Running Tips

SHOULD YOU

RUN THROUGH

AN INJURY?

HOW TO STAY INJURY-FREE —OR BOUNCE BACK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE WITH RECORD-BREAKING

MARATHONER RYAN HALL

10PREVENTION LAWS OF INJURY

TO STRETCH OR NOT

TO STRETCH?

HOW RYAN HALL BOUNCES BACK 10 SIGNS IT’S TIME TO REST

In an ideal runner’s world, every step of every mile would be 100 percent pain-free. No aches, no twinges, no lingering soreness from yesterday’s workout. The reality is that many runners constantly deal with a slight (or not so slight) disturbance—a tender foot, a tight hamstring, a whiny knee. I’m certainly no exception: Throughout my career I’ve had to work my way through IT band syndrome, shin splints, tendonitis in various parts of my body, and a whole lot of other aches and pains. What I’ve found is that equally important to how you treat an injury is how you approach one mentally. When I was in high school, I would just ignore any pain and pray that it would disappear by the morning. I wouldn’t tell my coach—who was my dad—unless it got really bad. Now, years later, I realize that injuries aren’t something to ignore or be ashamed of. Part of pushing my body involves crossing over that invisible line between “health” and “injury” from time to time. If you never get injured then you probably aren’t really finding out just how hard you can train. But don’t get me wrong: I am not recommending that anyone go out and keep ramping up their training until they hurt themselves. My point is simply that when you’re pushing yourself hard every day to prepare for a race, injuries are going to pop up. Don’t freak out; it’s all a part of the journey. And with any luck, this guide will help you prevent injuries and recover from them faster when you do get sidelined. It includes some tips I’ve followed throughout my career that have allowed me to handle injuries well and quickly get back out on the road running. I’d love to hear from you—please tell me how you stay healthy on the Nissan Innovation for Endurance Facebook page at: facebook.com/innovationforendurance

Wishing You Happy, Healthy Running! —RYAN HALL, RECORD-BREAKING MARATHONER

RYAN’S TAKE:

‘‘OR NOT

‘‘

TO STRETCH TO STRETCH?

Recently, stretching has been a hot topic in the running world. After doing quite a bit of research on the topic myself, and then experimenting, I have found what works for me, which is to spend 15 minutes after every run doing some active stretching. I’ve found that I get injured if I don’t stretch at all but I know that some people feel best not stretching at all, so my advice is to experiment with it and see what works for you. Now a few comments on flexibility and what I’ve observed about elite runners and their flexibility: When I’m stretching, the goal of my stretching is not necessarily to gain flexibility. My goal is to maintain flexibility and to keep my legs from getting bound up. I don’t stretch to the point where my muscles are trembling and I don’t spend hours a day stretching. I want my legs to be healthy; I don’t want to be Gumby. The best explanation I have is that runners want our muscle tension to be somewhat high. Picture two Slinkys, one that’s tightly strung and one that’s really loosely strung. Which one bounces off the ground fastest? The tightly strung one. We want the same thing when we run; we don’t want to be so loose that our rebound off the ground is slow. I have never met any elite runner out there that isn’t “tight.”

‘‘

‘‘

SHOULD YOU RUN THROUGH AN INJURY?

I have learned a lot over the years about the types of pain I can run through and the types of pain that require me to stop. Here are my personal rules for running through pain:

1. IF THE PAIN IS GETTING WORSE THE LONGER I AM RUNNING, I STOP. 2. IF THE PAIN IS SHARP, I STOP.

3. IF THE PAIN IS CAUSING ME TO LIMP, I STOP. 4. IF THE PAIN IS GETTING WORSE FROM DAY TO DAY, I STOP.

Otherwise, I run through little aches and pains that come with the territory.

The advice in this document should not be used in place of professional medical advice. Promptly consult your physician if you’re experiencing pain, injury, or other health issues.

