6 Problems Only Runners Would Understand And How To Cope

No matter the distance, running presents both emotional and physical challenges for humans. Over time, even the healthiest of runners will find themselves struggling with some mental, physical, or emotional issues, and here are six of the most common problems and how they can be remedied.

 

1. Chronic Malnutrition

Once the miles begin to increase, it is time for every runner to take a second look at their diet. Long distance training puts a huge strain on the body, and everyone should increase their caloric intake with a strong focus on carbs and protein. No matter your reasons for running, you must take necessary steps to get the needed nutrition and carbs to keep you healthy.

 

2. Back Pain

Back pain is extremely common for runners, and it generally stems from a few primary issues. Lower back issues are often the result of inappropriate footwear or an improper gait. Talk to a professional if you are unsure of what shoes would be best for you. If the pain is higher up, you should work on their posture and ensure that their shoulders are relaxed while running.

 

3. Running Obsession

Repetitive actions while training can turn into a habit, and any habit can also become an obsession. Runners should set mandatory rest days and then stick to them no matter what. It is also important to remain aware of injuries that will result in the need for resting and injuries that are okay to run through. Create a running group with friends or others in your neighborhood, since only other runners can truly understand your love for the sport.

 

4. Foot Injuries

Foot injuries are the bane of any runner, and experts at a foot clinic in Toronto say it is important to understand exactly when they have become serious. Minor soreness or stiffness is generally not a dire issue, but any sharp pains or reoccurring soreness means that the runner should contact a clinic immediately to avoid further damage. Foot injuries are the most common injuries in runners, so they should not be taken lightly.

 

5. Chronic Dehydration

What many do not know is that both over-hydration and dehydration are serious issues for runners. While there is no set number for how much water runners should drink throughout the day, there is a simple test. Weighing oneself before and after a run will give the runner an idea on how much extra water they should be drinking.

 

6. Lopsided Training

As the runner progresses, it is all too easy for training to become very lopsided. In order to be the best possible runner, everyone should take one or two days a week to train the rest of their body. Some of the best options include light weights, swimming, and cycling to improve their overall health.

 

As with any sport, running comes with its own fair share of risks. When these few common issues are avoided, however, runners can continue to enjoy their training for years on end.

 

Informational credit to Physiomobility Health Group.

Categories: cope, foot injuries, injuries, nbsp, problems, runner, runners, Running

What New Year’s Resolutions Are Running Through Your Mind?

Whether you’re already a runner or have simply made some New Year’s resolutions relating to your weight and fitness, setting yourself some running goals for 2014 is one of the best things you can do for your wellness and wellbeing.

 

Taking part in something like the Ultra Run and Relay at the Kualoa Ranch can help to make it a million times more exciting too. Racing through paradise like this can be done on your own or in a team of between four and six people and it starts at seven o’clock at night, allowing the excitement to build all day. You will tread beautiful trails in the Kaa’away Valley on Oahu and will barely even notice the mammoth efforts you are making – this is one not to miss.

 

Another opportunity for combining running and fun comes from the Middlebury Resolution Run, which is not only good for you but also helps out other people in need. All of the proceeds from this particular race go directly to the Middlebury Community Food Pantry which provides meals for around 200 hungry families every week.

 

This race is fantastic, as it allows you to enjoy the warm California weather while running around Mission Bay in San Diego. You can choose to run a smaller 5K race or take on the full challenge of the 15K run, depending on your stage and level of fitness.

 

In this resolution race, runners start at the Country Music Hall of Fame which is in downtown Nashville. Everyone who enters receives a free shirt and a collector’s cup, and those who are over 21 are invited to stay for a pretty amazing post-race party.

 

You can even walk the event if you are still working on your fitness levels, and refreshments are provided for runners and walkers as they go through the final tape.

Categories: fitness, nbsp, New Year, Resolution, Resolutions, runners, Running

Runners: What Are the Best Ways For You to Cool Down?

Cooling down after your fitness regime is almost as important for your wellness and wellbeing as doing the actual exercise itself! Sometimes, however, people can be so focused on their weight loss or fitness goals that they just want to plunge straight into an exercise, plough through it and then stop as soon as they are done, not taking the time to properly warm up or cool down.

 

It is vitally important that you do take the time to warm up and cool down, however. Warming up prepares your body for the forthcoming workout and helps to guard against any injuries by warming and gently stretching the muscles. Conversely, the cooldown gradually eases your body back into a resting state and helps to prepare you for the next workout, leaving you supple and strong rather than aching.

 

Walking after you have been for a run is the best way to transition the blood from actively working muscles to the normal resting flow patterns. If you simply stop abruptly, the blood pooling can cause dizziness, so you should aim to slow down to a walking pace after a run and walk for a few minutes, enabling your body to cool down.

