Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown

354: Why Runners Get Hurt: 5 Main Causes of Injuries

• Angie Brown

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Why do 80% of runners get injured? If you are one of the unfortunate many, you know how frustrating and painful running injuries can be.  That's why we are diving into the 5 main causes of running injuries in this week's episode to help you avoid some of the common mistakes that sidelines so many runners.


01:28 Exploring the High Injury Rate Among Runners

02:02 Running Injuries vs. Soreness

07:03 Training Mistakes: The Law of the Toos

20:53 The Role of Weakness in Running Injuries

24:44 The Power of Strength Training for Runners and The Effectiveness of Single Leg Exercises

31:03 The Importance of Proper Fueling for Runners

40:07 The Critical Role of Recovery: Sleep and Nutrition

45:08 Life Stress and Its Impact on Running Injuries


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This is the real life runners podcast, episode number 354. Why runners get hurt? Today, we're talking about five of the most common causes. For running injuries so that you can avoid these mistakes and keep running strong. So if you're curious what those five things are, stay. They tuned.

Angie:

Hey, Hey runners. Welcome to the podcast today. We are talking all about why runners get hurt. And apparently we only have 27 minutes to do this because we just put dinner into the oven and Kevin just informed me that we have 27 minutes until things start beeping. So we'll see. I, I'm not terribly confident that we're going to be able to do this entire episode in 27 minutes. No, not

Kevin:

a chance. We're both going to expand way too much on these points, but we did. It's so

Angie:

important.

Kevin:

We did come up with a big umbrella idea and then we go from there.

Angie:

Yeah. So today we were talking about why runners get hurt. Now, if you are a runner, chances are you may have likely been injured at some point in time. We have to cover the rice right now. All right. So I'm going to keep talking while Kevin goes and puts a cover on the rice. So Oh, depending on which research study you look at over 80 percent of runners get injured at some point in their running journey, which is ludicrous. It's one of these things that really makes me want to spread this podcast to more and more people because I don't want runners to get injured so much. Like running is something that we do for ourselves that is really, really good for our bodies. We get into it because we want to be healthier, obviously not to get injured. And so. So. Running injuries. While there are people out there that will tell you that, oh, well, injuries just come as part of the territory when you are a runner. I don't think that they have to. I don't think that running injuries are 100 percent preventable. I because I can't make that promise. Um, you know, anytime you are going out and doing any sort of physical activity, there is a chance that you might get hurt. But I think that we can drastically reduce this number if we kind of fix what it is. We're going to talk about in the episode today.

Kevin:

Well, I think you also have to, and I think this is why there's such a wide range on the study is define what an injury actually is. Like if you have like a little ache and pain and niggle that shows up and you take a couple of days off and it's all better, I don't think that's like a legitimate injury.

Angie:

Well, and that's why I say, you know, depending on which research study you look at, right? Because each of them define a running injury as something different. And so there are some studies that show that the incidence is around 50%, some higher, some are. There was one study that I saw that was like eight, uh, 91 or 92%. Like, so it really just depends on how you define running injury.

Kevin:

Right. If you define a running injury as anything that literally altered your running plan because of physical pain, I would argue, yes, it's remarkably close to a hundred because sometimes you just push real hard on one day and you're so sore the next day. I don't think you're injured. You're so sore the next day.

Angie:

Well, and that's the thing, right? And so. That is part of running, right? That does come with the territory. Anytime you are trying to improve yourself physically, soreness is likely going to be a part of the process, whether that's through running or weightlifting, yoga, Pilates, like anytime you do that, And a physical activity that you don't normally do and you're using muscles in different ways than you normally use them. Muscle soreness is often a result.

Kevin:

Oh yeah. I mean, when I like really went all in on making sure that I was thoroughly lifting the big compound movements, you're like, all right, hit these major movements. I struggled to get out of bed the next day. I did, but it was awkward.

Angie:

Yeah. And there are some people out on the internet nowadays telling you that soreness isn't necessary. Like soreness doesn't. Mean that you got a good workout and that's not the sign that you did get a good workout. And that's true I would agree with that statement. You don't have to be sore to prove that you got a good workout in And at the same time, soreness often comes with the territory whenever you are trying to make physical gains in your fitness,

Kevin:

especially if you're doing something brand new, I think it'd be really hard to do something new and difficult and not be uncomfortably sore the next day because newness automatically means you're, you're probably using muscles that you're not used to using,

Angie:

right? And based on what we're going to get into in today's episode, that Soreness can range from just some normal delayed onset of muscle soreness, which we in the medical world know as DOMS,

Kevin:

D

Angie:

O M S, delayed onset muscle soreness. That's just a natural adaptation that we can expect from training. And it can range from that all the way to injury to actual physical tissue injury, where we are tearing muscles, tearing tissues, tendons, ligaments, you know, all sorts of things. If we really go to the extreme. And we. Essentially want to help you prevent all of those things, especially the ones at the extreme. Um, we're not going to tell you that you're going to never be sore again, right? That's going to be part of the territory, but we want to help you understand why runners get hurt so that you can prevent those injuries that are going to Keep you away from training the way that you want to train, like taking extended period extended time periods off because there's just too much pain involved or because it's going to actually make your tissue injury worse.

Kevin:

Right. We also cannot on this podcast prevent you from getting injured outside of running. Like if, uh, if you decide that you're going to play kickball and give yourself a hernia, that is your own fault or my own fault. Uh, possibly, I'm not sure. We're really, really unsure, but it could have been.

