![]() ![]() Runners are often advised to “run tall,” but this often leads people to believe that they need to keep their back upright and perpendicular to the ground. Though it’s tempting to go all in with your running, gradual training is essential! Running places incredibly high loads on the body, so it’s key to ease into your mileage and supplemental training to ensure you build up sufficient strength, muscle activation, and technique to tolerate the demands of increased running. Youth athletes often dive headfirst into their training at the start of a season, neglecting a proper running progression or any off-season training. ![]() This can be especially true for younger athletes, like 12-14 year olds participating in cross country or track and field. Plus, when you’ve hit your stride and start feeling good, you’re naturally going to want to challenge yourself with a tougher run. Many runners experience this pitfall, as it’s easy to push yourself harder and faster when your workout feels like a breeze. Taking on Too Much, Too SoonĪ sudden increase in running volume, duration, or intensity is frequently linked to a high risk of developing a stress fracture. So, let’s take some time to break down a handful of common risk factors associated with the stress reactions that can lead to stress fracture so you know how to tailor your training for more targeted injury prevention. Most runners don’t know the nitty gritty details behind ideal running form, let alone how to achieve it. Running injury prevention is rooted in one primary training aspect: mastering proper running biomechanics and technique.īut of course, that’s much easier said than done. So, while it’s important to understand how a stress fracture comes to be, it’s doubly as important to recognize the risk factors in an attempt to prevent or worsen injury. Properly recovering from the fracture means no running for at least 4-6 weeks (sometimes more, depending on the severity) while using a walking boot or cast to help support the bone’s healing. Sustaining an actual stress fracture is a difficult injury to cope with. ![]() If you continue to run as usual without ample rest for your body, this repetitive stress will eventually lead to tiny breaks in the bone that constitute a stress fracture. ![]() The impacts of running occur so frequently and at such a rapid rate that your bones don’t have enough time to rebuild themselves before your next run (this is known as a “stress reaction”). This consequently transfers the impact forces onto passive, inflexible structures like your bones - and that impact is where the problems grow more severe. If one of your muscles gets strained, the overuse can render the muscle ineffective at properly absorbing shock upon impact. This is why they often sustain stress fractures in areas within the lower extremity, some of the most common sites being the pelvis, femur (thigh bone), shin, and 5th metatarsal (the outermost long bone of your foot - the one that connects to your pinky toe).Īs mentioned earlier, stress fractures are bone injuries that occur as a result of untreated issues within their corresponding muscles. If runners lack sufficient shock absorption, their bodies are subjected to repetitive impacts with every step they take. (Hence, why it’s a relatively common injury for runners.) You may be able to infer what this injury is based on the name alone: it’s a small fracture of the bone brought on by excessive stress and repetitive forces. So, let’s delve into how this injury comes to be (and how to catch it well before it becomes a problem for you). While many instances of recurring shin pain can be classified as shin splints, your symptoms can be the warning sign of a larger potential injury: a stress fracture. These gradual but repetitive issues result in extra stress placed directly on the bone itself.Īnd that stress is a key consideration. Most often, shin splints occur due to overuse, which leads to muscle tightness and changes in the tendon. One of the telltale signs is that the pain usually worsens during activity and alleviates with rest. With shin splints, you’re dealing with localized pain in the front of your lower leg bone. Unidentified shin pain is an incredibly common gripe for runners, and determining what exactly that pain is can be a frustrating, ambiguous process.Īfter all, most resources tend to assign any old shin pain as shin splints - which isn’t inherently wrong, but there’s more to the symptoms than a vague umbrella term. ![]()
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