 

The slower you transition, the better off you will be, so the best thing to do is around three to five minutes of brisk walking at first followed by gentle walking. Try to think of it as exiting the expressway, transitioning from a fast speed to a gradually more normal one.

 

If you have time, it’s also a great idea to spend around five to ten minutes after your run doing drills for strength, form and mobility. Then for an additional five to ten minutes, you should do full body flexibility moves, such as stretches and foam rolling.

Categories: body, cool down, minutes, nbsp, runners, time, Walking, ways

Runners: Top Vegetarian Foods to Keep You Healthy

Running is a great workout, especially if you love exercising outside, and eating a vegetarian diet is a fantastic way to lessen your impact on the planet and stay healthy. But combining the two can mean you run into problems before you reach the finish line. Whether you’re running a 5K or a marathon, you need to be fuelling your body in the best way possible to ensure you don’t put your body under any strain. Runners need more protein than the average person, as this nutrient helps to preserve lean mass and helps to build new muscle tissue. Studies show that runners who consume the right amount of protein cause less injuries to their body, have a stronger immune system and can enable their muscles to heal faster. If you’re trying to lose weight, a good level of protein is vital as it takes longer to digest than carbohydrates, so you’ll feel fuller for longer. Every day, runners need around 0.5g to 0.8g of protein per pound of weight. So if you weigh around 150lbs, you’ll need 75g of protein each day. If you’re following a vegetarian diet, that can be tricky to find. Here are some ideas for high protein ingredients that maintain your dietary restrictions and ensure that your diet is as healthy as possible.

Tofu

Tofu is both rich in protein, containing 10g in every cup, as well as isoflavones which protect your heart. The best choice is always organic varieties which don’t contain genetically modified soy.

Soymilk

Tofu has an odd texture that puts many people off, so if that’s the case with you then you may want to try soymilk. It has the most protein of any milk alternative, and also provides you with calcium and vitamin D. As before, opt for the organic variety.

Beans

If you want to up your protein intake, beans are a great source that contain around 12 to 14g per cup, depending on the type. They are also a great source of iron, which is great for boosting your endurance when you’re running.

Greek yogurt

An ideal cereal topper or snack, Greek yoghurt has twice the protein of a traditional portion of yoghurt. It’s also brilliant for healthy bones thanks to the calcium.

Seeds and nuts

Protein-filled and a fantastic source of vitamin E, seeds and nuts are perfect snacks for runners. They’re filled with the antioxidant vitamin E that helps to protect your lungs when you’re running in polluted air along the roadways. They’re also rich in fibre and heart-healthy unsaturated fats.

Ricotta cheese

Ricotta is a naturally low-fat cheese, but it’s also a great source of whey protein, which is particularly useful for runners after a run.

Eggs

Boasting 6g of protein in a single egg, the yolks are also a great source of choline which helps to keep the brain healthy, as well as lutein for your eye health.

Spinach

It may not be a fantastic source of protein, but spinach is one of the best sources of iron in the vegetable world. Runners need to keep their iron levels high to ensure they’ve got the energy to keep up with long workouts. Pairing spinach with vitamin C is the best way to get the most from each nutrient, so eat spinach with peppers or couple your meal with a glass of orange juice.

Whole grains

Quinoa and farro are surprisingly high in protein, as well as being healthy sources of carbohydrates for your run.

Categories: diet, eating, Healthy, helps, Protein, runners, Running, source, vegetarian diet

Distance Debating: Should You Run Heel-First or Toe-First?

Of all fitness enthusiasts and pursuers, no one gets more heated and passionate about the little things than runners. Ask any long-distance runner you like about the best marathon course or type of shoe for your PB (that’s personal best for us mere mortals) and they’ll chew your ear off for hours explaining why their perfect combination of technique, equipment and wellness regime is the only way to reach success. One hotly debated topic in particular is the heel-lead versus toe-lead dispute; or how should your foot strike the ground? Despite it not making a huge impact on your wellbeing and not having a great deal of persuasive evidence to support either position, runners and coaches alike feel very strongly about this subject, so let’s try and work out the best technique for you to try.

 

According to a new, noteworthy study, published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, each style of running has advantages and drawbacks, and the right way to run almost certainly depends on what kind of runner you already are. Using motion capture technology, researchers at the Tampere Research Centre of Sports Medicine in Tampere, Finland, determined the running form of 286 young adults who played team sports, all of whom wore normal running shoes. Of these participants, 19 women and four men struck first with their forefeet while striding. This keeps inline with other reports that the overwhelming majority of modern runners, whether male or female, speedy or slow, are heel strikers.

