Injury Prevention

Hey guys!

 Are you as excited as I am?? Cross country is coming up fast and summer is already upon us. It's time to start training! As we begin increasing our milage to prepare for cross county season, it's important to make sure we avoid injury. Of course, if you are going to get injured it's better to have that happen now so you can recover before actual racing season, but it's better to simply avoid it all together. Those of you who have received your training plans have probably noticed that every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday you're supposed to be doing injury prevention drills. If you ran track you may be familiar with these drills, and if you're a new runner, showing up to practice will benefit you, as I and the other captains can demonstrate them. As it is I am going to try to outline the basic drills here...

1. The first thing we do is a set of different kinds of walking. Basically, you walk about 25 meters for each exercise. First you walk on the outside edges of your feet, then the inside. Then walk with your toes pointing in, almost touching when you're standing still. Next, walk with them turned out. When you turn in and out, it's important to turn your legs from your hips and not your knees! Finally, walk backwards on your tiptoes and forwards on your heels. When you do these you should be barefoot and on soft ground, like turf or grass, but put your shoes back on when doing the heel drill so it doesn't make any injuries worse! We do these drills to strengthen all the muscles around your shins and ankles and feet to support your legs.

2. Toe taps! The captains have begun incorporating the 20 slow toe taps, 20 fast and 20 side-to-side routine to prevent shin splints.

3. Finally, 20 calf raises. Basically, stand tall and slowly rise to your tip toes, then come slowly back down (all the way!) to the ground. This will help strengthen your calves, obviously, which is just good for running in general as well as fending off injury by helping stabilize your leg muscles.

As far as general injury prevention....

- make sure you're warming up before running, and stretching afterwards. This will help ensure your muscles don't tighten up, which reduces the risk of straining or pulling them.

- Make sure you switch out your training shoes about every 400 miles. Remember this: http://chiefsealthxc.blogspot.com/2012/06/running-shoes.html.

- If your knees are hurting, refer to this old post: http://chiefsealthxc.blogspot.com/2012/09/awkward-runners-shin-splints.html.

-If you've got arch issues (tight arches, tight achilles and calves...) put a dish towel on the floor and scrunch your toes up about 30 times. This will make your arches sore but that's only because it's strengthening them! Make sure to be stretching your arches and calves too, and use a roller ball (like this one) on your feet to release tension.

Got questions about a specific injury? Ask a coach or captain and we'll help you out. Don't wait until you're seriously injured!

See you all at practice tomorrow-- 9:00 am at SWAC!