Angie:

Yeah. I mean, sometimes life is going to throw some crazy stuff at you, right? Like there are definitely things like that, but one of the benefits of being a runner and lifting weights and getting stronger and improving your balance and really training the way that we teach our runners to train is that it actually does prevent other injuries in your normal life. Because if you do trip and fall, you're more likely to catch yours. Oh, I shouldn't say if you've tripped and fall, if you trip, you're more likely to catch yourself and avoid falling because you have improved strength and balance. Yes. You're

Kevin:

more likely to trip rather than trip and fall, right? You just trip.

Angie:

Yeah. Or like if you're lifting things or moving things, you have less. Likelihood of getting injured in real life outside of running because of the training that you're doing to make your body into a stronger body.

Kevin:

Yeah. If you're, if you're regularly lifting and moving your body, then taking down the Christmas decorations does not lead to a full day of soreness the next day.

Angie:

Unless you do it the day of a marathon where your muscles are already exhausted. Right. And that, that might lead to some, something else. And you know, that might get into some of what we're talking about today with Life stress and lifestyle choices. So let's get into this. Okay. We're going to go over five main reasons that runners get injured. And all of these things are kind of tied into to one another. So reason number one is training mistakes. Now, obviously that is a very wide umbrella, but what we're going to focus on here is specifically what you're doing when you're running, and that typically Um, I, we call it the law of the twos, like if you're doing too much too soon, too fast, that's what often leads to injury. So it's really training in a way that you're ramping up your mileage or ramping up your speed too quickly without building the proper foundation,

Kevin:

right? It's the, it's the twos. It's trying to get to the result way faster than the, than your body is, is actually capable of doing this. Like when you're a little kid, kids get growing pains because parts of bodies are growing at different rates than others. And so they're just. There's this awkward soreness. We can do this to ourself by trying to get to the result way faster than our body is actually able to make the adaptation, which kind of goes into something we'll talk about later, but the too much too soon, that's a big one.

Angie:

Right. And oftentimes when you find yourself in this. Situation or predict predicament. It's often a lack of one of two things. Number one, a lack of knowledge. And this is one of the reasons that we put out this free podcast to try to educate more runners in the right way to do things, to help decrease your risk of injury, to increase, you know, the ability, your ability to go out and do what you want and live the life that you want to live is to really help understand the knowledge behind. The proper way to train and the ways to avoid. training injuries. The other thing that it often is a result of is lack of confidence, either confidence in yourself or confidence in the plan that you're following. So let's first talk about lack of knowledge.

Kevin:

I mean, lack of knowledge is, is pretty straightforward. It's not lack of information. Google has more information you could possibly need, or depending on your generation, chat GPT has more information than you could possibly need. It's all out there, but sometimes it disagrees with itself. And there's so much information that it could be such an overload that you shut it all down and therefore you don't have enough knowledge about how to appropriately train, how to appropriately ramp up your mileage, what exercises you should be doing. And you fall into this idea of. Too much too soon because you're like, well, I feel okay today. I should push myself harder to make sure that I can get to the results because you don't really know the appropriate path.

Angie:

Well, I also don't think that people realize how much science there is behind running, because I think that a lot of people see running as something very simple. It's something that we've been doing since we were. Two years old, you know, a year and a half to two years old.

Kevin:

Yeah. But look at a two year old running versus an Olympic sprinter running. There is a clear difference in form. Yes. If you, if you take a small toddler and you gently push them from behind, they will take natural steps forward and start kind of running. That does not mean it is the beauty and art that is Olympic caliber runners. Right.

Angie:

And, and then when you get to us, Recreational runners were like, yeah, but we are not elite level Olympic runners. So I could probably just figure this out. I just put some shoes on and I head out the door and I start running. And this is what so many people do, because that's one of the things that I think attracts a lot of people to running in the first place is that it seems very simple. It seems very easy, but maybe not easy, but simple is more of the right word.

Kevin:

Remarkably low barrier to entry. Right.

Angie:

So you just head out the door and you go run and you run for as long as you can. And then you, you walk. Or you turn around and you go back home, right? And then, and then you do it the next day and you try to go longer. You try to go a little faster, whatever it might be. And this is what a lot of people do. I don't know how many people, especially when they're starting out on their running journey, realize that there is an actual. Correct way to train in a correct way to increase your mileage.

Kevin:

Yeah, no. Most people start off with, well, I went for 30 minutes, so tomorrow I can go for 35.

Angie:

I mean,

Kevin:

that's how I got into it.

Angie:

Yeah. Or even just trying to do the same thing over and over and over again and trying to hit that same pace and that same effort level.

Kevin:

Yeah. Or same distance faster each day. Right. I mean, that literally is too much, too soon, too fast. I'm hitting the same distance, but I keep cranking up my speed from one day to the next to the next, or I've. This is how, how long I went today. I'm going to do a little bit more tomorrow and the next day and the next day, it just keeps growing because of lack of knowledge of the appropriate way to build that mileage and speed.

Angie:

Right. And, or, okay, we're going to go to number two, which is lack of confidence. And that is thinking or understanding that there is this way that works for a lot of people. Maybe you've heard us talk about it on the podcast. Maybe you've heard it from other coaches or other. Um, influencers out there and just thinking that, okay, yeah, that sounds great for them, but I don't think that that's going to work for me. I understand that they're saying that most of my runs should feel easy and only some of my runs should feel hard. And you know, that that's great. But I think that if I go out and just push at that medium to moderate effort level, that's going to get me results sooner. It's, it's this basic idea that. We, we know it, but we don't really believe it. We don't really have confidence that that is the right way for us to succeed.

