More Rest

Any sport, any level, any age. Anyone is at risk of overtraining anytime there is under-resting. Runners probably are the best example.

Runners run. There isn’t any way around it. Runners need to run. They tinker with their training weeks, mostly manipulating their running frequency, intensity and duration. Long days, speed days, short days, slow days, hill days and those much-needed rest days.

I’ve never worked with a runner who needed to run more, but I’ve worked with a lot of runners who needed more rest, more strength and more awareness. Mostly, they needed awareness that they needed more rest and more strength. I’m not picking on runners, but they are an easy target. Runners love to run, and the nature of the sport is repetition — same direction, same plane, same stresses.

It’s hard to out-run the physics of running. Basically, it’s F=ma. Simply put, it takes a certain amount of force (F) to accelerate (a) a runner’s mass (m). More simply, the more a runner’s speed changes, either increasing or decreasing, the more force is required.

Running requires a runner to replay a series of force reduction and force production events over and over: landing and propelling, landing and propelling, landing and propelling, with each event occurring on one leg at a time.

Most of us recall the legendary Beatles lyric, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” While that might be true, runners should think more pragmatically. They quickly will learn that the force they reduce is equal to the force they produce. Stronger runners are able to manage the flow of energy between these two important phases of running.

Reducing and producing force requires strength. Stronger runners can create more muscular tension for longer durations in their important running muscles, including their core and deep hip muscles. The first step to getting stronger is simple if you remember that training makes you tired and rest allows the body’s tissues to adapt to the training stress from your last workout.

It all comes back to awareness. Athletes who overtrain, not just runners, usually aren’t aware they are overtraining. By heightening your awareness and scheduling more rest, you’ll give your body the opportunity it needs to get stronger.