Northern hemisphere weather is rapidly improving and with the extra light in the evenings the spring is concentrating our thoughts on getting fit and losing weight. The running shoes are broken out of their winter hibernation and the person gets out on the road to do a bit of jogging. Running is very easy to manage, it is cheap and how could anything go wrong with it all? This time of year is however the time when we are least prepared for strenuous exercise and physiotherapy practices prepare themselves for the annual influx of sprains and strains as the unfit and overweight overdo things. The commonest symptoms are from the low back, the feet and the knees.
Commonly people start off in a rush of enthusiasm, not realising that they won't know how much they have overdone things until much later, perhaps the next day. They do far too much initially at too high an intensity or for too long, or try to make too much progress too quickly. The body's tissues have a tolerance to physical stresses and these vary with our age, fitness, health and other factors. If the tolerances are overstepped the tissues will react with pain and injury with overuse syndromes of patellofemoral pain, ilio-tibial band syndrome, tendonitis and bursitis, along with muscle strains and joint sprains. If the stresses are heavy and repetitive then stress fractures can occur as the small foot bones are unable to cope with the degree of stress.
A more measured approach to the starting period of training is necessary or to control one of the elements of the training such as the intensity, frequency or duration. Controlling one of these elements may allow training to restart or progress in fitness to be maintained. Non-professional runners may often let a small injury grumble on for too long before doing anything about it, allowing a small problem to become chronic and difficult to treat. If you get a new pain or ache then you should take it as a sign that something has been injured and you should pay attention to it. If you have taken normal steps with ice, treatments, activity modification and painkillers, then you should seek help if there is no improvement in ten days.
A walking and running regime is a very useful technique for a novice runner or someone restarting running who has reason to believe they may have a problem in getting started. I have used this technique very successfully as I got backache quite badly for a couple of weeks after going for only a ten minute run. I then decided not to run for a while until the memory of it faded and then tried the same thing again. No marks for ingenuity there as I got the same back pain again and had to back off for several weeks once more.
Then somebody suggested a walking/running regime which I started to do with good results. In a few months I could run continuously for forty minutes. A typical regime might consist of one minute running followed by four minutes walking and repeated a number of times, perhaps five. As the weeks go on the minutes running increase as the walking minutes are reduced
In winter many people use treadmills more often, leaving them open to risk of injury due to the cold and uneven nature of outside running areas. Excessive impacts while running are generated by hard surfaces such as concrete and should be avoided, with appropriate investment being made in good running shoes with enough cushioning to absorb impacts. Changing running shoes regularly is important as they lose their ability to absorb shocks and this may be particularly important if you are big and heavy.
Also if you are running flat on a treadmill more often in the winter then injury is perhaps more likely as you start to deal with the cold, the slipperiness and irregularity of outside terrain, all of which demand more flexibility yet make it more difficult to do this. The typical hard concrete pavement is not a suitable surface to run on as the impact is too hard as we pound along. Even though running is cheap it is not wise to skimp on expenditure for good running shoes, fitted professionally by a specialist in a running shop. - 14130
Commonly people start off in a rush of enthusiasm, not realising that they won't know how much they have overdone things until much later, perhaps the next day. They do far too much initially at too high an intensity or for too long, or try to make too much progress too quickly. The body's tissues have a tolerance to physical stresses and these vary with our age, fitness, health and other factors. If the tolerances are overstepped the tissues will react with pain and injury with overuse syndromes of patellofemoral pain, ilio-tibial band syndrome, tendonitis and bursitis, along with muscle strains and joint sprains. If the stresses are heavy and repetitive then stress fractures can occur as the small foot bones are unable to cope with the degree of stress.
A more measured approach to the starting period of training is necessary or to control one of the elements of the training such as the intensity, frequency or duration. Controlling one of these elements may allow training to restart or progress in fitness to be maintained. Non-professional runners may often let a small injury grumble on for too long before doing anything about it, allowing a small problem to become chronic and difficult to treat. If you get a new pain or ache then you should take it as a sign that something has been injured and you should pay attention to it. If you have taken normal steps with ice, treatments, activity modification and painkillers, then you should seek help if there is no improvement in ten days.
A walking and running regime is a very useful technique for a novice runner or someone restarting running who has reason to believe they may have a problem in getting started. I have used this technique very successfully as I got backache quite badly for a couple of weeks after going for only a ten minute run. I then decided not to run for a while until the memory of it faded and then tried the same thing again. No marks for ingenuity there as I got the same back pain again and had to back off for several weeks once more.
Then somebody suggested a walking/running regime which I started to do with good results. In a few months I could run continuously for forty minutes. A typical regime might consist of one minute running followed by four minutes walking and repeated a number of times, perhaps five. As the weeks go on the minutes running increase as the walking minutes are reduced
In winter many people use treadmills more often, leaving them open to risk of injury due to the cold and uneven nature of outside running areas. Excessive impacts while running are generated by hard surfaces such as concrete and should be avoided, with appropriate investment being made in good running shoes with enough cushioning to absorb impacts. Changing running shoes regularly is important as they lose their ability to absorb shocks and this may be particularly important if you are big and heavy.
Also if you are running flat on a treadmill more often in the winter then injury is perhaps more likely as you start to deal with the cold, the slipperiness and irregularity of outside terrain, all of which demand more flexibility yet make it more difficult to do this. The typical hard concrete pavement is not a suitable surface to run on as the impact is too hard as we pound along. Even though running is cheap it is not wise to skimp on expenditure for good running shoes, fitted professionally by a specialist in a running shop. - 14130
About the Author:
Jonathan Blood Smyth, editor of the Physiotherapy Site, writes articles about Physiotherapists, physiotherapy, physiotherapists in Manchester, back pain, orthopaedic conditions, neck pain and injury management. Jonathan is a superintendant physiotherapist at an NHS hospital in the South-West of the UK.
No comments:
Post a Comment