6 Hard-Earned Tips I Would Give Runners Who Want To Be And Stay Injury Free
Humans have evolved running, yet everyone who runs gets injured at some point.
[This is not a post about diabetes management, but sine movement is and a great insulin sensitivity booster for diabetics - and since I love running - I thought it would be a good idea to share how to run and keep running without injuries. Running is a powerful weapon in my blood glucose management arsenal!]
If we flashback a few thousands of years, our ancestors spent hours and hours a day moving their legs chasing animals, scavenging for food, delivering messages to the other side of the empire, day after day after day. They didn’t have “IT band” syndrome, plantar fasciitis, stress fractures, back pain, and they sure enough, there was no orthopaedic putting them into orthotics to “balance their posture” or advising them to undergo knee surgery to “fix your knees for good”. They ran and moved just fine.
So why is it that today most runners get injured, or they complete marathons only to be unable to walk for days afterwards, have we devolved? We haven’t: our lifestyle has changed and has gradually made our bodies weaker, less able, less strong, and less fit for.
The origin of most running injuries is hidden in our lifestyle.
These 5 tips have saved me from to claim back our physical strength, mobility and fitness in order to run injury free forever.
Tip #1: Don’t Sit (Or Sit As Less As Possible)
When you sit you are not engaging your core, your back, the mobility of the legs joints and leg coordination. Today we sit all the time: at work, at school, while commuting, while eating, while chilling. As the adage goes “If you don’t lose it, you lose it”, and losing our core and leg strength is a recipe for injuries.
Tip #2: Strengthen Your Feet (Do Toe Yoga)
Think about it, your feet are your first and main point of contact with the ground, and unless you spend all of your existence on a couch, you use them all day long. If we are using our feet all day long, why aren’t we training them to be strong?
According to science, weakness in the big toe is the first predictor of major falls when we get old, and it is among the main causes of ankles, knees, back and shoulder pains, as well as compromised posture. All of this gets worse when we run on weak feet, because all of these injuries will pop up much faster.
Tip #3 Wear Barefoot Shoes In Your Daily Life
Pick any shoe you have, and you’ll notice that the sole is hard and thick, the heel is elevated, and the toe-box is narrow. That is the precise reason why you have (or will have) pains in your legs and joints. The narrow toe-box binds your toes together, especially the big toe. The elevated heel weakens your Achilles tendon. The thick sole weakens all the sole muscles that keep you in balance. Modern shoes are trendy, but they are an absolute disaster for your body and your health.
Your shoes should have a thin sole, a wide toe-box and you should be able to fold them. Wear these (and stay barefoot when you can), and your feet are going to get back to their normal size.
(Fun fact, since I switched to barefoot shoes three years ago, my feet have grown three sizes. I literally don’t fit in the Nikes I used to wear all the time).
Tip #4 Stay In A Resting Squat Position As Much As Possible
This is THE elixir of eternal health for your feet, ankles, knees, hips and back. The resting squat position is a natural position for the human being - just watch how small kids play on the floor, or how people of tribes in rural Africa eat, talk and rest after long commutes.
We lose the ability to stay in this position because we sit on chairs, which limit our range of motion and weaken all of our joints. Stay in a squat while replying to text messages, while eating, drinking, talking on the phone, reading…any occasion is perfect for this position.
Rest in a squat posiotion as much as you can during the day - the minimum I accept for myself is 20 minutes total. The runner in you will thrive and your 110-years-old self is going to thank you.
Tip #5 Move Constantly
In nature, if you don’t move you die: you have to move to find water, hunt or dig for food, to escape from predators. There’s no such thing as “Ah, I’ve been shopping in downtown all day, I need to sit on the couch and watch Netflix”. There’s no such thing as sitting on the train to work, sitting at work, sitting on the train back from work, sitting at the dinner table and then sitting on the couch watching TV. If you don’t use your body, your body will get weak. And you can’t pretend that running in a weak body is not going to lead to problem.
So find occasions to move during your day: stand up and walk a bit every hour, carry heavy things, do the stairs, engage your muscles anytime and in anyway you can.
If you keep moving, your body will get stronger. A strong body can run injury free.
When I began running, I had all of the common running injuries and was forced out for two years due to a chronic stress fracture on my ankle. Many orthopedics recommended me to give up running, get orthotics and have surgery to "fix my body" (paying them copious amounts of money, of course).
I didn’t followed their “expert” advice. Instead, I went back to the basics.
These 5 tips helped me rebuild my body, saved me thousands of dollars, saved me from surgeries, therapies and led me to run several marathons without pain, always being able to run without problems the morning after.
I had no surgeries, I threw my orthotics out of the window, all pains gone and have never come back.
Several marathons later, with a fully functional body, I have understood that Lifestyle is our first medicine. If we're not nailing our lifestyle, every other "medicine" or "treatment" will be nothing but a short term fix.
