Jessica Leitch of Run3D came to the club on Thursday evening to give a very useful talk on injury prevention. Jessica came out on the track and ran with the road group before hand and proved to be a very good runner as well as a good speaker.
The essence of the talk was in 3 sections.
Firstly
She gave us 5 things that make up a good runner and by measuring each of these things and putting them together we can tell if we will be prone to injury. The 5 things are:-
Training
Bio mechanics
Strength
Flexibility
Alignment
For example if you increase your training and do not work on your strength and flexibility then you are more lightly to become injured.
Secondly
If you do become injured then you need to:-
Test
Identify
Address
For example there is no point in spending weeks recovering from an injury only to go back to doing what you were doing before, because that is what caused the injury in the first place.
So, if you are injured you need to 1) test yourself on the 5 items above. (one way is to stand on one leg and see how much you wobble as this will show your ankle strength) 2) identify what caused the injury, i.e. too quick an increase in training, not enough strength or flexibility, wrong shoes etc. 3) address the cause before returning to training i.e. Spend the time off doing strength and flexibility work (make sure the injury is fully healed before working on that area). Then return to training slowly.
Thirdly
Jessica gave us some typical leg stretches and strengthening exercises to do. She also pointed out that when doing all stretches you should take at least 2 seconds to start. Then hold for 20 to 30 seconds then 2 seconds to return. Also they should be done with good posture so as not to stress any other part of your body. The same is the case for strength work. Do it with good posture and aim for 3x10 reps.
If you want further information on Run3D go to their web site www.run3d.co.uk/index
NOTE It is important that before doing any of the above you need to talk to your coach as they are there to help you and know the sort of things you need to do for your specific event.
