The essentials to run well, without fatigue or injury

We can run for various reasons: losing weight, practicing physical activity in order to improve your cardiovascular health, enjoying nature, letting go, emptying your stress … But very quickly, not to get bored and above all avoid injuries, runners must familiarize themselves with different concepts, or even completely relearn their way of running. A point on the parameters to know when you want to run well or better, and especially without fatigue or injuries.

4 basic parameters to avoid fatigue

In running, even when the primary objective is to stay healthy, lose weight or simply feel good, it is important to know 4 data to avoid fatigue (and therefore the maximum heart rate (FCMAX), its heart rate at rest (FCREPOS), its functional heart reserve (RCF) in order to calculate its heart rate (FCE).

• There Maximum heart rate can be determined by an effort or approximated test thanks to the following equation: Fcmax = 217 – (0.85 x age).
• There Heart frequency at rest Perhaps measured in the morning, when leaving the bed, taking its pulse for a minute (or 15 seconds and multiplying the figure obtained by 4).
• These two cardiac frequencies make it possible to calculate what is called Functional heart reserve (RCF), that is to say the total work amplitude that the cardiovascular system can achieve, thanks to the equation: RCF = FCMAX – FCREPOS.
• And with the RCF, you can configure your training by fixing A heart rate for effort (FCE) corresponding to a percentage of the RCF.

Observing your heart rate for effort (using a heart rate meter, a small device accessible to all budgets) thus allows you to train according to the possibilities of the heart on the day of training, to remain in the right percentage of the RCF in order to not go overdress and to train at different intensities depending on the sessions in order to progress faster.

Example for a 30 -year -old person who has a resting heart rate of 65 beats per minute:

Fcmax = 217 – (0.85×30) = 191.5
RCF = 191.5 – 65 = 126.5

The heart rate frequency should be conventionally between 60 and 85 % of the RCF, between 82 beats per minute and 108 beats per minute.

The runner will have to monitor his cardiofrequency to stay in this interval on his interval.

How to build your training sessions

A racing session takes place in three stages. Be careful not to neglect any if you don’t want to get tired or hurt yourself.

Heating

The classic recommendation to warm up before running is very basic: it is simply a question of running by gradually increasing the look for a few minutes.

This type of warm -up certainly makes it possible to increase the temperature of the organism and that of the muscles while also leaving the time the time necessary to rise in power. But at the level of the musculo-tendine system, it can be counterproductive in the long term.

Indeed, if the muscles are not in an optimal condition from the first strides the tendons will store the overflow of mechanical energy and they will wear out prematurely. Tendons regenerating less well and especially slower than the muscles, the lack of warm -up of tendons can lead to possible tendon problems a few weeks or months later.

To put the muscles and tendons in optimal conditions from the first strides, it is necessary to perform joint mobilizations. Especially for key joints like those of ankle, hip and shoulder. Then muscle mobilizations, doing sheathing exercises.

The race

With a form of form and health, it is recommended to run 30 to 45 minutes with a heart rate of effort between 65 and 80 % of the functional heart reserve (RCF, whose calculation is given above). Two to three racing sessions per week are sufficient.

Running time can be increased gradually thereafter.

Recovery

Recovery includes both automation and stretching. It is first of all a question of massaging each area of ​​the body with a massage roll or a tennis ball for 1 to 2 min, going back and forth. Then to make static stretching by gently taking each stretching position and holding it about 30 seconds while breathing deeply.

The necessary equipment
– A good pair of running shoes
– a heart rate meter, the basic model being sufficient
– 1 to 2 tennis balls and a massage roll for recovery

How to reduce your risk of injury

Knee, shin, tendonitis, ankle sprain, inflammation of the arch of the plantar … Regular and amateurs are not immune to various injuries. In addition, ultimately, poorly practiced running can be traumatic for various joints. Get warm, recover well, and run in the right RCF interval helps to be less tired and limit joint and muscle trauma. But there are other points of vigilance or improvement.

