Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Strength training and injury prevention

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor of any sort and am not giving advice in this blog post. This is just what I do.

     I've managed to run for 18 plus years without an injury significant enough to make me stop running for more than a day. That being said, I've never trained for a marathon and have never gone over 60 miles for a week. So an injury is practically imminent. I'll do my best to avoid it. I also spent most of my college running years under-trained and running pretty slow, so there wasn't much opportunity to get injured there.
    When I started 10k training last fall (September 2013) I was having a terrible time with neck and shoulder pain every time I did speedwork. I even wrenched my shoulder badly enough that I would need help getting my running tank off when I got home from a run. The weather was good and hot during these workouts and I would be drenched with sweat and having to employ Adam or Danielle in peeling off my stinky tank top! I decided to add some pushups to my usual ab routine to get rid of this pain, which I'm sure was from being relatively weak in my whole upper body. I've pretty much had the same ab routine since I was 13 and the results have been mostly flat, if not toned abs. I started with just 5 pushups (real ones) and 30 seconds of planking every day. During the winter I apparently was a little bored with life in general and decided to aim for a long term goal of getting six pack abs. This is ridiculous, since I'm pretty sure my muscles just won't do that. I'd read that it would make me faster, first of all, but I was all about looking a little more intimidating that the softy I looked like at the time. Whatever my reasons were, it got me into a much more intense strength routine starting in December of 2013. Below is what I do now, six days a week. I take Monday off of both strength training and running.

Specific running injury prevention:

20 squats (I'm horrible at these, but getting better)
20 lunges on each leg
10 one legged squats on each leg
60 second wall sit
hip flexor exercises that can be found here http://triathlon.competitor.com/2013/11/training/monday-minute-wall-soas-hold_6064

arabesque, first on right foot then on left for 30 seconds unsupported
100 ups (I'm only up to 40)

Core routine:

90 second plank
140 crunches
Pilates sit ups (roll ups)until muscle failure (usually 30-40)
Pilates 100s (count to 100 while in a hollow position, legs straight, not bent for higher difficulty)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBArDPf0zqk
Handstands on a raised surface, such as a chair or bench
Walking on hands for as long as possible (I'm up to about 10 steps)
Straddle to handstand (I don't have this yet, but getting close)

Upper body:

3 fingertip pullups
10-15 pushups
Monkey bars back and forth when we go to the park (about once a week)
A few round offs and cartwheels a week

Stretching:

Mostly Pilates stretches and I stretch whatever feels tight. I try to do a backbend bridge every day but am very inflexible in my back.



No comments:

Post a Comment