Opinion – In Running: Amateurs and professionals suffer the same injuries in running; know how to avoid them

Who runs, knows. She’s there, sneaking around, waiting for the opportunity to make an unwanted visit. It doesn’t matter your training volume, your age, your weight or the terrain you run on. It may take a while, but at some point it appears. Yes, I’m talking about the injury.

Injury happens when body tissues are subjected to excessive stress, triggering an inflammatory process. Lesions can appear on bones, tendons, cartilage, or muscles. What vary are the causes and the complexity of treatment for each of them.

That is, you do something you shouldn’t and get hurt. That simple.

Why do injuries happen?

Every little bit of our body has a limit. Doctors call this limit the “function envelope.” It is flexible and is related to our physical preparation. When we train or strengthen muscles, we increase our function envelope. Sedentary people, on the other hand, are less resistant to the stress caused by exertion.

Lesions appear when your body’s limit has been exceeded. You exaggerate and get hurt. And here is a curiosity. The most common injuries in amateur runners are exactly the same ones that afflict professionals. “Feet and knees are very demanding in running, and the result is that the most common injuries are the result of the effort of these two areas, especially patellar tendinitis and the Achilles tendon”, explains doctor Marcelo Bonadio, an orthopedist at the University of S.Paulo and the Care Club.

By logic, it would be simple to avoid an injury. It would be enough to identify each person’s threshold and keep the activity below that threshold. The problem is it’s not easy to get this information. Professionals get some level of precision about their stress levels with medical exams — a routine inaccessible to the amateur athlete.

But calm down, if scientific precision is for the few, sensitivity and self-knowledge are available to everyone. The body speaks through pain, and it is up to the athlete to perceive these signals. The doctor Marcelo Bonadio lists three cases that indicate risk of injury.

1. Recurrent pain in the same part of the body

2. Pains that appear earlier and earlier during training

3. After physical activity, the pain gets more intense and takes longer to go away

Bonadio remembers that not all pain is a sign of trouble. “Pain is normal after physical activity, it is part of the inflammatory process. The pain that comes and goes is not a cause for concern.”

How to avoid injuries?

As I said before, the main thing is to perceive the signals of the body itself. But there are some tips scientifically proven effective in injury prevention.

Food: Red meat and excess sugar impair recovery in inflammatory processes. Consume in moderation.

Weight: many people run to lose weight, when the ideal would be to lose weight to start running. The force required to push off the extra pounds can lead to an injury.

rest: Give your body time to recover. This includes rest periods and regenerative training — shorter, low-intensity runs.

Technique: avoid vertical and horizontal oscillations while running. In other words, less bouncing and less waddling. Keep your body steady, erect and slightly leaning forward, preferably with shorter strides.

Muscle strengthening: while it does not guarantee that the athlete will not be injured, strengthening increases endurance and gives a margin of safety for runners seeking better performance.

And it doesn’t hurt to state the obvious: in case of injury, see a doctor.