5 tips for injury prevention in running

As an athlete, there is nothing worse than getting injured and being forced to put your training (and possibly racing) on hold while you recover. Injuries aren’t 100 per cent avoidable, but you can do a lot to minimize your risk of getting hurt, including simple things like prioritizing recovery, a bit of prehab work in the gym, and more. Here are five tips to help give you the best shot at keeping healthy so you don’t have to take a break from training any time soon.

Warm up and cool down

Whether you’re swimming, biking, running, or doing any other kind of workout, you should be warming up and cooling down properly. The warmup and cool down hardly take any time at all, but too many triathletes choose to skip them. You might be able to get away with this for a while, but if you make it a daily habit with every workout, soon enough you’ll end up getting hurt.

Recover well

One of the best ways to avoid injury is to recover well after your workouts. It is also incredibly easy to prioritize your recovery. After your run, make sure you refuel with protein and carbs. You should also get hydrated by drinking plenty of water or a source of electrolytes. Another key to a good recovery is sleep. Sleep is important for everybody, but if you’re putting strain on your body as a triathlete, it’s even more necessary. When you sleep, you give your body the chance to rebuild and recover, so you should make sure to get as much as possible.

Hit the gym

We know that you’re already so busy with your swim, bike, and run training, but you really should dedicate some time to working out in the gym, too. You don’t have to crush every workout in the gym and pump wild amounts of iron, but slotting a weights routine into your schedule will go a long way in helping to keep you injury-free. Focus on squats, lunges, calf raises, deadlifts, and hip abduction and adduction exercises. These will strengthen your lower body, prevent injury, and make you a faster runner overall.

Remember the 80/20 rule

You’re a triathlete, so we know that you like to work hard, but when it comes to running, you can’t forget the 80/20 rule. This rule says that, generally, your run training schedule should be 80 per cent easy, light runs and just 20 per cent hard. This might not sound like the most fun of training splits, but it’s the best option to keep you healthy.

Don’t push your luck

You know the difference between being tired or sore and bad pain. If you’re tired, you can push through and finish your workout, but if you feel a twinge of real pain in training, stop and call it a day. We know that you want to finish every workout you start, but pushing through bad pain will almost certainly lead to injury. However, if you stop and focus on recovery after feeling a twinge, you could fix that problem and avoid getting hurt altogether.