Kevin:

Yeah. Somehow, somehow the lack of confidence also leads to, you are so special that the generic training plan that works for a mass amount of people, and don't get me wrong, there's some nuance of how it works best for one person to the next, but there is a way to get into running that works for Most people, whatever the level they are. And people are like, Oh, I don't think that's going to work for me. So people both think that they, they're not good enough for it, but they're also so good that the plan that works for others won't work for them. This was me in high school.

Angie:

Oh, okay. I was going to say, I don't think that most people think that they're so good that it doesn't work for them. But maybe, maybe some people do you want to expand on that? Because I could, I could go for the other one, right? Like

Kevin:

go for me. Cause

Angie:

the, no, not for you for the other one of like, Oh, that, I know that works for most people, but I'm not really a runner. So that's probably not going to work for me because I'm not as athletic as other people. I'm not actually a real runner. So I'm, I think I might have to push myself harder at least to just catch up to like where everybody else is. And then maybe I can start. Following that methodology.

Kevin:

I think that they're actually kind of the same thing. So I'm like a high school freshmen, sophomore, and I kept pushing myself too much on easy days. And my coach who was like, I think at that point already in the California high school hall of fame for coaching. He said, Brown, you got to slow it down and just take it, take it easy. Nice, easy recovery day. And in my 14, 15 year old brain, it was like, he's telling me that because he doesn't want me to get as fast. He doesn't think I'm at the same caliber as the current varsity squad. So if I just really push myself on the easy days, I can catch up to the varsity kids faster.

Angie:

Right. Yeah. But so, so I would say that that does align with what I was just talking about. But you were saying, but I'm, I'm. Too good for that plan.

Kevin:

No, it's somehow that like what works for everybody else. I need to follow a different plan, which is lack of self confidence. But if you think of like, why would just you have to follow a different plan? It it's lack of self confidence that also says I'm so special. It's a weird in my head. It's working out to this like weird oxymoron kind of thing.

Angie:

Yeah, I, I, I don't, I, I want us and say that I see where you're going here, but like, I also think that there is a. A group of people that maybe think they are beyond the quote, unquote, normal training recommendations. And they're

Kevin:

there. I mean, it's bell curve, so there probably are a few people, but the answer is a few people. No,

Angie:

I understand. But what I'm like, your example, I still think is a result of, of lack of self confidence as well. Yes. I think mine was. Yeah. So I think that definitely

Kevin:

then trickle its way right into college. Yeah.

Angie:

I mean, you just kind of prove the point there, which is that, Okay, I, I have to do things differently, or this isn't going to work for me. You know, diets didn't work for me in the past. Like you have all this evidence that this thing that did work, did work for others, didn't work for me. And we take that into running as well. And we apply that same belief system onto our training plan. Like, Oh yes, I understand that this worked for other people, but it probably isn't going to work for me in that way. So that means I have to do something differently, which means I have to Kind of make it up and do something that isn't actually scientific or isn't actually proven like, but these are the thought traps that we find ourselves in. And I'm not, you know, if you've ever found yourself in this trap, please don't feel bad because we have all been there. Kevin just explained how he's been there. I know I've been there before. We take these beliefs of. Other times in our life that it didn't work for us or that we fell outside the bell curve or that we did something that somebody else did, and we did it. We thought we were doing it the same way, and we didn't get the same good results that that other person did. And so we often take that and apply it to our running and, uh, That can lead to these training mistakes where we ramp up our mileage too quickly. We're trying to push too hard on all of our runs, trying to catch up to people, trying to get faster sooner than, you know, other people do, or trying to catch up to our training partners that have been running for five years, even though We've only been running for one year, right? Like we don't want there to be the same time difference or for it to take as long for us to get there because we want to be training with them or training at their level or doing what they're doing, which is a good and bad thing, right? It's a double edged sword.

Kevin:

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the comparison trap that often leads to the training mistakes. It's a lack of confidence in your. own ability of lack of confidence in your own results that you're putting out there, a lack of, of pride in your results. Like you worked hard for those results, but they're not as good as, you know, Sally's over there of Timmy's over there. And so you do this comparison. You're like, well, I better push extra hard so that I can get the same results as them. Even though really the the answer is you just need to keep going making those small little improvements over time because that's what leads to the best biggest results. Whereas you push really hard and you're likely to get hurt. Will you get results? Off of too much, too soon, too fast. You will get some short term results right up until you're hurt. And that could take a few days. It could take a few weeks. Some people might live right on the edge of like, I'm almost kind of hurt. They could get through a whole training season, but it's not a good longterm strategy and longterm continuous growth is how you actually start hitting that exponential growth where your, your ability really starts taking off.

Angie:

So I just had a very interesting thought as I was listening to you speak right there. There's a lot of people that when they train for a half marathon, a marathon, where they actually intentionally start ramping up their mileage. It's very interesting because it just made me think about consistency and people that sometimes have an issue with consistency and they think they have been rewarded in the past or maybe in the beginning of their running journey for pushing harder on most of their runs, but it's a combination of both of those things. That they're doing that. And also they're not consistent with their training. So they're actually getting built in recovery days because they are pushing hard on their runs. But then they miss a day of training because something came up. And then they're so that's actually beneficial to them because they're getting extra recovery to that. Um, you know, kind of make up for that harder training, but then they go into, say, a traditional half marathon or marathon plan, and then they actually follow the plan and they're still pushing at that medium to moderate level. But now they're running consistently four to five days a week and their body starts breaking down. And then instead of, um, equating that or like relating that to, Oh, that means I'm pushing too hard on my runs. They often will say, Oh, if I run more than three days a week, I get hurt.

