Jeff Galloway: Tips for Injury

Hi friends! I fly out to LA today for the LA marathon! I can’t wait to make new friends, see old friends, and hang out with the ASICS crew. While I am flying across the country, be sure to check out these tips on injury and prevention from Jeff Galloway. I will be using his run walk run method for Sunday’s race!

Jeff Galloway injury tips:

Most injuries experienced by my runners are due to 1) pacing long runs too fast, 2) increasing the weekly mileage too quickly, 3)lengthening stride and 4) stretching.

The principle in staying injury free is to balance gentle stress with the right recovery periods-allowing for rebuilding. (for more information, see my book RUNNING INJURIES)

Finding the right Run Walk Run strategy from the beginning of a run has been the best way I’ve found to stay injury free, come back from an injury and in some cases, continue to run while the injury heals. (See my book RUN WALK RUN)

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• Are you concerned that running will damage joints, and other body parts ? I was told this regularly, from my first week of running over 50 years ago but the research shows the opposite result: Runners have healthier joints, etc. than non runners as the decades go by.
• While researching for my book RUNNING UNTIL YOU’RE 100, I reviewed dozens of studies and could not find one showing that running harms legs, feet, joints, etc.
• It may surprise you to know that many studies show that runners have fewer orthopedic issues compared with non-runners as the years go by.
• A respected and large population study out of Stanford following thousands of runners over 50 who had run for more than 20 years concluded that runners had less than 25% of orthopedic issues compared with non runners of the same age.

As long as you stay below the threshold of irritation you can often continue to run while the injury heals.

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The last line about continuing to run while an injury heals is what helped me finish training for the LA marathon, as I was recovering from tendonitis. I’m still doing physical therapy exercises though!

 

QOTD: Do you find these tips helpful? Have you run through an injury?