While I am NOT a physical therapist or a sports doctor, I spend a lot of time researching common running injuries and talking to the experts to help my athletes and YOU get through them.
For some reason, many of you don’t want to go to the doctor.
Maybe it’s cost, maybe it’s a fear they’ll say something ridiculous like “don’t run“. Whatever the case, no worries I’m here with solutions.
Over my nearly two decades of running, I’ve had twinges and niggles and few big injuries like IT Band Syndrome, Runner’s Knee and finally knee surgery after a day at the trampoline park. In between, there has been A LOT of time spent with physical therapists learning key rehab exercises and pre-hab exercises that I can share to keep all of us running happy.
If you’re currently in the midst of an injury and feeling alone, dejected and of course missing those endorphins, read this guide on the MENTAL recovery from injury. It’s an important step because the road back isn’t always fast or straigh.
Common Running Injuries
Following are detailed articles on different common running injuries, click the link to start recovery or prevent it in the future!!
In fact, here are my top 12 ways to prevent running injuries. READ IT, commit it to memory and hopefully you won’t need to come back to this page.
I was going to divide this page into sections for things like running knee injuries or running hip injuries, but the truth is that so many of our injuries are connected from hip to toe. Shoot even from shoulder to toe because if you’re out of alignment it can change your stride.
Instead I’m going to try to list a few symptoms under each to help you decide if that’s the running injury you’re dealing with!
IT Band Syndrome
I have more information on this particular injury than any other because I know it’s one that seems to linger and having been there myself, I know what it takes to truly recover and it’s not rest!!
I created an 80 page ebook to help you resolve it long term. I could give you a bunch of links, but honestly if you’re in the throws of ITB, I hope you’ll get the book and start the exercises ASAP because they can work fast.
Symptoms:
- Outside of knee pain
- Hip pain
- Pain running from hip to knee along outside of leg
Runner’s Knee
While our knees often take the blame for why people don’t run, the cause is usually our weak hips and core! Checkout the link above to find what might be causing your knee pain and then make a couple tweaks to your weekly routine and you’ll be running pain free again soon!
Symptoms:
- Usually knee pain below the knee
- Often worse going downhill or downstairs
A few more knee related posts:
- My Process to Running After Knee Surgery
- Running After Knee Replacement : While I had knee surgery a few years ago, I have not had knee replacement, so I reached out to a fellow long time runner who has to provide deep insights on the process of recovery and exactly what you can expect.
Shin Splints
Too much, too soon, too fast are the runner’s triad for injury and the most common new runner injury is shin splints.
We get so excited by our new passion for running that we go all in, but the body needs time to adapt. The link above will provide you with KEY recovery tools and exercises to help prevent shin splints from recurring.
Symptoms:
- Ache or sharp pain along front or inner side of lower leg
- Could have a little swelling in the lower leg
Plantar Fasciitis
Long time and new runners alike can suffer from this frustrating foot pain. More confounding because it might actually feel better once you start running and the muscles loosen up…which unfortunately means you’ll skip doing the PT thinking it goes away. NO. Click the link above to really learn about how to handle this injury.
If you ignore it, this will absolutely get worse and can be debilitating. Treat it fast.
Symptoms:
- Pain in the heel and often in to the arch
- Pain that is worse first thing in the morning when muscles are stiff
A few more foot injuries of runners:
- Ball of Foot Pain (Metatasarlagia)
- Preventing Running Blisters
- Running with Bunions
- Running with flat feet – fallen arches
- Running with high arches
- Running on A Broken Toe – There are a lot of things which can derail our training, but oddly we tend to feel like a broken toe should not be one of them. Ok, I didn’t feel like it should and that lead to the research to figure out what we can do to keep running and when we need to just say “it’s time to wait this one out.”
Running Stress Fracture
One of the few injuries that can really be prevented with great nutrition and smart training. We often see it happen in athletes who are crushing their training, but aren’t so much crushing the recovery days or the matching nutrition.
Checkout that article for tips on recovery and prevention of stress fractures (hint it’s not all about calcium)!!
Symptoms:
- Swelling
- Pain that is better when weight is removed (i.e. you stop standing on your foot)
- Pain that gets worse the longer you ignore it
- Specific pain when you touch a spot
Calf Strain or Tightness While Running
Did you know that your calf muscles absorb 8 times your body weight with each step? They are serious working hard and as a result if our form is even slightly off or we aren’t stretching they love to MUSCLE CRAMP and just feel less than fabulous.
Definitely checkout those stretches and strengthening exercises to get the most power from your lower leg.
I doubt you need symptoms here…it’s tight, it cramps, it hurts.
Achilles Pain
Until I started coaching, I didn’t realize just how common this issue was with runners. You’ll learn some crazy things in this article like the treadmill could make it worse, what?! And that certain shoes could actually be better for those who tend to have this running injury.
Symptoms:
- Pain along the back of the heel
- Pain that may be worse in the morning or after rest when muscle gets tight
- Limited range of motion
- Swelling potentially
Another common ankle pain is Peroneal Tendonitis, this appears as pain along the outside of the ankle.
Piriformis Syndrome Recovery
Managing a literal pain in the butt is what it’s all about with Piriformis. This can happen so easily for runners after we spend all day sitting, things get tight and then we need our glutes to fire for a run…but they just won’t or there’s pain. Here we dive in to exactly what it is and how you can start relieving the pain with some key stretches.
Symptoms:
- difficulty sitting without discomfort
- pain in your butt (literal)
- pain that runs from your butt down the back of your leg
Hamstring Strain
Whether you find yourself with chronically tight hamstrings after a run or unfortunately have made it all the way to a hamstring stain, this is the article for you. We’ll talk about how it requires more than stretching to alleviate the issue and when you need to stop vs continuing with caution.
Symptoms:
- Usually sudden severe pain in the back of your leg
- Will often bruise
Groin Pain While Running
This one is less prevalent in distance runners, so it doesn’t get discussed. But when it happens, we all want to know what the heck is going on and how can we resolve it!
Symptoms:
- Pain right in the groin area
- Pain running down the inner thigh
It could be a strain from sprinting or perhaps just overuse from form issues. Let that article be your guide to next steps.
Tools to Speed Injury Recovery
Additionally, I’ve written a lot about the things we can do to support our body during training. These things are going to help speed up recovery, whether it’s a tool, supplement or a service.
If you’re feeling stuck, check these out for some additional therapies to help resolve those runner injuries.
- CBD Oil for Runners
- Why You Should Stop Ice Baths
- 11 Healing Herbs like Turmeric
- Understanding when NOT to get a Cortisone Shot
- PRP and other alternative healing
- Chiropractic care for athletes
- At Home Running Recovery Tools
Tired of getting injured on repeat?
Them maybe it’s time to get a coach to make sure you’ve got the right plan, the right pre-hab exercises woven in to your plan and to keep you from over doing it!
Is there a running injury I haven’t listed here that’s really dragging you down? Let me know so I can make sure to dive in!
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