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Training for Trail Running: Caring for Your Body (Suggestions from a Physio)
11.7k Plays1 year ago
In this episode of Training for Trail Running, Alyssa sits down with one of the Uphill Athlete Physical Therapists, Pete Dickinson. The two discuss common injuries Pete sees in trail runners and how to avoid the training errors that lead to injury. They also break down treatment options, recommendations for strength training and the importance of recovery for runners. They tackle tendon injuries and why they occur along with differences between road and trail running. Pete gives his recommendations for recovery techniques and how to stay happy and healthy on the trails. Tune in for a great episode with many suggestions from a top notch physio.
Please visit us at uphillathlete.com or write to us at [email protected]
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Transcript
Introduction to Uphill Athlete Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the uphill athlete podcast. Our mission is to elevate and inspire all mountain athletes through education and celebration. My name is Alyssa Clark and I will be your host today. I'm excited to bring back Pete Dickinson, one of our resident physios on the uphill athlete team. Pete is here to help us break down common questions and concerns from trail readers and keep you happy, healthy, and out on the trails.
00:00:33
Speaker
So Pete, thanks for joining us. It's my pleasure. I love doing these. And these are topics very near and dear to my heart. Well, what have you been up to recently?
Pete's Recovery and Mountain Experiences
00:00:45
Speaker
We can give the listeners a little update. Well, as most of us, I've been recovering from COVID. But beyond that, I sneak up in mountains. I'm in the Northwest in Washington state.
00:00:59
Speaker
uh, by the Cascades and like many of us in mountains dealing with, uh, uh, with the fires and limited access at times. But, um, I just enjoy the mountains, um, and playing out there and, um, yeah, I get out as much as I can. Awesome. Yeah. I actually just had the chance. I'd never been up to the goat rocks area and I just had the chance to go up there and it is absolutely beautiful.
00:01:28
Speaker
What an amazing area. Yeah, that's right close to the Pacific Crest Trail, too. We were on it. Yeah, which goes right through my town as well. Oh, cool. Okay. Yeah, we actually had the chance to run into Carl Sabe, who was out doing the PCT record. So we got to roam with him for about eight miles or so. Yeah, that was quite the fast record.
00:01:55
Speaker
just insane. Yeah, that would be an interesting, interesting case study to bring him on and see how he managed that. Yeah, well, a lot of our listeners are managing, you know, their events and their goals, and they have a lot of passion that they bring to the table. And like most of us, they're impatient when things go wrong, and we ding ourselves up. And yeah, we want to
00:02:24
Speaker
Maybe give them a little bit of insight into all that. Definitely. So yeah, let's get right into it.
Injuries in Trail Running
00:02:31
Speaker
Common injuries. What do you see happening for trail runners? What do you see the most and how do we prevent these injuries? And then we'll get into how do you treat them? Yeah. So, so it's a long list, right? Trail running and all running is basically you're hopping on one foot.
00:02:49
Speaker
with the rest buried from the other foot pushing off. And if you think about that, the hop for miles and miles on one foot, that's a lot of load. That's really hard on your whole structure. So no wonder it takes so much time to expose ourselves to that activity to get good at it. You get good at what you do.
00:03:13
Speaker
Uh, but there's a lot of, uh, focus that goes into that. Um, and I'm a big proponent of having coaching for that. And that's why I love, uh, uphill athlete because you guys are amazing. Um, and you make, uh, make me have to work a lot less because most of the injuries are training errors. It's going at it. Um, your progression in what you add in distance, terrain.
00:03:40
Speaker
intensity, our body only has about a 10% ability to adapt to load. More than 10% it tends to react and break down. And we're always pushing that envelope and injuring things. And the list goes is everything. It's a lot of tendon injuries because you're hopping on one foot.
00:04:05
Speaker
There's foot injuries, plantar fasciitis, I get asked about a lot. Tightnesses, the big one is spine care. In my work with our Olympians in winter sport and athletes of that nature, a lot of my care is basically just spine care because running is really hard on the back and it's fairly unrecognized. So yeah, those are...