10

LAWS OF INJURY

PREVENTION BY AMBY BURFOOT

MOST RUNNERS ARE FORCED TO STOP RUNNING FROM TIME TO TIME, SO NEARLY ALL OF US COULD BENEFIT FROM THE GOOD ADVICE OF SPORTS-MEDICINE EXPERTS TO HELP US STAY HEALTHY FOR YEARS TO COME. FOLLOW THESE 10 TIME-TESTED PRINCIPLES AND YOU’LL SPEND MORE TIME ON THE ROADS—AND LESS IN REHAB.

In the mid-1970s, Runner’s World medical editor George Sheehan, M.D., confirmed that he was hardly the only runner beset by injuries: A poll of the magazine’s readers revealed that 60 percent reported chronic problems. “One person in 100 is a motor genius,” who doesn’t have injuries, concluded the often-sidelined Sheehan. To describe himself and the rest of us, he turned to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “There is a crack in everything God has made.” With all the amazing advancements in sports medicine, you’d think that our rates of shinsplints and stress fractures would have dropped since Sheehan’s era. But 30 years after running’s first Big Boom, we continue to get hurt. A runnersworld.com poll revealed that 66 percent of respondents had suffered an injury in 2009. Still, I figured medical science must have uncovered lots of little-known prevention secrets. So I went searching for them. After reviewing hundreds of published papers, I was surprised to find few answers. So I switched to Plan B: I interviewed nearly a dozen of the best running-injury experts in the world. They come from the fields of biomechanics, sports podiatry, and physical therapy. Like the medical studies, these experts didn’t always agree. But the more I talked with them, the more certain principles began to emerge. From these, I developed the following 10 laws of injury prevention. I can’t guarantee that these rules will prevent you from ever getting hurt. But if you incorporate these guidelines into your training, I’m confident you’ll be more likely to enjoy a long and healthy running life.

1

It’s easy to get injured; anyone can do it. Just run too much. “I firmly believe that every runner has an injury threshold,” says physical therapist and biomechanist Irene Davis, Ph.D., from the University of Delaware’s Running Injury Clinic. “Your threshold could be at 10 miles a week, or 100, but once you exceed it, you get injured.” Various studies have identified injury-thresholds at 11, 25, and 40 miles per week. Your threshold is waiting for you to discover it.

KNOW YOUR

LIMITS

Of course, your goal is to avoid injury. Runner and sports podiatrist Stephen Pribut, D.P.M., warns runners to beware the “terrible toos”—doing too much, too soon, too fast. Every research paper and every expert agrees that this—”training errors”—is the number one cause of selfinflicted running injuries. The body needs time to adapt from training changes and jumps in mileage or intensity. Muscles and joints need recovery time so they can recover and handle more training demands. If you rush that process, you could break down rather than build up. Running experts have recognized this problem, and long ago devised an easy-to-use 10-percent rule: Build your weekly training mileage by no more than 10 percent per week. If you run 10 miles the first week, do just 11 miles the second week, 12 miles the third week, and so on. Yet, there may be times when even a modest 10 percent increase proves too much. Biomechanist Reed Ferber, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the faculty of kinesiology and head of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Calgary says that he sees a lot of newly injured runners during that third month of marathon training, when a popular 16-week Canadian program pushes the mileage hard.


Meanwhile, his clinic’s nine-month marathon program for first-timers increases mileage by just three percent per week. “We have a 97 percent success rate getting people through the entire program and to the marathon finish line,” Ferber says. ACTION PLAN Be the Tortoise, not the Hare. Increase your weekly and monthly running totals gradually. Use the 10-percent rule as a general guideline, but realize that it might be too aggressive for you—especially if you are injury-prone. A five-percent or three-percent increase might be more appropriate. In addition to following a hard-day/easy-day approach, or more likely a hard/easy/easy pattern, many top runners use a system where they scale back their weekly mileage by 20 to 40 percent on a regular basis, maybe once a month. And remember that mileage isn’t the only issue. Experts point out that an overly aggressive approach to hill running, intervals, trail running—indeed, any change in your training habits— can produce problems. Keeping a detailed training log can help you gauge your personal training threshold. Record your weekly mileage and how you feel after your runs. Look for patterns. For instance, you may notice that your knees ache only when you’re logging more than 40 miles a week. Another major bugaboo: You used to run 30 miles a week, you got injured, now you want to get back to your old routine as quickly as possible. Don’t. Take your time. The same applies to that upcoming race— if you missed some training time, don’t accelerate the pace and distance of your remaining workouts in an effort to “catch up.” Instead, adjust your goals as needed.

