Some Top Tips for Trail Running
With Christmas fast approaching and the shopping lists ticked off, its time to look forward and look at some great local events happening in the New Year. With the Good Home Taranaki Off-Road Half Marathon now only 6 weeks away we thought it was a great chance to focus on something other than the silly season or COVID..
Trail running is a fun change to road running & a great way to get out in nature and away from the craziness of this month. It is a welcome change to the uniplanar surfaces of road running, but it isn’t without some difficulty. From a biomechanical perspective, trail running is a variance to road running. & with this has implications for your training, performance and injury prevention.
Firstly, your running technique needs to be more flexible and adaptable. Trails generally have steeper climbs and descends, with sudden changes in depths and angles. The ground can be uneven and varying in surfaces. These constant changes throughout the course will change the load through our soft tissues (think muscles, ligaments and tendons). You will need to prepare your body for these newfound changes. Here are our top tips for adjusting to Trail running:
1. Start off gradually. Like any new sport or activity, its good to adjust gradually to the changing loads/stressors on your body. If you are new to trail running we suggest adding 1 trail run in per week at a distance less than your normal road run.
2. Hip Stability. A hot topic is hip and labral injuries in the Physio world. & a lot of these issues can be managed with good gluteal strength and hip control. If we have good hip stability, then we reduce stress/strain on the joints lower down the chain as well. Having a nice stable base to work from is always good to prevent excessive angles and stress being placed on your lower leg joints,
3. Lower Leg strength. Due to the ever-changing terrain, there will be some increase in your knee/ankle ROM and control. Therefore the muscles surrounding these joints will need to be strong to support the change in mechanical load that differs from on road. Strong calves, quads and hamstrings will help you to control the changes in joint angle more efficiently,
4. Eccentric Control. An add on to our above point. Eccentric control is the ability for your muscles to lengthen under load or contract eccentrically. This is particularly needed with the descends in downhill running. While it’s a great chance to catch your breath going downhill, it’s also harder on the muscles and tendons to control your limbs. Improper training eccentrically will lead to earlier fatigue and increase your risk of injury later in the race,
5. Balance. The uneven surfaces are particularly harder for your ankles to comply with. You need higher levels of balance and agility to adapt to the change in surfaces.
If you have any niggles that have never fully resolved then we’d suggest coming in to see us while you’re training. We have time to be more thorough and have highly trained/experienced Physios to do biomechanical assessments or Physio treatment privately or on ACC. Physio is an essential service, so if you are well you can come in and visit us in our Frontrunner Clinic. We also have some great Reformer Pilates classes to work on all the key areas we’ve listed above too. We’ll try to make your move to Trail running a smooth, injury free and fulfilling transition.
Also there’s some very experienced staff down at Frontrunner if you’re looking into trail shoes- they’ve got the knowledge and are on hand to get you the best fitting shoe. & you’ll be supporting a great local business- a win-win really.