Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Click the top right cornerto share the articleto your sports circle or moments
In recent years, running has become an essential part of many people's lives.For beginners, running is mainly for physical exercise and enjoying a healthy life, but for seasoned runners, they complete marathon after marathon, breaking their personal PB.
Regardless of the purpose, persistence is very important in running.Running can be boring, you need to persist;Feeling lazy today and don't want to run, you need to persist;Can't run anymore and want to stop, you need to persist;Hit the wall in a marathon, you need to persist...
It can be said that persistence is one of the most valuable qualities of a runner, and running also cultivates the runner's tenacious will to persist. However, if you persist in the wrong way of running, does such persistence still make sense? Today, I have summarized common running mistakes for you. Let's see if you have fallen into any of these traps.
————
Persisting in not warming up before running
Warming up before running is an old topic and an essential part of running. However, a considerable proportion of runners still feel that not warming up before running is fine, and they can still run ten kilometers without any impact.
Not warming up before running for a long time will greatly reduce your running efficiency. Warming up before running increases body temperature, reduces muscle viscosity, enhances muscle elasticity and extensibility, mobilizes the cardiovascular system, and helps you get into the running state faster. It also activates muscles, such as the gluteus medius and transverse abdominis, making running more stable and preventing running injuries.
So, even if you run ten minutes less, you should still warm up thoroughly. This not only helps prevent running injuries but is also part of scientific exercise.
————
Persisting in not stretching after running
Not stretching is a major cause of running injuries. Stretching helps eliminate fatigue, improve muscle elasticity and extensibility, relax muscles, and promote orderly muscle fiber alignment. If you run 2-3 times a week but do not develop the habit of stretching after running, you may not feel much in the short term, but subtle changes in your muscles have already occurred.
If you run continuously for 3 months without stretching after running, your muscle elasticity will start to decrease, and your muscles may become tighter. You may not feel it much while running, but the next day, you may feel fatigue or slight discomfort in certain areas, such as the knee joint, which is an early sign of strain.
If you run continuously for a year without stretching after running, your muscle performance will greatly decline. Your muscles will feel hard, and the muscle tension will be significantly high, with a noticeable decrease in muscle elasticity. Joint flexibility and suppleness will also be greatly reduced. At this point, you may feel joint pain after running 3-5 kilometers, or even at the start of running, and you may even feel joint pain during normal times. This indicates that you have developed running-related strain injuries, and the pain will greatly interfere with your normal running, forcing you to reduce or stop running.
————
Persisting in running when feeling unwell
When you have a cold or fever, your body raises its temperature to fight the virus. When the immune system wins, the body lowers the temperature by sweating. So, some runners may mistakenly think that running and sweating will help cure a cold.
Running to cure a cold is extremely wrong because, after a cold, the body's defense system will fight the invading enemy, causing symptoms such as a fever. At this time, the body's metabolism is very fast. If you run, it will further increase the body's heat production, raise the temperature, and speed up metabolism, leading to excessive consumption of the body and further weakening the body's resistance.At this time, bacteria may take advantage of the situation and cause secondary bacterial infections. If they invade the myocardium, it may cause acute myocarditis.
Therefore, for runners, never run when you have a cold. Even in the later stages of a cold, when symptoms have eased and you feel much better, it is still not advisable to run. Although the symptoms have disappeared, the body's resistance is still relatively weak. It is best to wait a few days after the cold has completely healed before running. Additionally, do not participate in marathons within two weeks after a cold.
————
Persisting in not doing strength training
Thinking that running is just about running and that strength training is unnecessary is a very wrong idea. For runners, not doing strength training is not conducive to improving running ability and running economy. As running time increases, the cumulative stress on the body will gradually increase, especially on the lower limb joints. At this time, muscles need to have enough strength to protect the joints and avoid joint injuries.
For example, 70% of running injuries are knee injuries. The quadriceps perform eccentric movements during running, buffering the impact on the joints when landing. When the quadriceps are not strong enough, the impact on the joints increases, raising the risk of knee injuries. Many running injuries are due to insufficient muscle strength, so strength training is particularly important for runners. It will help you run faster and longer.
