How do you prevent injuries?

If you’ve been following my How to Run series, you’ve gotten to the point where you’re starting to accumulate miles

You’re becoming more familiar with running and you’re making your way through the learning curve

Maybe by now you’ve even found some distances you actually like running

All is going well and I’m cheering you on!

Especially to those who have signed up for the Ricky Byrdsong 5K or 10K on Sunday June 16th (Father’s Day) in Evanston

I’m also here to warn you about the boogie man of endurance sports: injuries

If something starts hurting and you don’t address it, it can absolutely sideline your running

To the point where you think, “I’m not going to run today because I don’t want to be in pain later”

That’s a really rough place to be mentally and it can kill your momentum

In this series we’ve already addressed how to run in a way to minimize injury risk

Now we’ll talk about cross training

AKA: strength training
AKA: weightlifting

Whatever name you wanna give it

It will involve picking up weights and doing repetitions of things

Weightlifting is how muscles actually get stronger

I cover all this and go through some basic exercises you can do at a gym or at home in part 4 of my How To Run series which you can check out here

One thing I neglected to mention in the video, is how many sets and repetitions to do of the exercises

A very basic and general rep scheme for all exercises is:
3 sets of 10 repetitions

If it’s a 1 sided movement, do 10 repetitions on each side for each set

That’s a really great place to start as it’s simple and effective

Don’t over complicate it

Just start doing reps

And if I can highlight a single exercise…

The #1 most basic exercise all runners should do is a single leg calf raise

Doing 3 sets of 10 on each leg at least 3-4 times per week will put you ahead of all the runners who are literally doing nothing

Happy running

Dr. Michael