Today we're going to talk about the importance of the need to monitor your
body when running and when to seek help.
When you start running, it is very normal just to feel aches and pains.
It certainly depends on your level of experience and if you're a beginner or
if you're more experienced at running, you might just get different aches and pains.
When people come to our clinic, it's normally because they've been
running, they've had some aches and pains and they thought it would go away and it doesn't.
These things are far easier to sort out sooner rather than later.
It's Claire, I'm a physiotherapist from PhysioFit Health.
When people attend our clinic, it's normally for two main reasons.
So the first reason is - they've
been running and they've fallen or they've got a sudden pain, that on the
pain scale 0-10 is pretty high, so the pain will drive them to get things sorted out.
The second group is probably the main group, the biggest group that we see
and they will leave things that little bit longer before they come to
the clinic for help. So, generally, on that pain scale 0-10
they are sitting just that little bit lower, it's a little bit grumbly
and it can come and go. So people leave the aches and pains thinking it will
just go away.
When you're running, it's important to be objective about what you're trying to
look at and measure.
I'd certainly suggest when you're running just do a
check from head to toe and do that just at different intervals during the run.
At the beginning, middle and end or after a particular interval training or after
any hills that you've done.
When you do your check from head to toe you can just
gauge it on the 0-10 scale for exertion, to see how the body's feeling
and if you're thinking that you're working hard or not so hard.
When you start to monitor your body like this, you'll get used to how things are
feeling during the run and that's when you can start to pick up on any aches
and pains.
If you do notice any aches and pains, then you've got that 0-10 scale
to measure just where it sits on it whether it's low, middle or high.
Once you've got a number you can then compare to
the next time you run or, you know, compare it to running in a couple of
weeks time and you can see if there's any difference, so, for example, if it goes
from a 2/10 to a 5/10 and you can obviously see that it's
getting that little bit worse.
If you monitor your aches and pains at different points during the run you can
see if there's any pattern so whether you notice anything at the beginning of
the run, or the middle of the run, or at the end of the run and then next time
you go for a run you can just check it again to see whether you notice at the
beginning, middle or end. I'd also suggest as well as looking at everything during
the run, monitor how you feel after so that evening and also monitor how you
feel in the morning after you've done a run.
So taking all of this information
into account will give you a little bit of a picture as to if you're getting the
same pain at the same time during the run and also if anything's getting any
worse, so if those numbers start to creep up on that pain scale 0-10 then
you can obviously see that things aren't getting any better and they're getting a
little bit worse.
If I talk through an example with you. We'll take a fictional runner, he's
called Chris and he's just started running and is really enjoying it.
He's been running for about 3-4 weeks, did a little bit of the walk-run-walk
and now he slowly got into just being able to run for the whole time and now
he's starting to notice pain at the front of his shins.
Now, pain is about 2/10 and it goes away completely once he stops running so
he doesn't really think about it too much,
he thinks he can give it a little bit of a rest so he leaves the run just for a
week or two to see if that helps and then he starts back running again, but
unfortunately, he's still feeling the pain at the front of the shins and it's
now maybe a 2-3/10.
At this point I certainly think he's an idea for
him to get it checked out because there's a pattern emerging so that every
time he runs he's noticing the pain it's that 2-3/10.
Potentially what's going to happen
is he keeps running and the pain will go from a 2/10
and then increase to a 4-5+/10.
The other thing that might happen is -
he notices the pain during the run and then he starts to
notice it even when he's not running so walking down the street or going up and
down stairs.
The hard thing about this really is that the pain can sometimes go
away and once you have no pain you're thinking everything's ok.
The take-home message that I'm trying to get across is the pattern that you are
noticing. You notice the same thing on the runs,
it's feeling the same intensity or getting a little bit worse, that's
certainly a pattern and get it checked out sooner rather than later, it's far
easier to sort out in the early days rather than leaving it for weeks and
months.
Please remember to listen to your body and certainly get things checked out sooner
rather than later.
Please share this video with anyone who has started
to run and would benefit from knowing how to monitor their body when running.
We'd love to hear from you so please contact us if you have any questions.