Kevin:

Yes. Yes. Lack of confidence to plan. It's not my fault. It's clearly that I can't run. That many days out of the week is that way? You can, if you take it easy enough, like there are, there are plenty of coaches out there. Not us. We strongly believe in a day off during the week, but there are coaches out there that would argue that there's nothing wrong with running seven days out of the week. As long as you make plenty of those days. Really easy and recovery and what recovery means is different from one person. The next right now, my recovery day is a nice walk because that's where I'm at right now, but there were times where my recovery day could be like a 2030 minute run and I felt completely fine. Like it didn't, it didn't phase me as all. It was as though that was like a total off day.

Angie:

Yeah. And so it really is individual. Um, but I just. Had that random thought and I wanted to put that out there. So if you are someone that thinks, Oh, I can only run a certain number of days, because if I do more than that, I I'll get hurt. It's take a look at how hard you're pushing on all those training days, because I'm guessing that you're pushing too hard on most or all of those days. If you feel like you can't do more than three.

Kevin:

Right. I think it also falls into all of the rest of the categories that we have here. Like that was the big umbrella of training mistakes, but we've got a little bit more specific options here, but they still all, I think, stem from this lack of knowledge or lack of self confidence that leads to Other, let's say more specific airs rather than like the generic running airs within the plan itself of not training of training too fast to training too, too hard. I think there are some other airs that we need to cover also.

Angie:

Okay. So number two, like the, the second reason why runners get hurt is weakness. And this is a big part of what I do and try to educate people in as a physical therapist is. We have certain muscles in the body that need to be strong in order to support us as runners. Is that

Kevin:

all of them?

Angie:

Well, yes, it is. But part of what happens here is that because of the training mistakes we, if we are, you know, someone, if we, we do find ourselves in the trap of trying to increase our mileage too soon, then the strength of our muscles. Doesn't actually catch up to that. Like if we increase our mileage more slowly, a lot of times that gives our muscles time to get stronger in order to support us as we're going. So if we're ramping up too quickly, oftentimes that's where the weakness will start to show because. The mileage is increasing before the body is actually able to handle it. And this is a great example of what you were talking about before with growing pains in children, right? This would be a, um, another example of when this happens, the kid, the body, the bones are growing faster than the muscles do. So that's basically what. It's what causes growing pains in a lot of kids, and so the bones are growing, but the muscles need time to lengthen in order to catch up to the length that the bones are growing. And so they do have these aches and pains that just pop up out of nowhere, and that a lot of times is happening with us as runners. Obviously, our bones are not growing. Well, our bones actually are growing, believe it or not. Um, running the impact of running actually does stimulate bone growth, which is a really good thing because especially as we get older, our bone density tends to go down.

Kevin:

That doesn't make any sense. People have told me that running is bad for my knees. I'm pretty sure you're making that up there, doctor. Nope. Oh, okay. Perfect.

Angie:

So our bones aren't actually growing, but they are getting stronger. Okay. And when Um, when we ramp up our mileage too quickly, we're not giving our muscles enough time to catch up. So that often leads to weakness, especially if there's any sort of imbalance between side to side or front to back. That's often what can lead to a running injury.

Kevin:

Yeah, because for a lot of people, it's easier to ramp up the mileage if your cardio can keep up. If you're not out of breath, you're like, Oh, well I did three miles and I'm not out of breath. I could do four. I feel like I can still breathe. I could do five. And it's like, yes, you can. But can all the muscles that you use actually support your extra distance that you're covering? Because they're not increasing at the same rate as like breath capacity.

Angie:

I'm really glad you brought that up because that is something that's very true is that our cardiovascular capacity. Increases faster than our muscular strength and endurance.

Kevin:

Yeah. And so, I mean, this is, it's not, it's not bone growth versus muscle growth. It's, it's our cardio ability. It's like, I feel fine. My heart rate is not skyrocketing. I could totally get in an extra mile or two or three. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Your muscles cannot handle all of those extra miles. It's certainly not without throwing in lots of recovery.

Angie:

Right. And so as a runner, it's very important for us to strength train. Um, in addition to not making those training mistakes of ramping up our mileage or our speed too quickly, we also want to be supplementing our training on a weekly basis with strength training. I would highly suggest a minimum of twice a week that you're working on Full body strength training, um, and doing also some targeted strength training for runners. There's a lot of people out there that will tell you, you don't have to do running specific exercises. And as long as you do some sort of strength training, then that's good enough. Okay. If you would like to follow that advice, you know, be my guest. I do not

Kevin:

want to follow the advice of the person using that voice. That sounds bad.

Angie:

I would. Highly recommend to do single leg running specific types of exercises. I think that it's much more valuable. It's a much more valuable use of our time. Is it true that you just getting stronger in general, like if you go to the gym and lift weights and do squats and deadlifts and a lot of these compound Full body movements. Will you be better off than than not doing them? I would say yes. Okay, that is a good thing however I do think that running specific types of exercises specifically single leg strengthening exercises where you're working on Your strength your balance your coordination Those things can really help to prevent running injuries, especially as we get older

Kevin:

Yeah. And I think you highlighted in there, you kind of went over it quickly, but it's a better use of your time. Like if your goal is to be running more and running faster, like, don't get me wrong. You love strength training. We have plenty of runners on our team that love the strength training aspect. Not. All runners love the strength training aspect. Some want to get it in as efficiently as possible. And if you're saying that single leg exercises are going to get a bigger bang for my buck, that I can be in and out of the gym in a faster period of time than knocking out other exercises, those are the ones that I want to be doing. I want the runner specific, give me good overall strength and make me do it on a single leg so that I can get the best results in, in as efficient as a gym process as possible.