2 LISTEN TO YOUR

BODY

This is perhaps the oldest and most-widely-repeated advice for avoiding injuries, and still the best: If you don’t run through pain, you can nip injuries in the bud. Most running injuries don’t erupt from nowhere and blindside you. They produce signals—aches, soreness, persistent pain—but it’s up to you to not dismiss them and take appropriate (in)action. “Runners can be crazy the way they’ll run through pain,” Ferber says. “They need to pay more attention to pain and get to the root of what’s causing it.”

3

ACTION PLAN At the first sign of an atypical pain (discomfort that worsens during a run or causes you to alter your

CONSIDER SHORTENING YOUR STRIDE

This comes as a bit of a surprise because it’s not discussed much in running circles. Nonetheless, more than half the experts I interviewed mentioned it. And a December 2009 study reports that runners who shorten their stride by 10 percent could reduce risk of tibial stress fracture by three to six percent. The basic idea: Overstriding is a common mistake that can lead to decreased efficiency and increased injury risk. If you shorten your stride, you’ll land “softer” with each footfall, incurring lower impact forces. “A shorter stride will usually lower the impact force, which should reduce injuries,” says biomechanist Alan Hreljac, Ph.D., a retired researcher from California State University-Sacramento. For the last decade, Davis has been researching runners’ abilities to change their stride. Previously,


gait), take three days off. Substitute light walking, water training, or bicycling if you want. On the fourth day, run half your normal easy-day amount at a much slower pace than usual. If you typically run four miles at nine minutes per mile, do just two miles at 11-minute pace. Success? Excellent. Reward yourself with another day off, and then run three miles at 10-minute pace. If you’re pain-free, continue easing back into your normal routine. If not, take another three days off, then repeat the process to see if it works the second time around. If not, you’ve got two obvious options: Take more time off, and/or schedule an appointment with a sports-medicine specialist.

experts believed that your stride was as immutable as your fingerprint, but Davis has used biofeedback equipment to disprove the old view. “We have shown that running and walking gait can be altered in such a way as to reduce pain, improve function, and reduce injury risk,” she says. ACTION PLAN If you’ve had frequent running injuries, you might want to experiment running with your normal stride, just slightly shorter—about 10 percent. “This will help reduce your stride so you have more turnover,” Davis says. “The number of footstrikes or repetitions trumps having a longer stride because it reduces your impact load.” Start with a short distance, like a quarter mile, when making this change. If you have an injury that’s related to your gait, see a physical therapist.

4 USE STRENGTH

TRAINING TO BALANCE YOUR BODY

You need something—and what better than muscle?—to keep your body properly aligned while you’re running down the road at 450 pounds of crunching, twistingin, and torquing-out force per stride. According to Ferber, it’s particularly important to strengthen the hip muscles. He claims his clinic has cured 92 percent of knee injuries with a hip regimen. “Strengthening the hips is optimal for effective rehabilitation, as opposed to treating the area where the pain is located (e.g., your knee),” he says. “When you strengthen the hips—the abductors, adductors, and gluteus maximus—you increase your leg stability all the way down to the ankle.”

ACTION PLAN You don’t want to train for bulging muscles. You need just enough core, hip, and lowerleg strength training to keep your pelvis and lower-extremity joints properly positioned. “Healthy running should be as symmetrical and fluid as possible,” says Michael Fredericson, M.D., associate professor of sports medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. “If you don’t have muscle balance, then you lose the symmetry, and that’s when you start having problems.”

