Optimize Your Training To Maintain High Levels Of Fitness & Performance

1. Run better.

Wherever you are right now, remove your shoes and socks, stand up and jump up and down a few times, landing on your heels.

You’ll quickly realize that landing on your heels is jarring and unnatural. To do it, you have to actively flex your toes and lock out your knees. 

Want to try it on one foot? I didn’t think so.

Yet, for some reason, many long-distance runners land on their heels when they run. That’s approximately 1,000 jarring, unnatural impacts on each foot in a 20-minute run. Talk about a recipe for an overuse injury.

Not to mention that landing on your heels slows you down. To land on your heel, you must reach your foot out in front of you.

Imagine riding a bicycle and trying to go faster by slapping at the ground with a canoe panel. Would that help propel you forward?

No. 

Every time the paddle contacts the ground in front of you, it acts as a brake on your forward momentum. Every time your foot contacts the ground in front of you as you run, it slows you down.

Research shows runners who land on the balls of their feet absorb shock better and are less likely to get injured than runners who land on their heels.

So, the first step to avoiding injury while running is to run with better technique. Land on the balls of your feet instead of your heels. 

• Don’t let your knees cave in or feet turn out. 
• Don’t reach your foot out in front of you. Anything that deviates from your body’s natural biomechanics is a recipe for injury. 

And improving your running technique will help you run faster.

2. Run less, faster.

Overuse implies doing too much of an activity. So, an obvious way to avoid overuse injuries is to do less of the activity in question.

However, it also seems logical that running less will decrease running fitness. But that’s not the case.

Running repeated, short, high-intensity intervals with rest periods in between intervals can help runners decrease their training volume and maintain or increase their fitness.

Research on high-intensity interval training shows:

• Runners who completed 4–7 rounds of 30 seconds at maximum intensity with 4 minutes of recovery 3 times a week improved their 3,000-meter time and could run longer before reaching exhaustion.

• Runners who performed high-intensity interval training twice a week improved their running economy and peak speed and showed similar improvements in VO2 max and 5,000-meter time compared to runners on their regular training program.

• Runners who performed high-intensity interval training experienced greater improvements in heart function compared to those who performed long, steady-state runs.

In other words, runners can avoid overuse injuries by running less without missing out on gains in fitness. Combined with better running technique, this approach can allow runners to maintain health and improve performance.