00:04:33
Speaker
I mean, we can go on and on, but those are... I know, it keeps going. I'm in injury sites that I get asked about a lot. Okay. And then how do you, or what are some of your, I guess we'll get to that further down of prevention, but how do you about treating some of these injuries if they do happen? Because I think
00:04:56
Speaker
I mean, I always say that if my, sometimes I get concerned because some of my clients, I'm like, no, I'm not, I'm not just giving you the same training. It's just like slight tweaks every,
00:05:08
Speaker
because there's a gradual nature where I don't want to all of a sudden like, why is there a six hour run that I've never, I haven't done a run the longer than three hours before? Like if you're seeing massive changes and variations in your trading, that's actually a problem because your body, as you said, that 10% can't handle. So it should be just be like incremental changes to be. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. Like I said, most injuries are training errors.
00:05:37
Speaker
And so what I'll do when I'm working with the patient is we'll look back and go over their training in depth and pick out any of the nuances that have changed. It could be something as simple, more stress in their personal life that adds a physical load to you, emotional stress, work stress. And so you have to be cognizant of that in your training progressions.
00:06:00
Speaker
But of course, the classic is upping your time or mileage a significant amount, or it could be more of a downhill run than you've had before, things of that nature. So small changes over a long period of time is the name of the game. You want to be progressive to improve.
00:06:28
Speaker
Training is a biological process. And at the cellular level to change, that takes time. So what we do is we have a training stimulus. Your body takes that stress and does this really cool thing. It's called mechanotransduction. It takes that physical stress and turns it into a chemical reaction, which then feeds back into our system and creates changes in the tissue to be a little bit stronger.
00:06:59
Speaker
And that's that's where then we gain performance. So we got to let that process happen and It's a slow process And there's two components to it. It's the stimulus The stress that we apply but then it's also the recovery the the other half of the coin where our body is
00:07:23
Speaker
mobilizes resources to create change in that tissue. And that's maybe part of the process that we don't give enough credence to and enough attention to. That's the other half of the coin here. And if we're shorting our recovery, we're not gaining the benefits of all the training that we're doing. Absolutely.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if you think about the percentage of time you have to recover versus the percentage of time that you're running, you should be really focusing on recovery. I mean, that's the majority of the time. We aren't running, well, most of us aren't running half the day, or at least we should not be for trading purposes. So recovery is super key, and we'll definitely get into that more. But I want to dive into, I guess,
Understanding Plantar Fasciitis
00:08:11
Speaker
probably the number one
00:08:14
Speaker
And then maybe we'll get to the second one. Number one injury I hear from runners, which is plantar fasciitis. I guess how does that occur and how do you treat it? Because I see this come up all the time in our group chats and things like that. All most injuries are training errors.
00:08:37
Speaker
So plantar fasciitis is no difference, but it's a sneaky one. It's multi-factorial because there are a lot of things that play into it, make us susceptible to having that arch pain. But first and foremost, training errors. If you haven't had plantar fasciitis in your training and it develops, it's most likely you've exceeded that 10% rule.
00:09:02
Speaker
Now, things that predispose you to getting it can be genetics. You know, blame your parents always, you know. Always, yep. Yeah, good luck with that. And because it could be your bone structure causes you to have a little bit more torsion in your lower leg, forcing you into more pronation, which is stressing all those tissues.
00:09:30
Speaker
So there could be that. It's multi-factorial. See, everyone's individual in what's causing their plantar fascia. So I can't give a global statement. I'll see people with spine injuries where the back of their leg is getting tightened up from the nerves getting activated and stimulated causing some micro tension. They'll create more attention through the lower leg pulling on that plantar fascia.
00:09:58
Speaker
Um, injuring that. So it's your foot's killing you, but it's coming from your causes, maybe from your back. Um, also with training, we have little micro injuries center tissue, which causes tightness in our tissue. And actually it's tightness in your fascia and like 60 or 70% of your force transmission going down your leg is transmitted through this fascia. It's just covering around all your muscle fibers and tissues.
00:10:27
Speaker
And so when that gets tight, it changes the force vector of the line of pull, and that wigs out your planar fascia. So you have to spend a lot of time rolling, fix your training errors, and doing that. So there's a lot of different causes. A lot of people want to go, oh, it's my shoes. Yeah, you can pack out your shoes and reduce their effectiveness in whatever they're doing for you. And you should be cognizant of that.