When you’ve got muscle aches or joint pains, there’s nothing better than rest, ice, compression, and elevation for immediate treatment. These measures can relieve pain, reduce swelling, and protect damaged tissues, all of which speed healing. The only problem with RICE is that too many runners focus on the “I” while ignoring the “RCE.” Ice reduces inflammation, but to ice-and-run, ice-and-run, without giving the tissues enough time to heal, is a little like dieting every day until 6 p.m. and then pigging out. And so Bruce Wilk, an orthopedic rehabilitation specialist in Miami, has added another letter to the acronym, spelling out PRICE. The P stands for “protection,” which means don’t run until the injury is better.

your hamstring, plan to take a few days off from running (see Law II). Apply ice—for 10 to 15 minutes at a time, several times a day. A homemade ice pack—a baggie filled with ice cubes and water—is best. A bag of frozen vegetables is also effective. If you can, elevate the area (easy for foot and ankle injuries, not so much for hip or hamstring issues) to limit swelling. Compression can also further reduce inflammation and can provide pain relief, especially when you first return to running. An ACE bandage is the simplest way to wrap a swollen area, but Amol Saxena, a sports podiatrist in Palo Alto, California, uses a compression dressing with 3M Coban, a selfadherent over-the-counter product. He then uses Kinesio Tex Tape or a Darco Body Armor Walker for when the swelling goes down. “The tape pulls up the skin slightly, allowing more blood to flow to the injured area,” he says.

5 RICE

WORKS


ACTION PLAN RICE is most effective when done immediately following an injury. If you twist your ankle or strain


RUN ON A LEVEL SURFACE

DON’T RACE OR DO SPEEDWORK TOO OFTEN

STRETCH THE BACK OF YOUR LEGS

678 Here’s another factor that could have a significant impact on running injuries, but has been rarely studied: road camber. No doubt you always run on the left side of the road facing traffic. That’s good for safety reasons. But it also gives you a functional leg-length discrepancy, since your left foot hits the road lower on the slope than your right foot. You’re also placing your left foot on a slant that tends to limit healthy pronation, and your right foot in a position that encourages overpronation. And you’re doing this—running in an unbalanced way—160 to 180 strides a minute for mile after mile, day after day, week after week. Clint Verran, a physical therapist in Lake Orion, Michigan, sees the results of this cambered running in his clinic, where he treats a higher incidence of left-hip injuries in runners than right-hip injuries. ACTION PLAN True, it’s not easy to escape cambered asphalt. And safety concerns demand that you run on the left side of the road. So now you’ve already got two strikes against you. To avoid strike three, remember that road camber can cause problems. If you’re increasing your mileage, feel an injury coming on, or are returning from injury, try to do some of your training runs on a level surface like a bike path or dirt trail. The local track also provides a firm, essentially flat surface that’s great for slow-paced running. (When you do faster interval training on a track, you put unequal torque on your feet and legs due to the need to keep turning left, so be careful if you are injury prone.) Also consider the treadmill. It’s hard to imagine a better surface for balanced running. At the very least, a treadmill provides a great surface for beginning runners, runners who are recovering from an injury, and perhaps even marathoners aiming to increase mileage without increasing their injury risk.