A 2014 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine followed 267 amateur runners for 9 months. During the study 89 runners were injured, or 33 %, with a rate of 6.05 injuries per 1000 hours of training. According to this study, the factors that significantly increased the risk of injury were:

• Running less than 2 hours a week (this means that novices are more likely to injure themselves; it seems rather logical: the body of the very occasional runner has every chance of feeling real discomfort in the days following training while the regular runner well trained can chain two training sessions per day);
• changing your mileage from one week to the next (therefore the inconstancy of the runner);
• Always running with the same type of shoes;
• having already known before one or more injuries

Concretely, this means that to reduce your risk of injury, it can be important:

• alternate shoe models,
• not to (too) modify his mileage from one week to the next,
• to run more than 2 hours per week.

In addition, for the race to be the least traumatic as possible, adopting a medio-level stride can be a good idea.
Indeed, everyone adopts its own position, spontaneously, to run: more or less folded arm, right bust or forward, look in the distance in front of you or on the ground … But if it has long been believed that jogging did not require technique (only good shoes), the number of injuries among the runners is so high that we started to be interested in the stride and how to improve it.
It is of course quite possible to run with a bad technique, but there is a good chance that the runner pays him one day, in the short term (a sudden injury), in the long term (chronic concerns of articulation for example).

Another way to reduce injuries: choose the right stride

The runner, even a lover, should try to use his body in the least traumatic way possible. It is only in this way that he can progress and continue to run in the long term. For many runners and race specialists, the way of running that is the least traumatic is the one that adopts the so-called Medio-Pied stride.

There are different classifications of the strides of the runners: strides in the front cycle and in a rear cycle, or aerial and landlocked or even strolled “runner-march” and medio-level stride. It is of these which we are going to talk about here above all.

The stride “runner-march”

This racing gestures is very close to the gestures of walking. We can describe this stride, phase phase, as follows:

1. The foot attacks the ground with the heel, a tense leg.
2. The runner then unrolls his foot on the floor passing from the heel to the tip.
3. The runner raises his foot from the ground quite little after the impact, the air knee folds little.
4. The aerial foot returns forward by remaining close to the ground and the air knee unfolds quickly, giving very early to the foot an almost circular trajectory from top to bottom.
5. The aerial foot passes the center of gravity of the runner.
6. then he passes in front of the air knee;
7. And finally the footsteps reattacs the ground with the heel, a front leg stretched or almost.

The predominantly medio-featured stride

This is the one we observe in most high -level runners. In contrast to the previous stride, it is more aerial. Here are its characteristics:

• The foot comes to the ground horizontally: the angle between the foot and the ground is very reduced. The foot comes almost flat, the forefoot being either at the same level as the heel, or slightly lower.
• The runner does not unroll his foot on the ground passing from the heel to the tip but realizes the opposite sequence: the first support is done on the medio-level then on the heel.
• After the runner hit the ground with his foot, he continues to fold his air knee until his aerial foot meets his other leg; The runner therefore unfolds his knee later than in stride of the “runner-march” type.
• The foot does not exceed the plumb of the knee (or only when the stride is very long).
• The foot returns from front to back even before touching the ground.
• The foot arises almost at the plumb of the pelvis.
• When the foot is installed, the support leg is slightly bent.

The runner derives as much as the force of rebound and the elastic energy which he stores under his foot, behind his calf and, to a certain extent, in the muscles located at the front of his thigh.
The search for amplitude is mainly done thanks to the hamstring muscles (muscles located at the back of the thigh), the gluteal muscles and the trunk muscles.

What stride adopt?

No serious and complete study has yet demonstrated the superiority from one stride to the other. However, it is certainly not for nothing that the medio-featured stride is practiced by many high-level runners: on the biomechanical plane it is that which is the least likely to generate injuries. Many specialists and carers are convinced.

Obviously, the stride is not everything. The best of the strides, even if it corresponds perfectly to the anatomy and the biomechanics of a runner, is not enough in itself to avoid injuries. The runner must understand that he must respect his body, as well as certain adaptation and recovery phases and avoid over -regime.