00:10:57
Speaker
Have I listed enough things? I could keep going, maybe. No, no, that's great. So then how so say someone comes into your office, it's definitely plantar fasciitis. What are you doing to help them on the other side? Because I think that's something people. Yeah.
00:11:14
Speaker
How do we treat it? Well, it depends on what the cause is. So if we put them through some spine tests and we see that their nerves are very activated and stimulated, then we can treat the spine. If it's localized muscle tightness, then we can do a lot of rolling, which I like to do, which helps.
00:11:41
Speaker
increase the temperature of the fascia and releases the bonds of the fascia and increase more mobility that way. People do better rolling for tightness than stretching in general. A little known fact. So most of your restrictions are probably facially oriented rather than just trying to stretch length of the muscle. So yeah, we'll do that. We'll also go over their footwear and if we need to address that, we can do that.
00:12:10
Speaker
Um, running form, uh, and some folks are predisposing them to having foot pain. Uh, then as always training errors, have they progressed too quickly? Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. I was always told to use a lacrosse ball that you put in the freezer. Do you? Yeah.
00:12:32
Speaker
Well, I mean, that can get localized cold to the area pretty effectively. But we want to make sure, like with the lacrosse balls, that we aren't creating more inflammation because we're traumatizing the tissue. And I should mention that probably one of the number one activities I do to treat plantar fasciitis is hip strengthening. Because you're hopping on one leg
00:12:59
Speaker
repeatedly, and this goes for most injuries of the lower extremity, you're not strong enough for running. And your hip controls the forces going down into your foot. So single leg strengthening, not double leg, because right when you're running, you're on one leg, it's a one leg activity. And so you want to strengthen, do single leg strengthening. Completely. Yeah.
00:13:25
Speaker
Yeah, we always recommend single leg strength and we'll get into that more. Yeah, your programs are great for that. Try to be. That's something actually that's interesting. So we get people who say, oh, I just really dig into it super deeply because it starts feeling better, but you were brought up that you can traumatize it more. What's kind of that balance?
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, you want to warm up the tissue. It's a friction gain. So to resolve tightness because of fascial tightness and irritation, the bonds that are formed in the fascia are temperature dependent.
00:14:15
Speaker
that you increase the temperature of the bonds release. So just a friction game with a little bit of movement in there. So that's why rolling on balls, but maybe not bricks and foam rolls are great. We have small four inch balls that are inflatable that we like. You can use volleyballs, basketballs, something with just a little bit of give.
00:14:42
Speaker
So it's not too painful that you'll actually maybe keep doing it. That's fair. This is maybe, this is a little bit off the cuff, so maybe I'll catch you by surprise. Running form. That's something I've always, it's really controversial. I've always leaned on the side of not changing things if they work.
00:15:08
Speaker
But that's also great until it stops working. So I'm curious in your thoughts on tinkering with people's running form and how you should be thinking about that. Well, it's a tool, right? And it's in our quiver. We want to shift loads around to different areas. Or you can work on making their existing form more efficient.
00:15:37
Speaker
And track work is great for that. But doing drastic changes in form, like taking someone from a hill striker to a midfoot or forefoot striker is a difficult process. And sometimes we think about, the research tells us that we switch injuries from one area and put it in another area. So there is that. But it's a definite tool.
00:16:06
Speaker
that we should be open about, but to make big changes is a long and difficult process. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I've had some people, you get the whole
00:16:25
Speaker
movement of Born to Run and all of that where everyone wants to be. Oh, man, I know, I know, have to be careful. Where everyone wants to be, you know, a forefoot striker, they all want to be up on their toes. And I have a lot of people who say like, Oh, yeah, I switched to toe running, it's so much better. And then they have massive Achilles issues or calf issues. And I'm like,
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Don't do that, please. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like to be more highly evolved, but maybe running form might not be the path for that. Yeah, I would agree. So road running versus trail running, what do you see for different injuries that occur in
00:17:20
Speaker
What are your recommendations of kind of mixing in both? Oh, that's a that's a good question. They're kind of totally different creatures, aren't they? We like trail running because the decrease on reaction forces coming up, the impact forces are moderated a bit and there's more variability.