Angie:

Right, but make sure that you're not doing too much too soon and trying to maximize your efficiency there, buddy.

Kevin:

Well, yes, but I mean, I don't want to waste my time doing exercises in the gym that are not ideal for me.

Angie:

Well, and it's not a waste, right? Like, I actually like making, uh, having these exercises essentially be a progression where you're doing a double leg squat before. I don't want you to just jump into single leg squats. I

Kevin:

know you did not let me jump into single legs squats.

Angie:

Because it's not smart, right? Like for you to just jump into single leg everything, that's going to increase your risk of injury. You have to build again that foundation with double leg stuff before you just jump into single leg stuff.

Kevin:

I'm just, I'm trying to picture jumping into a single leg squat that just seems extra dangerous. It's like a, it's like a plyo squat, single legs and all of that sounds bad.

Angie:

It's an actual exercise for sure. I'm

Kevin:

pretty sure I'd break myself in half right now.

Angie:

Because you're not ready for it. Right. And that proves the point, right? Like you can't just say, Oh, that, and that's part of the issue with like seeing some of these exercises on Instagram.

Kevin:

It looks so cool on Instagram. I want to do that same exercise. I

Angie:

know. But that, but if you're not ready, if you haven't, progressively built up your foundation and your strength to be able to do that crazy cool single leg exercise that that person is doing. Then it's just going to increase your risk of injury and that's not worth it.

Kevin:

Yeah. I don't think the surgeon would let me get away with that at this point either. So. But ultimately, I just want to be able to do the same exercises that you can do in the cool videos so that I can be the example of super strong runner and just I'm nowhere near there yet.

Angie:

Yeah. I mean, we can definitely work on it and I would love for you to be the fitness model in the videos. Perfect. Yes. Absolutely. So all that to say, you need to strengthen your core. Your muscles because weakness is one of the leading causes for injury in runners. I, like I have mentioned already here multiple times, single leg exercises are great because those work on hip stabilizers specifically and your hip stabilizing muscles are really important for you as a runner because As you're running, essentially what you're doing is jumping from one leg to the other over and over and over again and your leg muscles and your hip muscles specifically have to both stabilize and propel you in a fraction of a second. The average runner takes about somewhere between 160 and 180 steps per minute. And that is a lot of steps in fractions of seconds. Uh, your muscles have to both turn on and contract any very coordinated way. So when you work on specific strength training exercises to help improve the strength of your muscles, the stability of your muscles, your muscles, the quickness of your muscles, ability to fire and stabilize and propel you and react to all of these things that are happening when you're running, the better off you're going to be and the decreased risk of injury you will have.

Kevin:

All right. I got a question for the doctor here. Um, When you do single leg exercises, you mentioned stability multiple times in that little synopsis there, are you able to make the stabilizing X stabilizing muscles actually activate better on like a one legged exercise than too late? Like, are you using a different set of muscles that you wouldn't necessarily have to do if I just did like a squat because I'm stable on two legs. If I do it on one leg, I actually have to fire different muscles that are helping provide just overall stability to me.

Angie:

Yes. It's not necessarily that you're firing different muscles, but you're using those muscles differently and more effectively and efficiently because it mimics the running motion. Because like I said, running is jumping from one leg to the other. So you need to be able to train. All like the muscles on one leg to stabilize the entire weight of your body as your other leg is swinging through and if you're doing a double leg squat, then you're sharing your body weight between two legs and so that muscles really only getting half that work.

Kevin:

So double leg squats, good single leg squats. Better, but you need to make sure that you have the strength from double leg squats before you progress and just start doing single leg everything.

Angie:

Right.

Kevin:

Okay. Got it.

Angie:

Yep, exactly. Um, and if you guys have questions after listening to our podcast episodes, send me a message on Instagram at real life runners. I love having conversations with runners and helping you guys figure out what is going on. And obviously if you want more in depth coaching for us to actually talk to you and know more about your specific situation and what is going on, then That's what the Real Life Runners Academy is for. You can go over to the website and get on the waiting list for that. But if you have like a quick question about something that we said here in the episode, come, you know, find me on Instagram. Um, I'm not going to be able to give personalized, specific recommendations to every single person on Instagram, because that's what our coaching is for. But if you have like a quick question. Definitely send me a message and I'll let you know if, if that's something that I can help you with, or if that's something that needs something, uh, you know, some more in depth coaching on,

Kevin:

yeah. And if I see the question, I can totally incorrectly mansplain the heck out of that before you have to fix it.

Angie:

All right, let's move on to the number three. Um, thing that causes running injury and that is fueling or really lack of fueling and going back to our kind of overarching umbrella of principles here of either lack of knowledge or lack of confidence in your fueling plan. Oftentimes, when people get injured, it's because they're not fueling their body appropriately and more times than not, it's under fueling rather than over fueling. I

Kevin:

mean, it's almost always under fueling and it's thinking it goes to that whole idea that there's such a thing as the runner's body that you're trying to like, Oh, I need to lean down so that I can perform better as a runner. And the strongest version of you is the fastest version of you. I forget where I heard that line first, but it's a great one. The strongest version is definitely the fastest version. And the only way to get really strong is to make sure that you are fueling your body for the exercises that you're putting it through. So under fueling is a setup for, for injury. It is not a good setup for, for progress either. Like maybe very short term progress, but it's a setup for injury. And as soon as you, you derail yourself and you have to take that step aside from consistent training, you're not going to be able to make that year over year growth. And that's where the huge growth comes from. So. Always fueling. Always eating enough. Food is good. Put it into your body. That's my synopsis.