————
Persisting in unscientific training
We all know the basic principle that everything should be done step by step and not in a rush. However, many runners, due to insufficient training time or irregular training, are prone to random training, such as not training for a period and then training intensely when they have time. This greatly increases the risk of injury.
'Training load error' is a major cause of injuries. It means that it is not the excessive training volume that causes injuries but the sudden change in training volume that determines your risk of injury.In simple terms, a sudden increase in training volume is the main cause of running injuries. For example, a reasonable range for increasing weekly mileage is 10-20%. Exceeding 50% is an extreme danger signal. If your weekly mileage is 20km, the maximum mileage for the next week should not exceed 25km. If it exceeds 30km, the risk of injury will significantly increase.
Another situation is a sudden increase in single-run mileage. For example, if you usually run five or six kilometers and then suddenly run a half marathon, or if you usually run ten kilometers and then suddenly run a full marathon, the race mileage will significantly exceed the mileage your body can normally handle. After the race, you may experience knee pain or other pain that does not go away for a long time. This is what is called overtraining.
————
Persisting in a single training method
If you are just running for health, running at the same speed and distance each time, such as running at a 7-minute pace for half an hour, is completely reasonable and has no problems.But if you want to improve your running ability and participate in marathons, this running method has many problems.
A long-term monotonous running method leads to slow improvement because you have not fully stimulated your body. Training for a marathon requires a combination of different speeds and durations, with reasonable and effective arrangements according to the training cycle. This training does not emphasize speed or volume but combines fast and slow, with varied runs such as easy runs, tempo runs, and interval runs. Long and short distances should also be used together to effectively improve running ability.
In addition, a monotonous running method is also a major cause of injuries. For example, long-term LSD training without variation and lack of strength training can lead to overuse injuries. Therefore, making training rich and diverse is a basic feature of scientific training and preparation.
————
Persisting in thinking post-run recovery is not important
It is undeniable that only training can effectively promote ability improvement. Through the stimulus-response-adaptation model, a person's ability will increase.Therefore, sometimes we need to form a stimulus through relatively large training volumes or high-intensity training to make the body react and adapt.
During this process, the body will also experience significant fatigue. So, we say that there is no training without fatigue, but don't forget another saying: there is no improvement without recovery. After high-volume and high-intensity training, the body must be given enough recovery time.
Therefore, continuous high-volume or high-intensity training with the same content for several days is generally considered meaningless. If today's volume and intensity are high, tomorrow's volume and intensity should be low to give the body enough time to recover and adjust, achieving supercompensation after the stimulus and improving running ability.
Post-run recovery is not just about stretching. It involves sleep, nutrition replenishment, muscle relaxation (such as foam rolling, hot water foot baths, and wearing compression gear after running) to fully recover after running.
————
Persisting in so-called 'acid-clearing runs'
The day after a marathon or long-distance training, there is often noticeable muscle soreness. The traditional view is that this is caused by lactic acid buildup, leading to the concept of 'acid-clearing runs,' where low-intensity jogging the next day is believed to clear lactic acid. This is what many runners refer to as 'acid-clearing runs.'
In fact, 'acid-clearing runs' are complete pseudoscience. The soreness during exercise is indeed caused by lactic acid buildup, which is also a major cause of fatigue. However, regardless of the duration or intensity of the exercise, and whether you stretch afterward, the lactic acid accumulated during exercise will be completely cleared within half an hour after the exercise ends.
So, the concept of 'acid-clearing runs' is wrong. Do you need to jog the day after a marathon to promote recovery? After a marathon, especially your first marathon, the microstructure of your muscles is already damaged, and the body will start the repair mechanism. What you need to do is rest. Continuing to run can easily irritate the muscles, delay repair, and even worsen the damage.
Therefore, resting after a marathon is the best recovery measure. Generally, it is best to rest completely for 2 weeks after a full marathon, at least 1 week. After a half marathon, it is best to rest for 1 week, at least 3-4 days. Don't worry too much about losing endurance by not running. The endurance you have accumulated will not disappear so quickly.
————
Conclusion
Persistence is the most important and iconic quality of a runner. From a mental and willpower perspective, it is essential. From a scientific perspective, the correct approach needs to be persisted in, while persisting in wrong behaviors is stubbornness and obstinacy.A runner's persistence needs to be combined with rationality and science.