00:17:48
Speaker
In in the movement and what's coming through the foot and ankle and we like that when you have just the same thing over and over and over It doesn't give you a lot of variability in function you become a one-trick pony almost so Yeah, that's kind of how I how I look at it people because where they live, you know, they're
00:18:17
Speaker
they're relegated to more pavement running. And then I think you have to be actually smarter about the forces and the recovery because you're gonna have more micro trauma coming into your tissues from the pavement running. The forces are gonna be coming up into your lower extremities in a quicker fashion, more forceful fashion. So you have to be aware of that in your recovery.
00:18:45
Speaker
and which affects your frequency and duration as well. Yeah, I just think it's something
00:18:54
Speaker
I mean, I always advocate when people say, Oh, I'm always injured from running. I'm like, try trail running. It's probably going to work out better for you. Um, but some people just don't have the time. So, um, they're stuck on roads or have to do it more. Um, yeah. So I think it's just interesting of like a stronger awareness that road will have a higher impact on you. Yeah. It's a different creature for sure. Yeah.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah. So
Role of Strength Training for Endurance Athletes
00:19:25
Speaker
we've talked a bit about strength, but what are your recommendations for strength training for runners for preventing injury? Well, I really like progressing over a period of time, all based on your comfort level with heavy loaded lifting because
00:19:53
Speaker
doing either a heavy deadlift or heavy single leg step down or a squat helps build up the toughness in your in your in your tendons and Tendons with they get a lot of repetition they get a lot of impact and they need to be strong and and it's the heavy loads that stress the tendons and
00:20:20
Speaker
And the thing with all of us in endurance sports, we're not really oriented towards the strength side of things. But strength is your pathway to longer distance, more fatigue resistance, and less injury. It also is a basic component of good health, especially as we
00:20:44
Speaker
age as an active individual. And so it's going to keep us more injury free. It's going to keep us in our sport longer and with more enjoyment. So I can't emphasize enough the value of a strength practice in your life. And what are some of your go-to exercises within that strength training that you'd like to see athletes doing?
00:21:13
Speaker
uh... deadlift which is a hip hinge which emphasizes the back of your leg your hip your hamstring your calf uh... your foot and ankle uh... we'd like to do that uh... both in two legs because we can manage a lot of weight but then we also like to do it in one leg and you can do either step down or uh... a single leg deadlift uh... there's a bunch of exercises that you can do in one leg uh... that uh...
00:21:40
Speaker
prepare you for first sports where you're just pushing off of one leg, be it trail running, road running, skiing, biking, a lot of activities you're pushing through just one leg at a time. What about core specific? Okay, so the other thing is, remember what I said, is a majority of
00:22:06
Speaker
injuries I'm treating on the road with our elite sport teams are spine injuries. And so we want to have a strong core.
00:22:17
Speaker
A lot of heavy lifting involves having a really strong and tight core. Heavy lifting is a tension game. It's a core game. You have to have a strong trunk to support the heavy loads. And so heavy lifting promotes a good strong core. Doing an overhead press, an overhead lift, also really activates your core in the
00:22:44
Speaker
the most maximal fashion. All the studies show that. And as endurance sports, a lot of times we're not pushing weight overhead, but we should. And it's really good also for our posture. We have great, much better posture stability with performing an overhead lift. Now good posture is also important in long distance running.
00:23:06
Speaker
Once you start collapsing and aren't able to maintain a good platform for your legs to operate underneath, then your performance really suffers. So there's a bunch of reasons for having an overhead lift in your program. For core training, a lot of people, we like doing a lot of planks and side planks to keep our trunk rigid and strong.
00:23:34
Speaker
to get in the weeds here a little bit of Turkish get up for a movement. Core strengthening exercise is one of our favorites. A couple dance moves involved in that. But that's an awesome loaded activity. And that covers a lot of basis, just that one movement. So if I were to think about my core, I'd be doing Turkish get up, overhead lifts, and making sure I'm picking up something heavy with good form. Yes.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, Turkish get-ups are no joke. They are very tricky. They're hard to do right. Yeah, so definitely. It's a full body exercise. If you just had time to do one left, it'd be the Turkish get-up. Definitely. And have someone watch you do it that knows what they're doing because there's a lot of ways to do it wrong. Well, with all of this stuff, it helps to have a coach.
