Variety is the Spice of Life

What the heck does this even mean? Well, in a nutshell, it means breaking up your typical training routine to challenge your body in ways you typically don’t do for injury prevention. Running is a very boring sport for your body from a load perspective. While there are multidirectional forces being placed on the body with every step, you are repeating the same movement 160-180 times per minute for however long you are running for. This is the reason that runners are so prone to overuse running injuries including stress fractures. You’re just doing the same thing over & over again, with no variety.

Mixing up your runs is CRUCIAL to not only staying sane as a runner but also to remain a healthy runner. Running the same route is something we are all guilty of doing because it is easy, quick and mindless. However, always running the same route means you’re always doing the same turns, the same elevation change, and running on the same surface.

MIX IT UP!

Changing up your typical route - something even as simple as running it in reverse - is incredibly beneficial in changing your mental awareness of the route, allowing your body to change directions you don’t normally go and giving you a whole different perspective of the same route you’ve countless miles on. Challenge yourself to go find some hills to attack or get on Strava's Plan My Route feature to see what you may be missing out on in your own neighborhood. Try to change up the running surface, as the variety in a soft vs a hard surface will allow your body to recover from the impact (yes, for some of us this may mean running on the treadmill or having to drive/take transit to a new location).

From a safety concern, you shouldn’t always be doing the same route at the same time because you never know who is watching, especially with today’s accessibility of viewing others’ runs on tracking apps. 

CHANGE UP YOUR WORKOUTS

If you’re the runner that does 400’s every time that they go to the track or does the same timed intervals once a week during speed work, I once again challenge you to MIX IT UP! Trying different intervals on a track is a great way to build speed & strength that you’ll need for races from the mile to the marathon. You can do any sort of interval from 100m to two mile intervals (I personally can’t do more, or I get dizzy running in that many circles). Same goes with your interval runs or Fartleks (yes, it is a real word); instead of just doing 1 ON & 1 OFF, maybe mix it up and do 5/1 intervals. If you're training for a longer race, my favorite is 3 x 10 min @ goal race pace with a 3 min easy jog recovery. The opportunities to create variability in your hard workouts are endless; don’t deprive yourself of fitness by doing the same 5 mile run at the same pace & effort for every run in a week. 

CHANGE UP YOUR shoes

Footwear has changed dramatically over the past few years and can provide another avenue of variability.  A study published back in 2013 found that using more than one pair of training shoes (of different heel to toe drops) reduced injury by almost 40%. In a very general sense, wearing a shoe with a higher heel to toe drop (8-12 mm) tends to call upon the hip complex a bit more and puts your toes into a bit more extension versus a lower heel to toe drop (0-6mm) which tends to call upon more foot, ankle, and calf. Plated shoes may be great for racing, but can also increase the loading forces on your body. I typically recommend that runners have 2-3 pairs of shoes in the mix, one (or two) for easy runs, and another for speed workouts and racing. 

STRENGTH TRAINING

If you are a runner and are looking to stay healthy, it is important to get into the gym to load/strengthen your body in different ways. This can be direction, speed, weight/resistance, or order of exercises. Take for example lateral lunges or skater jumps: moving side to side in the frontal plane will engage parts of the body and stress these structures differently than when we run in a straight line. Another good example is a loaded (using weight) single leg heel raise or a rear foot elevated split squat. Performing exercises which typically work the calf and knee/hip complex with more weight will make these structures work much harder, which in turn if done correctly, will build more “capacity” (ability to run longer) while decreasing the chance of getting hurt. The research on strength training for runners is pretty compelling.

AGAIN - MIX IT UP!

If you are the runner who does nothing but run, this last paragraph is for you because you NEED TO MIX IT UP! Overuse injuries are the most common reason why people come to the clinic and if you are prone to these or currently dealing with one, there are plenty of ways to continue to maintain or build your aerobic fitness while mixing up the type of exercise. For instance, instead of 7 straight days of running, perhaps replace an easy run with a bike ride, a swim workout, or some other form of cardio activity. The common theme with these activities is that they are less impactful than running but still allow you to get your heart rate up and improve or maintain your aerobic fitness. These are best to do the days after a long run, race or hard workout to allow your heart rate to get into an aerobic zone without putting extra stress on your body from the 2-3x your body weight load that running has with every step.