Running is a fantastic way to stay active, boost your mood, and improve your (cardiovascular) health. However, it’s not without its challenges, and sometimes runners run into an injury (badum tsss). Whether you’re a seasoned marathoner or just starting your jogging journey, understanding common running injuries and how to prevent them is crucial for staying on the road (or trail).
On this page you’ll find more information on the 6 most common running injuries, what you can do yourself to manage them and how we can help you overcome them.
Before we get into the specifics, most running injuries occur from doing too much, too fast after doing too little for too long. So check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Invest in a running coach, get yourself a decent plan and focus on running technique before you start increasing your mileage! Preventing running injuries also means listening to your body, knowing your limits, and allowing yourself adequate time to recover. Going slow isn’t sexy, but limping around the office because of the pain isn’t either.
When you start to develop symptoms, be smart and adjust your intensity and swap a run for a strength training for example. If you follow these principles for a couple of weeks, you should be able to manage most issues yourself. When it doesn’t, give us a call. We’ll look at the factors involved in your issues and together we can make a personalized plan on how to overcome your running injuries as soon as possible.
That was some general advice, now let’s get into the 6 most common running injuries.
1. Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome
Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome is one of the most common running injuries. It is characterized by a dull pain or ache around or behind the kneecap. Most often it’s caused by a rapid increase in volume or intensity. This causes an overuse in the tissues around the knee.
When you start to develop symptoms of patellafemoral pain syndrome, a temporary decrease in running speed and volume can already help. In addition, stretching and strengthening of the quads, hamstrings and calves can also help significantly in managing the pain. Sometimes taping the kneecap with kinesiotape can give a relief of the issues.
When the symptoms persist, it’s wise to visit a health professional like us. During our intake we do a thorough assessment of the issue and try to figure out WHY it happens. More often than not other areas, like the hip or ankle are involved. If, for example, we would only focus on the knee, we’d probably miss the root cause and that’s not what we want. In other words, we need to look beyond the painful spot to find the root cause of your knee pain.
Click here to find out more about knee injuries and what our approach looks like
2. Shin Splints (Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome)
Everyone who has had these, know this is a very nasty and painful running injury.
Shin splints manifest as pain along the shin bone (tibia) and typically result from overuse or improper running mechanics.
The involved muscles are the long toe flexors and the tibialis posterior. These muscles are called the deep compartment muscles.
Your toe flexors are responsible for the horizontal displacement when you run while your calf muscles are responsible for your vertical displacement. You can imagine that longer strides and a high running speed will put a higher load on the toe flexors. A good way to avoid shin splints is to keep your strides short(er) and increase your speed and distance slowly over time.
Also, make sure you train your feet and toes (yes that is trainable) and consider incorporating cross-training activities like swimming or cycling to reduce the impact on your shins.
During our treatments of shin splint we focus on finding out why these muscles are overworked. Sometimes it’s a ‘simple’ load management issue, but sometimes it has to do with joint mobility in the ankle or foot. Addressing this with Active Release Techniques treatment will significantly increase recovery times.
3. Plantar Fasciitis
Plantar fasciitis is a running injury in the foot and is an inflammation of the the plantar fascia on the bottom of the foot
The plantar fascia creates the arch in your foot and basically works as a shock absorber when you walk or run. When you land, the joints in your arch extend and the arch flattens out. This causes the plantar fascia to get lengthened and then spring back to a more relaxed state. When the extension of arch of the foot is compromised, the plantar fascia doesn’t spring back and stays taut. Over time this can lead to an inflammatory response causing plantar fasciitis.
If left un addressed, this issue can linger for a long time.
The moment you start to develop symptoms on the bottom of your foot, temporarily decrease your running volume. In addition, you can also roll out the bottom of your foot with a massage ball.
Also, there is a fascial connection to the achilles tendon and calf. So stretching and strengthening those can also help managing starting plantar fasciitis symptoms.
If you’ve been doing that but the issues last longer than 4 weeks, its time to get some help. Our therapists can find out where your plantar fasciitis is coming from. Sometimes the bones and joints in your foot are not moving the way they should and are impairing the shock absorption qualities of the arch. With Active Release Techniques we can restore the motion in these joints and speed up the recovery process significantly.
4. Achilles Tendonitis / tendinopathy
Achilles problems are also a very common running injury.
The achilles tendon is the tendon that attaches your calf muscles to your heel bone (calcaneus). When your foot touches the ground during running, the achilles tendon is lengthened, stores energy (like an elastic band) and bounces back during push off. The forces on the achilles tendon during running can be 2-3 x as high as during walking. The faster you run, the more strain is put on the tendon.
