceeding your easy-level rate of perceived exertion at any stage during the course of the run. You should feel comfortable for the entire duration of the run.
An ultra-distance running coach that I spoke to about this mentioned to me that an easy run should be feeling so comfortable that by the time you get to the end, it feels as if you could turn around go straight back out the door and repeat exactly the same run a second time.
When it comes to keeping your easy trail runs easy enough, being able to maintain a conversation for the entire duration of the run is one way of making sure that you’re keeping the intensity easy enough. One of the ways I do this when I’m out running on my own is I take a couple of the cue cards with me that I use for my Q&A YouTube videos. While I’m running I’ll pull out a cue card, read the question and answer it out loud as a way of rehearsing before turning on the video camera later. If I’m running too hard I won’t be able to answer the question aloud without getting out of breath.
Don’t Run Through Pain Discomfort Or Niggles
I’m now aware that I have increased my risk of getting injured in the past by running through pain and niggles when I should actually have been backing off and taking things easy. This is exactly how I got myself injured during a half marathon a couple of years ago when I went into it completely unfit and decided to go on a training run the very next morning.
I still felt OK at the end of the half marathon. However, as I started my training run the following morning I got a searing pain in my shin after my first 5 steps. I thought the pain would go away if I kept running but it got progressively worse through the hour-long run.
I didn’t allow my body the opportunity to adequately recover after the half marathon before heading out and doing an intense training session. I also made the mistake of not doing a full warmup before the run which would have alerted me to the fact that I was far from recovered.
Warning Sign: Sharp, Intense Stabbing Pain
If you start your run and you have a short intense stabbing pain as you take the first couple of steps at the beginning of your run then it will be a good idea to pull the plug and abandon the training run immediately rather than trying to muscle your way through that short sharp intense stabbing pains. Don’t confuse this with general muscle soreness that eases as you do your warmup.
Warning Sign: Pain That Gets Progressively Worse
If you start a run feeling some degree of pain/discomfort and that pain becomes progressively worse as the run continues, then I would seriously consider cutting the run short because the worsening pain is indicating that it is running that is causing the pain to get worse.
Your time would be far better spent doing some sort of rehab exercise on the area that is experiencing the progressive worsening pain rather than trying to be tough and pushing through what could potentially become a more serious injury.
Warning Sign: Changing Running Form To Accommodate Discomfort
This warning sign is one that is difficult for me to self-diagnose because my natural running form includes a little bit of a limp because of a hip alignment issue that I’ve had for decades. Therefore, my limp depends on what my hip mobility is like on any given day.
However, I need to maintain awareness of my running form so that I am not changing my running form to alleviate pain/discomfort. It’s happened in the past that I’ve maybe twisted or rolled an ankle out on the trail and what I’ll do then is I’d rather walk for a mile or two before slowly easing into a light jog just to make sure that I don’t have any major problem with that twisted ankle.
The alternative is what I did when I was younger and more stupid. If I rolled an ankle, I’d try and keep running at the same speed and just change my form slightly so as to minimize the pain I had in my ankle. All this did was cause a more serious injury that required weeks of rehabilitation.
If you learn anything from my mistakes, if you roll an ankle slowly walk off the pain rather than trying to be a hero.
Lack Of Strength Training
One of the easiest ways to increase the risk of injury is to completely disregard the importance of strength training as part of an overall training program. Incorporating some degree of gym work and strength training increases the strength of your muscles, joints, and tendons.
Think of it this way: a strength training session in the gym makes you stronger, however, it’s almost like a rest day from the impact forces of running. So you’re getting stronger on a day that you’re not doing any run-specific work.