Few running practices are as hallowed as stretching. And none have been debated as Researchers have found a correlation between much in recent years. Studies have failed to injuries and frequent race efforts. This connection reliably show that the addition of stretching to a might extend to speedwork since intervals also warmup before activity reduces overuse injuries. require a near-maximal effort. So if you train “The jury’s been out on stretching for about fast once or twice a week and then race on the a decade,” says Michael Ryan, Ph.D., a postweekend, that’s a lot of hard efforts without doctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsinsufficient rest, particularly if you follow this Madison. “And as far as I can tell, it hasn’t come pattern week after week. Some experts are in yet.” Yet few experts in the field are ready to cautious about recommending regular speed abandon stretching. The reasoning: Runners are training for certain runners, especially those who tight in predictable areas, they get injured in and get hurt easily. It’s fine for those chasing podium around these areas, and therefore they should placements or age-group awards. But for midincrease flexibility in these areas. The muscle and back-of-the-packers? “You might get five groups at the back of the legs—the hamstrings percent faster, but your injury risk could climb and calf muscles—stand atop most lists of “best by 25 percent,” Verran says. “That’s a bad riskmuscles for runners to stretch.” Hamstring benefit ratio. I think most runners can hit their and hip-flexor flexibility seems to improve knee goals without going harder than tempo pace.” function (several reports link poor hamstring and hip-flexor flexibility with “larger knee joint loads”), ACTION PLAN and calf flexibility may keep the Achilles tendon Recognize that races take a heavy toll, so give and plantar fascia healthy. yourself plenty of recovery time (one day for each mile raced). If you are trying to quicken your pace ACTION PLAN for a specific goal, add a weekly speedwork Little evidence indicates that stretching prevents session to your training plan, but be judicious overuse injuries. That said, knee and Achilles about it. Even Olympic gold medalists only do problems are among runners’ most frequent five to 10 percent of their training at 5-K race complaints, and so experts recommend pace and faster. If you’re coming back from an increasing the range of motion of muscles that injury or have chronic issues you’re fearful of can strain these areas if there is underlying aggravating, consider Verran’s advice. Do your tightness. Just don’t do static stretches (holding faster workouts at tempo pace (5-K pace plus 25 an elongated muscle in a fixed position for 30 to 35 seconds per mile). seconds or longer) before running. However, dynamic stretching can be done as a safe, effective prerun warmup.

9 CROSS-TRAINING PROVIDES ACTIVE

REST AND RECOVERY

Running is hard on the body, although claims that it creates impact forces up to seven to eight times body weight are exaggerated, according to the experts I consulted. But they acknowledge the forces can reach two to three times body weight with each stride, and even more on downhills. It’s no surprise that our muscles, joints, and connective tissues get weary from all this shock-absorbing. So experts agree that most runners benefit from at least one nonrunning day a week, and that injury-prone

runners should avoid consecutive days of running. Cross-training offers a great alternative.

Running shoes have changed a lot over the years. They breathe better, are more likely to come in various widths, and are constructed from superior materials. Most important, there are far more shoes to choose from (racing, training, track, cross-country). There are even minimalist shoes designed to mimic barefoot running (although there’s no scientific evidence that forgoing shoes decreases injury risk). This gives you more options. Of course, you still have to figure out which shoe will work best for you—not an easy task. “There’s no single best shoe for every runner,” says J. D. Denton, who has owned a Fleet Feet running store in Davis, California, for 14 years. Not only that, but it’s impossible to say that shoe ABC will eliminate injury XYZ. Denton and his staff are careful to draw a line between giving medical advice and suggesting a top-notch shoe. “We’re careful not to say, ‘This shoe will cure your plantar fasciitis,’” Denton says. “Shoes aren’t designed to cure injuries. Our goal is to make sure you get the shoe that fits and functions best on your feet.”

Others are less cautious than Denton. They point out that while a given shoe isn’t guaranteed to heal a given injury, the right shoe on the right runner can help. Verran says that he has been able to help patients overcome injuries by suggesting a better fit. “It happens all the time,” Verran says. “It’s a matter of finding the shoe that’s right for a certain foot type.”

10 GET SHOES

THAT FIT


ACTION PLAN Use cross-training activities to supplement your running, improve your muscle balance, and keep you injury-free. Swimming, cycling, elliptical training, and rowing will burn a lot of calories and improve your aerobic fitness, but be careful not to aggravate injury-prone areas.