When repetitive strain is put on the tendon without adequate rest, scar tissue can start to form, impairing the tendon’s elastic abilities. Thus, the tendon becomes stiffer and tighter. If left unaddressed, this can lead to an inflammatory response and create a tendonitis.
Achilles tendon problems are associated with a lower cadence and a longer stride (foot touches the ground in front of centre of mass). Playing around with a higher cadence and shorter strides can help to decrease the load and symptoms. Other types of self treatment can be foamrolling, stretching and strengthening of the calf and shin muscles.
When you start to feel symptoms drop your running speed and volume for a bit and do some rehab activities instead. Sometimes achilles tendon issues occur just because you went too hard, too fast. Adjusting the load will most likely resolve this issue pretty fast. However, the biggest predictor for injuries are previous injuries. A twisted ankle in the same side as your achilles problem could be a contributing factor to your achilles tendon issue.
Sometimes self treatment is not enough and expert help is needed.
During our assessment we look at the ankle and foot mechanics. When you land, the ankle is moved into a direction us physios call dorsal flexion (your toes and shin are coming together). This movement is a combination of both an up and down and rotational movements of the foot and heel bones. If this doesn’t happen as smoothly as it should, it creates a whipping like motion in the achilles tendon, creating a significantly higher load on the tendon. The general advice of calf stretches won’t help when this is the case. With Active Release Techniques and specific exercises we can make sure your ankle movements are restored and the forces that go through the tendon are decreased.
IT Band Syndrome
IT band syndrome is a running injury that causes pain on the outside of the knee. In order to understand how this happens we need to take a look at the functional anatomy. The IT band is a thick band of fascia, almost like a tendon, on the outside of the thigh and knee. It’s function is to stabilize the knee so it doesn’t cave in (or out) during walking (or running). When the IT band gets irritated, its important to find out WHY it happens, not just where it happens.
When you are running, there is a moment when all your weight is on one leg. Your whole body has to stabilize for that. What often happens in the case of IT band syndrome is that the hip abductors lack strength. Strong abductors prevent the knee from caving in. Weak abductors can’t prevent the knee from caving in, putting excess stress and friction on the side of the knee.
In physio land we call this lateral chain problems.
The lateral chain is a chain of muscles/ tissues that live on the side of our body.
Training the lateral chain muscles with exercises like a side plank, single leg squats, side lunges and ankle stability exercise should be included in your (self) treatment program.
When rehab exercises alone don’t do the trick anymore, its time to get some help. We will assess which part of the lateral chain is involved and with Active Release Techniques we can help to mobilize the soft tissue in the lateral chain to make sure everything moves the way it should. Combined with the aforementioned exercises, it should resolve quickly.
6. Hamstring problems
Hamstring problems in runners van range from a strain, a pull, tendinopathy to a tear. Common causes of hamstring problems are overstriding or sprinting too hard without adequate warmup. Also a lack of hamstring strength can play a role in the development of hamstring issues.
The hamstring isn’t just one muscle, but consists of 4 muscles: semimebranosus, semitendinosus, biceps femoris (2 headed muscle). They live between the sit bone and the lower leg and extend the hip and bend the knee. In running they play a vital role in stabilizing/controlling our body and generating force and speed. The faster you run, the higher the load on the hamstrings.
Interestingly, the higher the fatigue in a run, the higher the hamstring activity becomes. So having strong hamstrings are essential for a painfree running experience.
There are several ways how you can strengthen your hamstrings. Because they cross both the knee and the hip, we can train the hamstring by bending your knee( leg curl), or by extending your hip (deadlift/ hip hinge). Also eccentric type exercises like the Nordic curl are a great way to build strong and resilient hamstrings.
When you start experiencing hamstring issues during or after running, try incorporating specific hamstring strength exercises for a couple of weeks. If the issues persists, give us a call! We’ll look at the factors involved in your issues and together we can make a personalized plan on how to overcome your hamstring issue as soon as possible.
Click here to find out more about our approach with hamstring problems
Thank you for reading all the way to the end. You should know a lot more about the 6 most common running injuries and what you can do yourself when you start developing symptoms.
Is treatment always necessary? No. Most issues can resolve when taking into consideration load management, graded exposure, strengthening. However, treatment can speed up the recovery process significantly.
As a general rule of thumb, if the issue persist after 4 weeks, it’s time to look for some help. If you don’t know where to start or if you can’t wait 4 weeks, reach out! The faster you start addressing the issue, the faster you can get back to running.
We specialize in figuring out where the issue is coming from because where you think it is it ain’t. Generally the root cause is one joint above or below.
Feel free to reach out with any questions about your running injury, we love to help!
We also offer free checkups, where you can ask your questions and get an idea of what we can do for you. You can book them through the website
Happy running!
