Marathon Tips

With the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon fast approaching, this is usually around the time we start to see injuries trickle into the clinic, where people are madly ramping up their mileage each week to ensure they are on target with their training plan or catching up for lost time and simply haven’t had the chance to train as planned.

With several other running events across Asia which happen all year round, here are some handy hints for distance running, injury prevention and enhancing performance.

Here are some marathon tips from In Touch Physio.

1. Remember the general rule of thumb is to increase your total running volume by 10% per week. This is important to avoid injury, as it takes time for the body tissue (muscles, tendons, bone) to adapt to increases in running load. Failure to do so can often result in injuries such as tendinopathy (eg. Achilles tendon), or bony stress reaction (eg. shins), or knee injuries such as cartilage irritation or biomechanical related injuries. Important to keep a diary to track training distances.
2. Use a foam roller to help loosen muscles – can be used on the back, the glutes, muscles around the hips, iliotibial band, hamstrings, quads and calves.
3. Strengthen the glutes, this includes gluteus medius which plays a role in stabilising the hip/ pelvis in running, plus gluteus maximus which is involved in forward-propulsion.
4. Strengthen the calves, which assists with forward-propulsion in running, plus facilitating midfoot and forefoot running and subsequent higher cadence.
5. Keep hydrated. Consider the replenishment of electrolytes in fluid intake.
6. Recovery strategies such as compression tights, ice baths, nutrition and adequate rest after long endurance runs should also be considered
7. Listen to your body, with any recurring pain/fatigue symptoms. Persistent pain or pain that worsens in the run may require your physio to take a look to determine the source and cause of pain and how to go about managing this.

Happy running!