ACTION PLAN Don’t expect shoes to correct an injury resulting from training error or muscular imbalance. However, when you need new shoes (replace them every 300 to 500 miles), go to a specialty store to get expert advice. As a general rule, buy less shoe rather than more shoe (unless you weigh 220 pounds or know you need the Monster Mash model). Studies show that shoes perform best when they fit best. Ask your shoe salesperson: “Why is this the best shoe for me?” If he or she can’t provide a sound answer, find another store.

When injuries come—and if you are training hard something will probably pop up at some time or another—the first goal is to get a proper medical diagnosis so you know what exactly you’re dealing with. Without knowing exactly what is going on it’s impossible to know how to treat it and then learn why it happened and how to prevent it going forward. FIND THE CAUSE. I look at injuries as a puzzle. My temptation is always to address the symptom or the pain without looking into what is causing the pain. I have had injuries before that, when I treated the opposing muscle to the injured muscle, the pain actually went away. The symptoms need to be addressed but the most important thing is to address the cause. So when you’re discussing your path to health with your therapist or doctor make sure to ask “what’s causing the problem?”

TALK TO OTHERS. Tap into as many people as you can who have worked through the same injury you’re experiencing. We are so blessed to live in an age when the Internet makes it so easy to connect with people who have had similar injuries or illnesses to what you are battling. When I had plantar fasciitis, I talked to as many people as I could who had the same injury, and there were a lot of them. I heard 101 ways to get rid of plantar fasciitis and I tried many of them. I’m not sure all of them worked but there were a few that really helped.


DO WHAT YOU CAN TO SPEED HEALING. I’ve learned with certain injuries that, for me, the best way to recover is not to take time off, but rather to start doing specific strengthening exercises. After I pulled out of the London Olympic Marathon with hamstring tendonitis I came home and got right to work doing single-leg Romanian dead lifts. I was surprised how fast the injury healed when I started doing strengthening exercises. Obviously there are injuries, like stress fractures, when strengthening is not a good idea, but for tendon inflammations in particular strengthening can really help. Also, I’ve learned that blood flow is key to increasing healing so things like contrast baths (going back and forth between soaking in a cold tub and a hot tub) can really help.

1. BODY MASS:

6. MOOD STATE:

YOU LOST WEIGHT FROM YESTERDAY

A two percent drop in weight from one day to the next indicates a bodyfluid fluctuation. Most likely, you didn’t hydrate enough during or after your last workout. Dehydration negatively impacts both physical and mental performance, and could compromise the quality of your next workout.

2. RESTING HEART RATE: YOUR RESTING HEART RATE IS ELEVATED

Take your pulse each morning before you get out of bed to find what’s normal for you. An elevated resting heart rate is one sign of stress. It means your nervous system prepared for fight or flight by releasing hormones that sped up your heart to move more oxygen to the muscles and brain. Your body won’t know the difference between physical and psychological stress. A hard run and a hard day at work both require extra recovery. 3. SLEEP:

YOU DIDN’T SLEEP WELL OR ENOUGH

A pattern of consistently good sleep will give you a boost of growth hormones, which are great for rebuilding muscle fibers. Several nights in a row of bad sleep will decrease reaction time along with immune, motor, and cognitive functions—not a good combination for a workout.

4. HYDRATION:

YOUR PEE IS DARK YELLOW

This can be an indicator of dehydration, barring the consumption of vitamins, supplements, or certain foods the evening before. The darker the color, the more you’re struggling to retain fluids, because there’s not enough to go around. You need H2O to operate (and recover).

YOU’RE CRANKY

When your body is overwhelmed by training (or other stressors), it produces hormones like cortisol that can cause irritability or anxiety. Stress also halts chemicals like dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain that has a big bummer effect on mood when depleted. Crankiness probably means not enough recovery.

PAY ATTENTION TO 10 BODY INDICATORS TO GAUGE WHEN TO RUN AND WHEN TO BACK OFF

IS IT TIME TO REST?

