Runners have very, very high rates of injury – particularly when leading up to an event, so we thought we would put together a blog post on both how to both prevent running injuries and also the best management for when they do happen.

How common are injuries in runners?

• A huge 65% of runners are injured each year
• On average 1 injury for every 100 hours running
• Only 50% of running injuries are new – the rest are recurring and have not been rehabbed

What is the main cause of injury in runners?

Simple answer: Training error

Here is a good graph which shows the low rate of injury with small and gradual increases each week under 10% and much higher rates of injury with 20-30% increases:

This is why some of you may have heard of the 10% rule before because for a long time sports physios, coaches, Drs etc have known that if you load your body more than it can handle without time to adapt to that, you get negative training effects, pain and at times, injury.

How do we prevent running injuries?

• Do your recovery – cool down, stretch out, foam roll, massage etc
• Have rest days
• Cross train and strengthen
• abide by the 10% rule of not increasing by more than 10% between weeks

Best management for running injuries

Here are some quick do’s and don’ts that all injured runners should follow:

Conclusion:

It is absolutely best to plan out your training plan well to prevent overload and hence prevent most injuries in the first place but when you have got pain or injury, they are easiest to treat and address early.

Don’t be stubborn, don’t play the wait-and-see game.

Book in with a physiotherapist who knows how to thoroughly assess a runner and develop a rehab plan to get your injury back to normal and fully rehab it so that there is very little chance of it happening again.

Tip: We very rarely ask anyone to stop running so don’t worry about that!

Other pages that will be of interest to you:

PhysioSteps RunFx running assessments

Sports Physiotherapy

References:

BJSM