Angie:

And no, and I agree with everything that you're saying. And I think that where a lot of runners get into trouble here, Is that they start running to lose weight or to get in better shape, and a lot of people to a lot of people that means food restriction, right? I need to restrict my what I'm eating because restricting food, less calories that are going in means that I will lose weight. But it becomes very problematic when you start training, especially if you're training hard, like for a race, if you're trying to increase mileage, if you're trying to increase speed. And you're also restricting your food intake. It leads to a lack of available energy and there's a condition called red s relative energy deficiency in sport that is way more prevalent that than we even realize because a lot of times people think about red s it used to be called like the female athlete triad and It was basically, you know, the um Female athletes in particular were more susceptible to this. And they

Kevin:

also had a much easier symptom to recognize

Angie:

loss of period. Right.

Kevin:

I don't have that. I mean, there's not, there's not that symptom there is actually, cause there are things that guys, there are hormones,

Angie:

there are hormone changes in men as well, but, so this is the interesting thing though. Like you said, it was more well known in females, but they're finding that this is definitely more prevalent in males than they realized before. Oh yeah. Yeah. And also in recreational runners, not just elite or professional or college runners because, you know, whenever you look at a runner on higher levels, there is more of that pressure to look a certain way and to perform a certain way. And unfortunately, a lot of college programs, specifically even high school programs, which breaks my heart as a high school cross country coach. But a lot of coaches out there, this is the message that they have been giving their athletes is that the smaller you are, the skinnier you are, the faster you're going to run. And so, Women, girls would restrict their food to try to get faster, and it would lead to so many problems, so much injury, hormonal imbalance, like all sorts of major physiological issues in these girls. And we're seeing the same thing even in recreational runners now. Maybe on a different scale, on a different level, but it's happening because people are trying to train for races and trying to do these things athletically, but they're also trying to lose weight and restrict their food at the same time, and that is just a recipe for disaster. It

Kevin:

seems like a stress fracture waiting to happen because you're not fueling yourself.

Angie:

And that's what happened to a lot of the girls. That's one of the big things is bone stress injuries.

Kevin:

Yeah, it shows up all the time. I can't remember which athlete it was that was talking about it, but they talked about it. How they're disordered eating before it went full blown into an eating disordered, but just simply not looking at food as fuel to the body, but food as possibly a source of what could slow you down rather than something that could be used to power you and strengthen you, but something that could slow you down. And, um, Um, their, their thought was the coach keeps saying that I need to make sure that I'm putting in enough fuel that I'm fueling my workout and in their head, they were like, but I think the coach doesn't trust me enough to give me the real secret that the real fast people are doing like, and what crazy warped, Thoughts that that is in your head, but that's where the disordered eating comes from is well Maybe they're telling that to me, but it kind of goes back to you know, I know better I know the better way to train. I have to push myself harder Oh, I know the way to train I have to eat with I have to have this restricted eating and thin myself out so that I can go faster and Neither of those are correct like this. I'm going back to it. The strongest you is the fastest you

Angie:

yeah, and so I'm More understanding what you were trying to say earlier. It's, I know better than the coach. I

Kevin:

know better than the coach. Yeah.

Angie:

Or I know better than the expert or than the recommendations out there. Yeah. And I do think that that does happen. I think that was Lauren Fleshman's book that you were referring to. I think it is, but I'm not

Kevin:

positive. We'll

Angie:

have to double check that, but I'm pretty sure that that, uh, I mean, that was just a highly recommended book. Lauren Fleshman is, uh, good for a girl.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Angie:

Right. I think that's the name of it. I

Kevin:

had it between that one and Kara Goucher, but it might've been when Laura Fleshman was interviewed. On Kara's podcast. Well, I didn't, I

Angie:

haven't read Kara's book yet, so it's, it's gotta be Lauren's. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that that's, it was like her time at Stanford when she was. Feeling that way and comparing herself to the other girls on the Stanford team. Yeah. And that's one of the programs that historically was known for a lot of problems. That was

Kevin:

one of them.

Angie:

Yeah. One of them.

Kevin:

It's, it's odd that the, uh, the high school training camps that I went to were some of the, the big issue programs, but those are the training camps I went to over the summer.

Angie:

Yeah. So lack of fueling under feeling. And when, when we say fueling, you guys, Please understand that we are not just talking about eating on a run. We are talking about your everyday nutrition. All of the food that you're eating throughout the course of your entire day, your entire week. And there are people that say, Well, I can't eat before a run or I can't eat right after a run. And so they end up restricting because they don't think that they can take in. But we want you to understand that your stomach, Is trainable, just like your muscles are trainable, just like your endurance and your running and your strength training, all these things, your stomach is also trainable. And so if you feel like eating before, during, or after a run causes GI issues, you might be eating the wrong thing or you might be eating too much. Right away again too much too soon. It's something that you're going to have to build up to you're going to have to maybe start with something much smaller and so that your stomach can handle it and then slowly increase the amount of food or fuel that you're taking in around the time of your run.

Kevin:

Yeah, I forget the it was. A repeat winner of the Ironman on the men's side. He used to train himself because he knew how much fuel he could take in while biking. Because it's easier to take in plenty of fuel while cycling because you're not getting the jostling that you get while running. And so he was always fine until he flipped from the bike to the run and then suddenly GI issues would show up. So he trained himself to eat a huge meal and then immediately go out and run. Knowing that it was just going to be miserable the entire time. But after several months, he just got used to it. His stomach just got super strong and he didn't have GI issues because he learned to his body just sort of adapted to that discomfort and figured out what to do with food in my stomach and the need to process it as fuel. And it just, it figured it out.