00:24:26
Speaker
Right, I said, most of our problems come from training errors. A coach helps you with that. It also helps you with form during movements and so that we don't get injured during those movements. Once you start adulting and you're out of a team environment, you don't have that staff of people to support you in your activities. But we may be spending many, many hours in a sport.
00:24:53
Speaker
But unsupported so it's important to have a team around you to have coach to have mental health support Nutrition support all these are you know very helpful
00:25:10
Speaker
Definitely. I mean, Pete and I were talking right before this that the stronger and bigger, well, thoughtful, you can build your team, um, the better you'll do because these sports are not sole endeavors. I think that we see that more and more. And so the, the stronger your team is around you, the more they can help in a variety of situations. And I think that's something.
00:25:39
Speaker
Personally, I've been able to figure out a lot more is that as I've gotten further into the sport and strove for higher performances that I need a team and I need to know when things are going downhill to access and activate my team to step in and help me. So it's super key. Yeah, Lissa, thanks for sharing that. You know, there's also a big community out there, people.
00:26:09
Speaker
Um, that you can tap into. Um, and that's what I love about the uphill athlete community and outdoor sports. Um, is where we're all out there because we love it. Um, and a lot of people are struggling with the same things. Uh, and it's important to have that community around us that we can reach out to when we need to support others when they need it. Uh, and that makes for a good life. It does.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's one of the best parts of it. And that's something I know personally is very important to me as I've had a lot of people step up and say, let me help and that I try to do the same for others. And Pete, I know you're very generous with your time and resources as well. And so
00:26:56
Speaker
I guess it's like, hey, we're here. You know, if you're, if you're wondering or have questions, um, at least I'm here. I know Pete's here. Like uphill wants to support people. I mean, that's, that's so much of why we, we do this is to help each other succeed. Um, which is really, yeah, I think community has always been one of the most important parts of all of these sports to me. Um, and I, it's nice to, to know you have other people have your back and you have their back too.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, the staff here, we all want you to achieve your goals and help you along that. And we get as much back from that in any way that we can help that we give out. So for all the listeners, please reach out with your questions. And we have a real investment in you being safe and enjoyable about all your uphill endeavors.
00:27:55
Speaker
Absolutely. So this is actually a question, uh, that I think we're seeing become more relevant is that as you're getting into super mountainous races, as you're getting into longer distances, people are really relying on poles. So how do you see using poles? Do you see injuries coming from that more? So, um, yeah, I'm curious how that's come up. Cause I'm seeing it as, um, yeah.
00:28:25
Speaker
That's a great question. That's a great question because there's two sides to that coin. There's the performance aspect of that. But there's another side. As a physical therapist, I always want people to express the highest function they can and not for that to be dummied down and blocked and prevented. And so I think a lot of hiking with poles, when you don't need to hike with a pole,
00:28:55
Speaker
you are limiting your other balanced processes to occur.
Using Poles: Performance vs Support
00:29:03
Speaker
You're relying on the poles too much. So there's that side. I whine about that. And there's that side of things. However, we know from a performance standpoint, for the ultra hikers, and when you're doing it for long periods of time, it helps shift some of the load to the upper extremities and help
00:29:23
Speaker
with the fatigue you would get in your legs. So there's a benefit with that, absolutely, when you're going for hours at a time. From racing, when you're using poles, again, you're allowing your upper extremities to assist with some of the force production, as well as balance and fatigue over a period of time.
00:29:48
Speaker
But then if you haven't been training that or you do put it at risk with your elbow and your shoulder coming into play for more injury. So you get good at what you do. So if you're going to be doing that at a quick pace, you need to be training using them at a quick pace. And for sure, strength training helps your fatigue tolerance, makes you more fatigue resistant.
00:30:16
Speaker
So you should be doing strength training for the upper extremities to support that tissue. So then it just becomes a training issue.
00:30:25
Speaker
Yeah, no, totally. I'm actually a proponent of what you said about not using poles all the time, because I think that there's tremendous benefit to working on that leg strength, working on that core strength without poles. Also, poles break, and so sometimes you might be
00:30:47
Speaker
SOL at a race or another event because your pole broke. So I am a proponent of practicing with them. I'm also a proponent of not always using them as the crutch as well. Yeah, I'm on that side of the coin as well. It's good to develop your capacities safely to their fullest extent. And if you're taking your ability to balance on one leg,
00:31:17
Speaker
Without assist, if you're never doing that, then I think that's a lost skill that you'll miss at some point. I agree. Especially since I'm just about to teach you how to fall prevention activity for seniors in a couple of days. So your single leg balance is really key. But this population, different issues. Yeah, different issues. Although we're getting there.