If you don’t take time for proper R&R, your body won’t adapt to the stress of your training—you won’t get stronger or faster, explains Stacy Sims, Ph.D., at the Stanford PreventionResearch Center, School of Medicine. Neglect recovery for too long, and you will start to lose strength and speed. You’ll sink into the black hole known as overtraining.

First, your sleep patterns and energy levels will feel the effects. Eventually, your immune system crashes, and you lose your appetite. It’s like burning out your engine. And you don’t have to be logging 100-mile weeks to suffer. Recreational runners can overtrain, too. “With deadlines, chores, bills, kids, and lack of sleep, it’s more challenging to recover properly from your runs,” says Sims. Pay attention to the following 10 markers. If three or more of these indicators raise a red flag, you should consider a few easy sessions or off days so you can return to running strong.

5. ENERGY LEVEL: YOU’RE RUN DOWN

If your energy level is low, there’s something amiss. The key is honesty. Athletes can block out signs of fatigue to push through it, thinking it will make them stronger. It won’t always work that way.

7. WELLNESS: YOU’RE SICK

Any illness, or even a woman’s menstrual cycle, will increase your need for energy to refuel your immune system, which is having to work overtime. This means fewer resources available for recovering from training.

8. PAIN:

YOU’RE SORE OR NURSING AN INJURY

Whether you’re sore from overworked muscles or an injury, your body needs more energy to put toward repair, lengthening total recovery time.

9. PERFORMANCE:

YOUR WORKOUT WENT POORLY

This is a subjective measure of workout quality, not quantity nor intensity. If you felt great on yesterday’s run, you’d evaluate that as good. If you felt sluggish on that same run, you’d count it as poor. Trending workout quality— multiple poors in a row—is one of the easiest ways to identify the need for more recovery.

10. OXYGEN SATURATION:: YOUR OXYGEN LEVEL HAS DIPPED The amount of oxygen in the hemoglobin of the red blood cells can be measured by placing your fingertip in a portable pulse oximeter, a gadget available online for about $40. The higher the percentage, the better: Above 95 percent is the norm at sea level or for an athlete who is fully acclimated to a given altitude. This is a new area in recovery science, requiring more research, but there may be a link between low oxygen saturation and the need for more recovery.

‘‘PLANTAR FASCIITIS RYAN’S TAKE:

HOW I CURED MY

‘‘

The best advice I ever got for dealing with plantar fasciitis (PF) came from an old-time runner that I crossed paths with while getting therapy at a PT clinic. He told me, “Listen, the bad news is it’s going to hurt; the good news is, it’s going to get better.” While this doesn’t really seem like “advice” it really helped me deal with PF.

Sometimes, the emotional and psychological toll an injury can take on the runner can be worse than the actual physical pain. When I heard this advice it helped me come to peace with my injury and that alone made the process easier for me. With that said, there were some tangible things that helped speed my recovery from plantar fasciitis: 1. The most effective therapy I got was shockwave therapy, which basically uses a very deep penetrating sound wave to actually cause trauma to the area and then stimulate the body’s natural healing response. This is a very painful and expensive process and requires 12 consecutive treatments done weekly. 2. Running in well-cushioned shoes on soft surfaces. 3. Warming up apple cider vinegar as hot as I could stand it and soaking my foot in it before every run and before bed. 4. Being patient and also realizing that time off might not be the answer. I took 3 weeks off after the Olympic Marathon Trials, hoping to rid myself of PF, yet my first run back was just as painful as prior to my break. I talked to a friend who’d had PF and took an entire year off and still had PF when he came back from his break. The moral of the story for me was not to take more time off, but to do things like exercises such as towel pulls that promote blood flow.