Angie:

Yeah, that's part of training also. And this is what we tell so many of our athletes that are trained for half marathons and longer is that. Food and figuring out how to feel yourself. That is also part of training. People only like to focus on the running or maybe if they have listened to a little, you know, bit of running information, running and strength training, but fueling is also a really big part of your training. And I love that, you know, How much do you want to achieve your goal? How good do you want to feel on your runs? Is it worth some discomfort? Because in the beginning to train your stomach in order to do that, and most people just won't do that because it doesn't feel good when you go out and you're running on a full stomach and things are sloshing and cramping and you're just don't feel good. So people aren't willing to go through that level of discomfort to train in a way that will actually get them the result that they want.

Kevin:

They'll, they'll push to the part where their legs are hard, are getting super tired. They're breathing really, really hard, but a little bit of stomach distress. And they're like, well, I just can't eat before I can't eat during, I can't eat right after and ignoring the fact that your legs getting tired and you're breathing, getting really hard. Those are trainable. So is your stomach all trainable

Angie:

and again, you know, your nutrition all day long matters because that will kind of lead into number four, which is recovery. Okay, the number four reason why runners get hurt is lack of sleep or lack of recovery and fueling. And recovery are very much linked here because during your workouts, your body breaks down and during your recovery, your body builds back stronger than it was before. If you give it the proper fuel and the proper building blocks, because the food that you're giving the protein and the carbohydrates, that's, what's allowing your body to rebuild. If you think about construction, if you send a construction crew out to build a road or build a building and you don't give them the proper supplies. That's they're not gonna be able to do it, right? They're just gonna be standing around not able to do anything or maybe they build a partial building But they don't have enough to continue and it's the same way with your body You break your body down in those harder workouts And so then the construction crew the rebuilding crew comes in to make the body stronger during recovery dirt which is mostly during sleep, but also during your easy days and your recovery days and your rest days and the If you're not giving it the fuel that it needs, then it can't build back up in the same way or to build up stronger and get the training adaptations that we're looking for.

Kevin:

All right, I'm going with your construction crew metaphor and just rolling with this one. Okay, so they're redoing all the roads by us, which I believe they've been working on it for the last forever and should finish it never. So the construction process takes place always overnight. Like, as you drive down the highway, it says this section of the road is going to be closed between like 10 and 5. That's sleeping time. So, if, if that's when your body does so much of its repair is during sleeping time. That's when the highway gets repaired is during sleeping time. So, imagine that you took that window of repair and from 10 till 5, you said, Actually, we're only going to work on the highway between 1 and 3 in the morning. I mean, it's already taken 15, 20 minutes. Plus years to work on this stretch of highway that they're trying to expand by us. If they restricted it and said, instead of this seven hour window, we're going to give you two hours a night, it's never getting repaired and you're always going to be behind. But now beyond the fact that the crew that's coming in to try and repair it, that is, is moving along slowly, but you're still breaking up the road in front of them. That's where your injury comes from. You're still going through the training, but you're like, and the repair crew only gets to work two hours a night. So it's like the

Angie:

demolition crew is still there on their normal shifts.

Kevin:

Demolition crew is rolling constantly, but repair crew is drastically limited. Suddenly you just don't have a highway. And by that, I mean, your Achilles is blown.

Angie:

Yeah. And that's really one of the reasons that recovery is so important and specifically sleep. We often underestimate the amount of sleep that we need because a lot of us have. Conditioned ourselves to be able to operate on little sleep from the time when we were, you know, in our teenagers as teenagers and are in our twenties, then you start to kind of get into your thirties and your forties and your fifties and beyond. And you realize, Oh, actually, I'm not recovering the same way. You know, maybe I do need more days off or maybe I do need more sleep, more recovery. It's oftentimes like if we increase The sleep we get not only the quantity of the sleep, but also the quality of our sleep We're gonna notice huge gains in training and there's just nothing that can really hack that or substitute it And there's people out there that will sell you all sorts of things telling you that they're gonna You know shortcut your recovery and using all these expensive recovery tools and hacks and ice baths and all sorts of things but There's really no good substitute for a lack of sleep. Sleep is the ultimate life hack in not just in your running, but in the rest of your life as well.

Kevin:

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. This really, this podcast is lining up all of the things that I've done wrong throughout my decades of running. Lack of sleep, I think was probably like a lead cause of 2017 trio of seizures, lack of fueling. Overall weakness was definitely an issue through high school and college. Too much, too soon, too fast was late high school, where I would push all of my easy runs, and then college, where I literally had to push my easy runs so that I could keep up with the rest of the team. By that point I accept and I

Angie:

had to You mean chose to?

Kevin:

Well, the option was keep up with your teammates or get lost in the city'cause you don't know where you're at. Ah, okay.'cause we would literally go off on runs as a group.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

So, yes.

Angie:

So yeah, you kinda had to, at

Kevin:

that point, like I kind of grasped that easier. Might have been. better, but I was like, I don't know where I am. I have to keep up with the pack. So it was automatically faster than it should have been. Mondays were always way faster than it should have been. And I knew it. And I'm like, but I have to be with the group cause I don't know where I am. So that just always ended up being way too fast.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah. No, I've, I've checked all the boxes. This is an excellent episode. And

Angie:

let's go to number five. Okay. All right. Cause you, you've checked this one too.

Kevin:

Uh, yeah, I think this one connects to 2017.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Uh, life stress. Stress is

Angie:

another reason that runners get injured.