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah. So one of the things that you've mentioned previously is tendonitis. So where do you see tendonitis the most in runners? Why does it occur? And then how do we try to prevent it? Okay. To be pedantic again.
00:32:03
Speaker
Most injuries are training errors. Your tendon injuries are no different. It's usually because of an overload situation. You've exposed them to repetition or loads that they weren't prepared for. Most common tendon injuries are Achilles tendonitis, but we'll see it. Patellar tendonitis as well. Super common.
00:32:32
Speaker
We've got to get that tendon stronger is the name of the game. It's not getting it. I mean, we'll do mobility work and fascial work because that does feed into the tendon. But if we can get them stronger, that's really going to help. But if you've had severe tendonitis, you've got portions of the tendon that are no longer tolerating taking load. And that ship is sailed. They're never going to like taking load.
00:33:03
Speaker
So what you have to do is get the surrounding fibers stronger to take the load, and you won't be painful as much anymore. And guess what? To get something stronger, you have to go through a strengthening process. And especially with achilles tendon, it doesn't like to get strong right away. So we start with isometrics doing a calf raise hold.
00:33:24
Speaker
And we start this process, and then we start exposing it to more and more load, doing it with just one leg for a longer period of time on and on until we get it stronger. But I don't like to rest these. We want to get them stronger, right? When you rest, you rot. So now, let's pull that away from the recovery discussions. But for tendons, we want to,
00:33:54
Speaker
find a point where we can start loading them and then we're off to the races to get them areas around the damaged parts of the tendon stronger. Excellent. Yeah, that's super helpful. Oh, shoot, I was going to say something. Yep, it's totally it's gone. Maybe it will come back later. Yep, sometimes it just goes out the window. That's OK.
00:34:23
Speaker
This is good. We're covering a lot of ground here. We really are. Um, and that goes to, you rest, you rot, but that's different than recovery. So recovery, we mentioned it at the top of, of the podcast, but what, what are your best recommendations for recovery? Why is this so important to training, especially I think in, in running?
00:34:52
Speaker
Well, like what we said before, you have a training stimulus and we want to get all the benefit of all that energy we put into our interval day or a long run day. And we create a bunch of fatigue. We want to make sure that that pays dividends. But if we just launch right back into additional training without letting these systems recover, we're not going to gain
00:35:16
Speaker
the benefit of that stimulus. And so we have the stimulus, but we need our body to be able to have time to turn that mechanical stress to a chemical reaction and rebuild the tissues to be stronger so we have better performance.
00:35:34
Speaker
that takes time, but we can do some things to help that. Now, training is really stimulating the sympathetic nervous system, maximally, and these are processes in our body that gear up all of our energy resources to producing activity. Now, there's another side of that coin is called your parasympathetic nervous system, and this is
00:36:01
Speaker
your repair and regeneration side of the coin. We want to get that side stimulated so that we get the benefit from the sympathetic stimulus. Now, we can actually get that parasympathetic system geared up through some specific things. And a lot of it is through the vagal nerve stimulation. And there are a few things that we can actively do to stimulate the vagal nerve.
00:36:32
Speaker
And that is, number one is probably deep, slow breathing at about five or six breaths per minute. It's a pretty slow rate, breathing in slowly and exhaling even for a little bit longer period of time. And that stimulates the vagus nerve, which is really cool.
00:36:54
Speaker
The other thing is we have baroreceptors deep in our tissue, which are tied into that person's nervous system. And doing rolling on the foam roll or a deep massage will also stimulate that activity. So I tell my athletes, after that interval session, after that long run, I want you to spend 10 minutes deep breathing.
00:37:16
Speaker
as well as rolling. And you're then matching, you're pairing your sympathetic nervous stimulus with your parasympathetic nervous system support. And that's how you can get the most out of your training. Excellent. I will add that to my tool box of things to do after runs.
