Tips to start running

Tips to start running

Running was one of the most important skills that a human had to survive, when life first began. Running was used for hunting food and to survive by fleeing predators or other tribes. In today's society running is used mostly for health and fitness, rarely do we need to run for a basic life necessity. Today people will get inspired by something in their life to begin running. People get sick, see others suffer from illness or simply want to be more fit, and this sparks a light bulb in their head to begin a healthier life and they take on the skill of running. This is great! I love to see people on the bike paths running. However, 99% of the people I see running are not performing it properly and eventually it will lead to setbacks and injuries, which will possibly even cause them to quit running completely or stop them from trying to live a healthier lifestyle. Like I said earlier, running is a skill and therefore it should be treated as a skill. People need to treat running like any other exercise. No one should go into the gym and start a strength training program without learning the movements first, why should we do that with running. People need to first learn the correct mechanics of running before they start knocking out large volumes on their feet. Learn the movement first then progress from there. I feel that if running was treated this way there would be a significant reduction in the number of running related injuries. Below are some tips for someone to think about as they begin to start incorporating running into their fitness and health program.

Strength, stiffness and muscular imbalances

Begin trying to fix your posture. Like a chiropractor I used to work for a long time ago would say when assessing his patients, “You are a hardbody.” He did not mean the good kind of hardbody he meant that the patient was super stiff and their muscles were tight and guarding. The way we live our lives currently does not favor us to have good posture and be flexible. Most people spend 8+ hrs a day sitting in a chair hunched over a keyboard at work, this causes people to get stiff and weak in all of the wrong places. I wish people could get home from work after not running for 10+ years and begin a running program but more than likely this will lead to injury. Most peoples posture is too maligned, stiff and weak to do so. If you begin running when your posture says you are stiff and weak, then the faulty posture will likely be exacerbated in your running technique. Like I said, this will possibly lead to injuries and people quitting exercise all together.

What can you do today?

• Go see a physical therapist, personal trainer or movement specialist. Make sure when finding a professional to help you that you do your research first. Make sure that they genuinely care about you as a patient or client. They should go out of their way to give you exactly what you need and not treat you as another number walking in their door.

• Fix yourself! There are lots of videos on youtube that talk about how to fix and assess posture. Take a picture of yourself and see where your postural abnormalities fall. Do you have upper cross syndrome, lower cross syndrome or both! Is one shoulder significantly higher than the other? Does one hip sit higher than the other side when standing? All of these things can help guide you to find exercises to help you fix yourself. Once you figure out where you are tight, weak or crooked, start implementing your corrective exercises.

• Maybe your posture is perfect or you have decent posture and no pain when running? Maybe you should start a strength training program with a personal trainer. A personal trainer will be able to assess exactly what areas are in need of strengthening, to help you progress to higher mileage in your running program and avoid injuries.

Going Zero to Hero

Doing too much too soon! I am guilty of doing this from time to time. Motivation is a powerful tool. One day you can be sitting on the couch eating cheesy puffs then the next day you can be inspired and begin running 5 miles a day. It is great to get inspired to live a healthier life but think about it for the long haul. People need to progress slowly to avoid burnout, illness, and injuries. A general rule of thumb is to progress every week by 10%. Say that you have begun a running program and ran for 20 minutes 3 times in the first week. Take that 60 minutes you ran for the week and multiply that by .10 or 10%. This equals only 6 min, this means in week 2 you should run 66 min total for the week. As you can see, that is not a huge increase in volume week by week, but if you stay consistent in 10 weeks you will be running significantly more. You need to give your body time to adapt to the demands of the stress. The tendons, ligaments, muscles and bones need to strengthen to be able to increase with the volume of running. If you do not progress slowly you may end up with a stress fracture and in a boot, not exercising at all.

Learn to run

Running is a skill! Most importantly people need to learn to run! Seems simple right? But why doesn’t anyone learn to run first before they begin running! People learn to lift weights correctly before starting a weight training program...well I hope they are. People should go see a running specialist or watch running videos about mechanics, then begin filming themselves and implementing what they have learned. The next time you go for a run have someone film you or set your phone down in a spot that can video you. Then watch what you look like and compare it to a professional runner. More than likely you will look like every stride is a struggle or it looks uncoordinated and you seem super uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong everyones running stride will be unique due to everyone being structurally different. However, if you film yourself and you look like you are unstable with limbs flying all different kinds of directions, you may need to learn to run more efficiently, to help avoid injury.