Kevin:

Yeah. Stress is stress. So when you're running it, that is a stress on the body. And then you add whatever life stress you've got from work to kids, to financial, financial stress, relationships, spiritual. Sure. There's all sorts of different levels of stress and they all affect the last one, how you're able to recover. Because, if you're like, oh, I took a rest day, but it was emotionally draining on you, that's not a recovery day. It may have been a rest day where you didn't run. A

Angie:

physical rest day. But

Kevin:

you did not necessarily recover, because there was so much other stress going on in the body, that your body was like, I have to currently deal with the stress I'm facing, I don't have time to bring in the recovery crew. We're still dealing with crisis in front of us.

Angie:

Yeah. And this is one thing that not a lot of us realize is that stress is stress. Like. Stress when we experience any sort of stress, whether it's physical stress, psychological, emotional, mental, financial, whatever it might be, that releases stress hormones in the body and puts our body through a stress response cycle. And when we go into this stress response cycle, Stress response cycle. We have to do something to help alleviate the stress so that we can go back down to baseline and so many of us are living in a state of constant stress from all different angles that we are kind of in this low level of chronic stress. Every, every part of our day, and this is one of the reasons that some runners even start running in the first place is as a way to de stress because they hear, yes, moving your body and physical exercise is a great way to reduce stress. And that is true. When you are moving your body, it will help to decrease the stress hormones in your body if you do it at the appropriate effort level. And this is again, what happens. People push too hard on their runs going back to the first training mistake. And actually increase the stress levels in their body, thinking that they're actually trying to de stress and maybe you do, maybe you feel that sense of mental stress relief because some dopamine is released and there's other hormones that are released that help to kind of decrease the emotional stress response that you are having, but you're also then releasing the stress hormones that are causing physical stress on the body, right? And again, if you're. You're not making the progress that you're seeing and running or, uh, or that you want to be making, right? Or you're trying to fit your runs into an already packed calendar. Running can then just become one more source of mental stress as well, right? And all of this stress adds up in the body and has way more of an effect on our, uh, likelihood of getting injured than we often think. We'll recognize

Kevin:

and certainly want to give credit to like we want to be able to say I can deal with my running over in this silo and the rest of my life over in this silo. And that's not how it is. You have a life silo and everything fits inside of that guy because that's how it works because you're one person. You have different aspects to you, but they're all in the same thing there. It's all the same stress. You talk about how physical movement can in fact be a source of stress relief, but some people, they fire up the physical movement and they plug into their, their new smart, fancy GPS watch and it's giving them all sorts of Of information that it's feeding back to them of what their pace is and what their heart rate is. And so instead of tuning out and relaxing and unwinding during the run, they're constantly checking their watch for just nonstop feedback. One of the great aspects of being out on a run is you put the phone down. So it takes away that source of constant feedback that you could always be checking your phone. But if you replace always checking your phone with checking your watch nonstop to check your heart rate and your pace and all the different things. That's still the same constant checking and making sure that you're doing it right stress on the body

Angie:

I am so glad you pointed that out because it is so true and It's one of the reasons that, you know, inside the Academy, we teach effort based running and teach runners how to connect to their body and not have to rely on the watch because running should be that tool that you're using to help decrease stress and improve your health and improve your longevity and do all these good things. But so many of us get so attached to a lot of these metrics and numbers that it does end up just increasing your stress, especially if you're not hitting the paces or the distances that you want to, then all of a sudden, here you are. undergoing this physical stress, especially like on a speed workout. Say you're doing quarter repeats and you're not hitting your paces or half mile, whatever, you know, you're in the middle of a tempo run and you're trying to hit a certain pace and you're not hitting it. So not only do you have the physical stress of. That speed workout. But now you're adding on the mental stress of, Oh shoot, I'm not hitting my pace right now.

Kevin:

Yes. And then heaven forbid you connect that runner to like a core identity. Now you're not good at running. And that might trickle all the way to, I'm not good. And just ends the sentence there. And this, that's just super stressful.

Angie:

Yeah. And that's not what we want for you guys. You know, we want you to be able to run for the rest of your life. We want you to feel strong and healthy and empowered because that's That's one of the things that running can do for you. And that's what we want to make possible. So hopefully by listening to this episode, you now realize the five biggest. Reasons why runners get hurt, which is number one, training mistakes, often too much, too soon. Number two, weakness. Number three, lack of fuel. Number four, lack of sleep and recovery. And number five, life stress. And if you have any questions, please reach out to us over on Instagram at real life runners. I would love to hear your thoughts about this episode. And if you enjoyed it, please leave us a review over on Apple podcast and share it with a friend. You know, uh, Word of mouth is one of the best ways that we can share anything. So if you found this episode to be helpful, please share it with someone that you think could also benefit.

Kevin:

Excellent. Excellent synopsis. Yeah. Give us a five stars and then share it with somebody.

Angie:

Yeah. Just,

Kevin:

just one person, just

Angie:

one person. Yeah. Any, any one person. So is there anything, any final thoughts you have before we wrap up?

Kevin:

Um, yeah, don't be me in my teens and twenties, I believe is the takeaway from this podcast and thirties. You don't, don't be me.

Angie:

Yeah, you're doing better in the 40s, though.

Kevin:

I am doing much better in the 40s. I am rehabbing and looking at this thing and being like, I am not going to hit these things. I am going to fuel appropriately and sleep plenty. I am not even paying attention to the numbers on my watch as I make this comeback. It's, it's excellent.

Angie:

Exactly. Alright, so don't make the mistakes that we and so many other runners have made. And Get out there and run your life. You guys, as always, this has been the real life runners podcast, episode number 354 now get out there and run your life.