Running During Covid - Training and Injury

Running During Covid - Training and Injury 

Written by Physiotherapist and runner Becky Sutton

As mentioned last week, running motivation has changed during Covid, as have our running behaviours and in turn our injury risk. It is the change to these running behaviours that have led to an increase in injury. 

During the pandemic, those experiencing injury had greater changes to the training and running environment. This change could be the amount of running, the duration of running sessions, the intensity of sessions, new routes or changes in the running surface such as road/trail.  

Having less time to run due to changes in the work environment also led to more injury. Hypothesizing suggests this may have been due to increased work pressures, stress and the addition of homeschooling, followed by higher intensity exercise to compensate for the reduced frequency.  

Prior to this research, it has been well documented that the majority of running-related injuries are due to training ‘error’ – too much load for your body or too much change, too soon. Covid has exacerbated this. To add, other risk factors are, a history of prior injury (so get those niggles seen to) and being a relatively new runner, with less than 2 years of experience.  

The message to take home - be careful with your build-up and overall training schedule. Don’t overdo volume, intensity, and mix up the terrain all at once. If you’re a seasoned runner, still bear this in mind if you’re ramping up the training for the return to events. Of course, not everyone will sustain an injury (so don’t let this put you off!), but when it happens it can sometimes come as a surprise – not always linked to a specific session but after a few months of activity. Your body may cope for a while and then start to protest.  

So what running injuries might we encounter?

More on this next week!