5 ways to prevent injury in your next training cycle

Even if you do everything right, sometimes injuries will still happen. Heck, a lot of times injuries happen not running 😆 MANY injuries that I see happen with non-elite runners, though, CAN be prevented or minimized. A lot of injuries come down to training errors, a deficiency in fuel, and/or the stress bucket overflowing.

Let's go over some ways you can check yourself and your training to minimize your risk for injuries this season:

1) Slow down most of your runs. Likely slower than you think. And be okay with having a range of paces for easy runs. Take your ego out of the equation. While I think the term "zone 2" is thrown around way too much right now, there is a point to it - most of your runs should be a lower heart rate and be a lot easier than you're likely running them. My most successful athletes run 2-3 minutes slower than their race pace - and yes, continue to hit PR's doing this, while keeping aches + pains lower.

2) Space out your hard workouts. This includes speed workouts and for most non-elite runners, your double digit long runs. You need time to recover from them and for the majority of non-elite runners who have a solid base, you will get the most benefit by having two [not three] hard workouts in your week. So if you do a speed workout on Tuesdays, do your long run [which may or may not have speed in it] on either Friday or Saturday. If you do speed on Wednesday, do your long run on Saturday or Sunday. And so on. So you are giving your body 2-3 days between hard sessions to recover [which is when the body absorbs the work]. You are still going to be running or cross training most of those days in-between, but they should be easier work to let the body recover. Not only does this reduce injury risk, but it also gives you a better chance of hitting your paces because you're recovered from the last hard workout.

3) Be mindful of how you're adding intensity to your weeks. You need to progressively overload the body to build your fitness, however, if you do it all at once, your body will eventually break down. General rule of thumb is not increasing your volume by more than 10-15% per week [but up to 20% is usually fine, as long as you're keeping the mileage easy at first]. This has some caveats, like if you're doing a reverse taper from a training cycle or if you took a few weeks off for life stuff. When you're making big jumps in mileage, make sure you're not also adding a bunch of speed. Because your body needs to be able to adapt to it all...and it will, but just not all at once. If I do a big mileage jump with my athletes, I'll keep all the miles easy that week and then add speed back in the following week, while keeping the number of miles about the same.

4) Strength train. Let's not refer to this as a "little thing" in your training. If you want to be more injury-resilient, you need to strength train. And not to mention, it's one of the best things you can do for your overall health as you age. No, don't take a bunch of HIIT classes and call it strength training. Pick up weights that challenge you [once per week is okay if that's all you have time for!] and also do some runner-specific work to target areas like the core, glutes, and calves that runners are usually weak in.

5) Watch your stress bucket. Even though you love it, running still adds stress to your bucket. If things are crazy at work or a loved one passes or you are caretaker for a family member or another life stressor is taking up a bigger chunk of your bucket, you may want to consider temporarily keeping runs easy, lowering mileage, and/or having a less rigid schedule if you find yourself getting sick or trouble managing it.

​I could include more, but if you implement these five, your risk for injury will significantly decrease...keeping you more consistent, so you can hit those big goals!

And if you want to receive more tips like this straight to your inbox every 2 weeks, sign up for my Tuesday Tip newsletter!