Should You Stop Running If You Feel Pain?
By Aaron Willingham M. Ed in Kinesiology, CSCS
If you run, you know: It can be a tough thing to do a lot of the time. All that pounding on the concrete, dirt, or gravel can do a lot to your joints. That's why running has shown to be correlated with a lot of overuse injuries.
A lot of the time you'll hear the best remedy is 'time' or 'rest.' This can be the truth in some cases, but most times, you shouldn't stop EVERYTHING. Learning to keep the stimulus while managing the pain can be super beneficial to getting back into running regularly, pain-free! Modifying what you do can be the key for your road to recovery, and 9 times out of 10, ADDING into your exercise regimen instead of SUBTRACTING is the way to go.
So in addition to modifying your runs to manage pain/symptoms, adding in strength routines can help your body full-heartedly!
Why You Should Practice Resistance Training
Overuse injuries are typically due to the body not being prepared to handle a certain stimulus over time. To prepare our bodies for running, we need to have relative strength as well as maximal strength. This means we need to, first, be able to carry our body through the force of gravity, and, second, produce about 2-4x as much force as our bodyweight through the force of gravity. With muscle strength aside, resistance training also helps with the integrity of the joints through each foot strike. Your tendons and ligaments need tensile strength as they push and pull on bones. Increasing the strength through tendons and ligaments will help you increase bone density and joint health, making you a resilient runner!
Examples of Exercises
If you're wondering where to start, here are just 3 exercises that you can start to add to your weekly strength routines! (there are many more...)
This exercise will help with single-leg strength and balance in a movement pattern very similar to running.
Bring one foot forward and, keeping that front heel glued to the ground, drive your back knee towards the ground. Bring that back leg to the front and repeat on the other side.
Eccentric Bent Knee Calf Raises:
Everyone knows that shin splints are very common for runners. This exercise will help to build up your soleus muscle (the muscle that is related to shin splints and ankle joint problems).
Sitting down, add resistance to the top of your knees with your hands or weight. Raise your heels off the ground as high as you can and slowly bring them back down to a count of 3.
This last exercise will help you build strength through your posterior chain, focusing on your glutes and hamstrings.
Stepping in the middle of a trap bar, spread your feet to about shoulder-width and grab the middle of the handles. Tilt your chest up and push your hips as forward as possible. Bring the bar back down to the ground and repeat for reps.
One thing that is important to note is that each exercise above is focused primarily on lower-extremity benefits. We cannot emphasize enough that full-body strength is also vital to runners' health. Adding in upper extremity exercises are very important so you can focus on your upper body and lower body working in synthesis with each other. Remember, you run ON your legs, but you run WITH your arms!!