Running Injuries: Common Training Errors To Avoid

Woman jogging in a park with autumn trees in the background, mindful of preventing running injuries.

Mar 20, 2023

Physical Therapy, Health and Wellness, Strain Injuries

Are you looking for the most effective ways to avoid running injuries? Or have you been dealing with a nagging injury or persistent pain and looking to resolve your issues and get back to pain-free running? At Agility Physical Therapy, our physical therapists can guide you back to health and make sure you can run at your peak potential!

If you’re a runner, you understand the importance of training. Unfortunately, it seems like there is conflicting information, no matter where you look. It seems like one group of experts recommends one type of training when another expert claims that it is actually causing your problems and that you should be doing an entirely different type of training.

With all the changing information about how to prevent injuries, it can help to know there is someone you can count on for answers based, in fact, not on a fad. At Agility Physical Therapy, we want to ensure that you avoid running-related pain and injury, so you get out there and enjoy your runs!

Request an appointment with one of our running specialists today, so we can help you train for a marathon or to jog through the neighborhood without worrying about an injury getting in your way!

What are the leading training errors that cause running?

Running is one of the most popular activities worldwide. Unfortunately, running is often associated with pain or injury related to training. As technology improves, more and more people search the internet for help with training and recovering from an injury.

Unfortunately, the more desperate you are, the more likely you will look to any solution, regardless of its effectiveness. This, in turn, leaves people susceptible to the troubling amount of misinformation that permeates the running community. For example, too many runners emphasize ineffective solutions like changing their running shoes instead of implementing strategies that have been proven to make a significant difference, like training properly.

Identifying the exact cause of most running-related injuries is often impossible. More often than not, it is a combination of multiple factors or something that seems unrelated to the current issue.

For example, most people don’t know that the leading risk factor associated with runners sustaining an injury is having a previous injury in the last 12 months. The type of injury does not seem as important as the fact you had an injury and did not resolve it entirely. Resolving a prior injury will reduce your risk of getting hurt and keep you running.

Although there seems to be a difference in novice vs. experienced runners, as well as age and gender differences, the risk factors that lead to running injuries are mostly training errors. According to research studies, the most common risk factors include the following:

Running experience of 0–2 years
Restarting running after extended rest
Overtraining (i.e., more than 40 miles per week, men > women)
Women recreational runners were associated with a greater risk of running-related injury.

At Agility Physical Therapy, our physical therapist will help you resolve any pre-existing issues and maximize your training while simultaneously preventing injuries in the future!

How your physical therapist can help you prevent running injuries

At Agility Physical Therapy, our physical therapists have proven successful in treating runners. We can help runners in all aspects of rehabilitation, injury prevention, return to run programs, and improved performance through proper training.

To start with, your physical therapist will thoroughly analyze your joints, muscles, and gait to identify any limitation or weakness that may lead to a running-related injury. Our therapists will take a thorough history to understand your training schedule, the type of training you perform, your history of previous or current injuries, and the runner’s overall health status.

This information is the foundation for our individualized programs. Initially, the emphasis is on alleviating pain and restoring mobility. We will employ targeted manual therapy techniques and modalities to ensure your progress and provide home exercises designed to maintain and improve your results.

We tailor our therapy interventions to your individual needs and an active approach to rehabilitation. As you progress, we will give you strengthening exercises that help to restore your function, prevent future injuries and enhance your overall performance when training or racing.

We will include balance and coordination drills, as well as any exercises that can stimulate your nervous system and minimize your risk of future injuries. Our “return to running” programs will focus on progressing your exercises to facilitate improvements where you have limitations or weaknesses to ensure a safe return to running.

Identifying all the possible causes of injury requires the skills of our trained physical therapist. We will assess you as a whole person and use the information to develop a program tailored to your specific needs to ensure you get back to pain-free running!

Request an appointment at Agility Physical Therapy today!

At Agility Physical Therapy, our physical therapists are up-to-date on the most common risk factors for running-related injuries. Our goal is to ensure you have the tools to train properly to help reduce your risk of future injuries and run at your peak potential!

Call today to schedule an appointment with one of our specialists!

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Tags: physical therapist, health and wellness, Natural Treatment, Natural Pain Relief, pain relief, physical therapy

Running Injuries: Common Training Errors To Avoid