When we hear the term “overstress injury,” we likely envision an injury that has developed as a result of consistent stress on the same body part. An assembly line worker may develop an overstress injury in their shoulder after years of factory work, or a soccer player may develop knee discomfort after putting too much strain on their lower body without ample rest. Overstress injuries are typically viewed as developing due to repetitive stress over an extended period of time, but new research may have us rethinking all that.
According to new research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, a single run could greatly increase a person’s risk of an overstress injury. We explore those findings and explain what they mean in today’s blog.
Rethinking Overstress Injuries
The takeaway from the headline isn’t supposed to scare you away from regular exercise out of fear of injury. In fact, regular exercise is one of the best ways to keep yourself healthy as you age. However, you need to be smart about how you attack an exercise program, and the latest study only adds more fuel to this fire.
According to research, while cumulative trauma still regularly contributes to overstress injuries, a single poorly-planned workout can also greatly increase your risk of developing an overstress injury.
For the latest study, researchers analyzed data collected for the Garmin Run Safe Running Health study, which followed more than 5,200 runners for 18 months. Participants wore Garmin watches and uploaded their training data to allow researchers to track how changes in training load might be linked to injury. Researchers focused on how much runners increased their distance and looked at it three different ways:
- Single sessions: how each run compared with the runner’s longest run in the past 30 days.
- Weekly load vs. usual training: whether that week’s mileage was higher than the runner’s average from the past three weeks.
- Week-to-week changes: how one week’s total mileage compared with the week before.
In each group, increases were measured in four different “spikes.”
- No big change (0-10%)
- Small change (10-30%)
- Moderate (30-100%)
- Large (More than double)
After looking at the data, researchers found that the clearest predictor of injury was a sharp increase in distance during a single run.
“Maybe we should start thinking injuries may occur due to training errors in a single running session rather than errors over a period of time,” said Rasmus Oestergaard Nielsen, a researcher from the study and associate professor in epidemiology at Aarhus University in Denmark. “We are rather confident that many runners sustain injuries because they run too much in a single session.”
Additionally, researchers found that the relationship between an increased risk of injury and increased distance of a single run was exponential. For example, if you increase the distance from 10 to 100 percent compared to the longest run you’ve taken in the past 30 days, you’re up to 60 percent more likely to be injured, Nielsen explained. Essentially, the more you increase the distance of your run in a single session, the more likely you are to suffer an overstress injury.
Again, these findings aren’t designed to scare you away from running or a workout routine, but they should serve as a reminder that it’s important to gradually increase your distance over time. This is why it’s always recommended to give yourself months to train for a long run, be it a 10K, a half marathon or a full marathon. If you try to go from the couch to a 3-mile run one week and an 8-mile run the next week, you’re greatly increasing your risk of an overstress injury, even though you’ve only notched a couple of runs. Slowly work to build up your speed and your distance, and your body will be better able to handle this additional stress because it’s not such a shock to the system.
Whether you’re training for a marathon or working to recover following an injury that forced you to be physically limited, be sure to gradually build up your distance, speed or duration. Overstress injuries aren’t just about regularly putting too much strain on your feet over an extended period, they can also happen when we greatly increase our stress loads in a single session, so be smart about your training program.
For help developing a safe exercise routine or overcoming a new or chronic foot injury, connect with Dr. Silverman today!