 

Nonetheless, wellness experts and running coaches have been known to question the wisdom of heel striking, noting that when you’re running in your most natural state (i.e. not wearing shoes) most, albeit not all, humans adopt a forefoot-strike running style. Therefore, enthusiasts draw the conclusion that forefoot striking is the inherently right way for humans to run. That said, if this were so, forefoot striking should lessen the odds of a running-related injury, and so this gave the Finnish researchers an avenue to explore. They matched the 19 forefoot-striking female runners with an equal number of similar female heel strikers, but could not do the same with the four males because the sample size would have been too small.

 

The results of the study revealed that although many of the women runners jarred their knees, this was especially the case when they landed on their heels. Heel strikers had 16% more force moving through their knee joints than did forefoot strikers, but this does not mean that the forefoot strikers’ legs were immune to force. Those who hit the ground with their forefoot first absorbed the force differently, almost 20% more force moving through their ankles and Achilles’ tendons than in the other runners. According to study leader uha-Pekka Kulmala, a PhD student now at the University of Jyvaskyla, this shows that there is no one invariably right and painless way to run.

 

However, Mr. Kulmala went on to say that the results imply you might be able to avoid old injuries flaring up if you strategically alter the way you run. If you hit with your heels, you increase your risk of conditions such as patellofemoral stress syndrome, while striking near the ball of your foot while cause you to joly your ankle and Achilles’ tendon, potentially increasing the risk of such injuries as Achilles’ tendinopathy, plantar fasciitis, and stress fractures of the foot. ‘People suffering from knee problems can benefit from forefoot striking,’ Mr. Kulmala advised. ‘Those who have Achilles’ tendon complaints can benefit from rearfoot striking…I think that experienced runners are able to change stride pattern, but non-experienced runners find it more difficult.’

Categories: achilles tendon, experienced runners, force moving, forefoot, forefoot strikers, Forefoot Striking, heel strikers, Heel Striking, injuries, runners, Running

Runner Runner: Walking isn’t Enough for Great Weight Loss

Although walking is good for your wellbeing, if you want to lose weight then you have to run and continue running. This is according to a new study, published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, that compared weight loss and weight control in thousands of runners and walkers over six years, and found that, in adults with a body mass index over 28 (deemed overweight), the same amount of exercise led to a 90% greater weight loss for runners compared to walkers.

 

For the research, study leader Paul Williams, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, evaluated changes in body mass index (BMI) of more than 32,000 runners and more than 15,000 walkers. Based on the findings, Williams asserted, ‘Running is more effective than walking in preventing weight gain and achieving weight loss.’ However, Williams was quick to add that you cannot achieve weight loss simply by undertaking vigorous exercise. ‘You do have to add dieting,’ he noted. ‘Exercise is not by itself the most effective way.’

 

When it came to the individual runners and walkers, Williams did detect some differences. On average, the walkers were older than the runners, with average ages of 53 and 41 respectively among women, and 62 and 48 among men. From the beginning of the study, the runners tended to have a lower BMI, as the average BMI among male and female runners was 24 and 22 respectively, while walkers came in at 27 and 25. While the walkers were more likely to be smokers, the study also found that these people were also likelier to eat fruit. Even though both groups had lost weight after the six-year follow-up, those with the best results were the male runners and heavier female runners.

 

Williams explained, ‘An overweight woman of average height and a BMI over 28 might expect to lose 19 pounds by adding a 3.2-mile run to her daily routine, but only nine pounds by expending the same amount of energy by walking.’ Although you’d achieve that total weight loss occurs gradually, you would see the effects from the start. An added bonus of running over walking is that it takes less time to produce the same amount of effort, which is an important factor to consider if you have a busy schedule. Williams outlined that, to expend the effort of running 3.2 miles (which would take roughly 40 minutes), you would need to walk 4.6 miles (which would add up to an hour and 20 minutes).

 

So why does running produce more weight loss? Williams clarified, ‘If you exercise vigorously like running, your metabolic rate remains elevated after the exercise. For walkers, much less so.’ Aside from your metabolism, previous research has shown that vigorous exercisers who overeat are better at compensating later. ‘If runners overeat one day, they make up for it the next,’ Williams said. He added that the reason he chose to evaluate runners and walkers over those who go to the gym is that ‘runners and walkers think about how much they are doing by how far they go,’ while gym rats are less accurate about reporting their exercise time.

 

Dr. Tim Church, director of preventive medicine research at Pennington Biomedical Research Centre, Baton Rouge, who was not involved in the study, commented that the findings aren’t surprising, but the activity of running shouldn’t get all the credit for the weight control results it produces, as runners are more aware of weight loss wellness. ‘People who are running are more focused on other weight issues,’ Church stated. ‘I guarantee you, the runners are way more focused on their diet than the walkers…If you are concerned about weight, you probably need to focus on [both] diet and physical activity.’

Categories: body mass, female runners, loss, mass index, Research, runners, Running, walkers, Walking, weight, Weight Control, Weight Loss