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah, do that after your big day. And it doesn't take very long, right? Yeah, 10 minutes. And it actually feels good to do these activities. So it
Importance of Recovery and Tendon Health
00:37:50
Speaker
should be fairly reinforcing to get to it. Excellent. No, that's great. I hope more runners take that. Well, I do now remember somewhat going backwards to the tendonitis, but also ties to recovery is that
00:38:10
Speaker
I think where a lot of runners, especially newer runners or runners that are transitioning from a ski season, um, a non load bearing activity is like, I always say to them like, you probably are very cardiovascular fit. I believe you. I don't have a doubt about that, but your tendons, your legaments are not ready for this type of load because running is such a heavy loaded sport.
00:38:34
Speaker
And so I always get very concerned when I have runners who say I want to do a hundred mile in their first year and they weren't really runners beforehand. Um, or I have an athlete coming off of a ski season. It's like, well, we're going to have to back it off or bike, et cetera, because you're just not ready for that. Load yet. Um, and so that's just something I wanted to add on of why we see tendonitis and
00:38:59
Speaker
why it's so important to be really cognizant of what you're doing and not just jumping into these massive runs, even if you are cardiovascularly fit. Alyssa, you bring up a great point there.
00:39:14
Speaker
And I see that with our really good athletes who have sharpened up their fitness, incredible fitness to a really fine point for that activity. And since I do a lot of skiing sports, I see them get a lot of calls as they transition then.
00:39:31
Speaker
into the spring season, you go to Moab, your first run is 20 miles on a sandy road because you have the fitness for that, but then you deal with, you know, an IT friction syndrome for the next three months. Yeah, so something to be aware of. You get good at what you do. But if you haven't been doing that, and that includes all the impact activity of running,
00:40:01
Speaker
Um, because you've been doing other activities at a high level, it still doesn't fully transfer your fitness does your cardiovascular fitness, but your, your, uh, impact and load tolerance, um, is going to be different. Oh, the idea of their first effort being a 20 mile stand, you run a Moab just makes me cringe. Well, yeah, it, yeah. It happens. Yeah. It was a family member and, um, uh,
00:40:30
Speaker
Even though she's a world-class athlete, bad things can happen. I mean, unfortunately, sometimes we have to learn of the mistake and to realize, nope, we can't do that. Got to be a little more patient. Can't cure a dumb, but we can learn. Absolutely.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah, well, hopefully, hopefully, we're not trying to cure that too much with athletes more just I think you said in the last podcast of curbing over enthusiasm or something along those lines. Well, it's it's oh, yes, is is a common affliction with runners and an uphill athletes. And that's over enthusiasm syndrome.
00:41:15
Speaker
Um, so yeah, that'll get the best of us. It's a good thing to have, uh, but, uh, yeah, needs to be managed. Absolutely. And I will be the first to say, I have to check myself on that as well, especially after big events or long events. When you start feeling better, you're like, Oh, great. I can just start adding things in. It's like, Nope, your body takes a long time to recover and you have to be smart about it.
00:41:42
Speaker
You know, first I try to have most of my patients' clients' injuries first. So I've suffered through not being very smart at things. So hopefully I can learn from that. I hope we all can learn. Yeah. Well, Pete, is there anything else you want to touch on or advice you have to offer?
Community Engagement and Active Lifestyle
00:42:09
Speaker
It's amazing what everyone is out there doing. Keep at it, get support when you need it, ask questions, tap into the community, but it's very good to have a robust and active life and it pays dividends down the road. So here's to,
00:42:37
Speaker
a great end of summer season here we're going into and looking forward to the snow, which we just had last night. So nice. Yeah. And, uh, uh, best, best in health to everyone. Thank you. Well, Pete, are you still doing, you're still doing consultations through uphill? Yeah. You can get, get hold of me through uphill athlete page.
00:43:04
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah. So if you'd like to schedule a virtual session or a conversation with Pete, you can do that on the upper athlete website and get to chat with him a little bit more. Uh, so thanks Pete for being on. This was great. Thanks, Alyssa.
00:43:21
Speaker
course. Thank you for listening to the uphill athlete podcast. If you could rate, review or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, that really helps us help as many athletes and outdoor enthusiasts as we can. It's not just one, but a community. We are uphill athlete.