ROLL, ROLL, ROLL

YOUR MUSCLES FOUR WAYS TO BREAK UP PAINFUL KNOTS AND GET RELIEF. BY MYATT MURPHY

Unlocking your body’s true potential isn’t always about logging tons of miles or lifting weights—it’s how you pamper your body afterwards that really counts. Rolling your muscles along a foam roller isn’t just a terrific way to give your muscles a quick massage, but it can break up the knots that could be creating pain after a hard workout. Foam rolling also helps to improve your circulation and range of motion, while simultaneously reducing scar tissue, joint stress, and muscle inflammation. Foam rolling is something that anyone serious about their exercise should try. Here are four ways you can incorporate the technique into your workouts right now: You’ll perform each of the moves below for 20 to 30 seconds each. As you roll, avoid rolling onto bones or joints. The roller should only touch your muscles at all times. FOR YOUR CALVES: Sit on the floor and place

the roller underneath your calves. Put your hands on the floor behind you and lift your butt up off the floor so that all of your bodyweight rests on your hands and on the roller. Slowly roll forward and backward; the roller should travel up and down from just below your knees to just above your ankles.

FOR YOUR HAMSTRINGS AND GLUTES:

Sit with your legs straight out in front of you and the roller underneath your thighs. Place your hands flat on the floor behind you for support. Slowly roll forward and backward—the roller should travel up and down from between the bottom of your glutes (buttocks) to just above your knees.

FOR YOUR ILIOTIBIAL BAND (IT BAND): FOR YOUR QUADRICEPS: Lie face down

Lie on your right side with the roller positioned just below your right hip. Bend your arm so that you’re resting your weight on your elbow and forearm. Finally, cross your left leg over your right so that your left foot rests on the floor in front of you. Using your right arm for support, roll back and forth so you feel the roller move up and down between the area just below your hip to just above your knee. Continue to roll back and forth for the allotted time, then switch positions to work your left leg.

with the roller placed beneath your thigh(s). Bend your elbows so that your forearms are flat on the floor to support your weight; your foot/feet should remain suspended above the floor. Use your arms to gently roll your body forward and backward so that you feel the roller move up and down between your pelvic bone down to just above your knee(s).


HOW RYAN ROLLS As any marathon runner can attest, some mornings you wake up and are greeted with the aches and pains that come with ramping up miles and miles of running. I’ve found that the easiest way for me to stay injury-free is to keep injuries from happening in the first place. One of the most effective ways I accomplish this is by making a field hockey ball my best friend. In my opinion, there is nothing that can replace the healing touch of human hands, but the field hockey ball comes close. To maintain my health in between my bi-weekly massages, I spend 10 to 15 minutes per day rolling on those achy areas. A field hockey ball is great for rolling on your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. I usually use a foam roller to self-massage my quads and calves. Rolling is a very simple yet effective technique but it does require some pain tolerance. I know I am on the right spot when I am rolling and I hit a painful area. These are usually the best places to keep the pressure on and try and relax your muscles around the ball. Deep breathing is a good technique to relax through the pain. This simple approach to self-therapy can go a long way in preventing injuries from happening and it doesn’t take long but the cumulative effects are sure to make a difference in your training and performance on race day.

A STRONG START BREEDS CONFIDENCE. Elite marathoner Ryan Hall gets off to strong starts to establish his position. The All-New Sentra starts off with premium features to establish dominance in its class. It’s not every vehicle that offers its drivers DualZone Climate Control, Sport & Eco drive modes, Bluetooth®1 streaming audio and LED headlight accents all under one sunroof2. Right off of the starting line, you can feel confident knowing that you and Sentra are ahead of the rest of the pack. It’s our most innovative Sentra and the most innovative Ryan ever. Go for more at: facebook.com/innovationforendurance • Dual-Zone Climate Control • Bluetooth®1 Streaming Audio • LED Headlight Accents

Availability of specific features is dependent upon the phone’s Bluetooth® support. Please refer to your phone owner’s manual for details. Bluetooth word mark and logos are owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc., and any use of such marks by Nissan is under license. 2Available feature. Always wear your seat belt, and please don’t drink and drive. ©2012 Nissan North America, Inc.

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