The All-In-One Guide To Managing The Health Risks Of Running

Cambridge Dictionary defines running as an activity going somewhere quickly on foot, as a sport or for pleasure. Running may be an important component of a healthy lifestyle, but unlike any powerful medicine, you’ve got to get the dose right.

Runners have 37–56 percent possibility of running-related injuries on an average. Overuse injuries, cardiovascular deterioration, sore muscles,cardiac arrests, osteoarthritis and joint pain, are all part and parcel of the game, especially if you do it regularly for long distances.

“Your body is designed to deal with oxidative stress that comes from exercise for the first hour, “But prolonged intense exercise causes excessive oxidative stress, which basically burns through the antioxidants in your system and predisposes you to problems,” Cardiologist James O’Keefe, MD, Director of Preventative Cardiology at the Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, and author of the Heart editorial tells active.com

Types of Running Workouts

Base run. These short to moderate length runs will form the bulk of your weekly training mileage. You may do the run at your natural pace, and can make significant improvements in your aerobic capacity and endurance.

Progression run. You begin at your natural pace and end at a faster pace. Progression run is more challenging and requires more recovery time.

Long run. When you’re running for a long distance, your main aim is to increase the length of what you’ll be comfortable doing on your base runs.For the long-distance running, you can increase your pace or mix at some intervals.

Fartlek. These runs are less structured, and the best part is you can play with speed without any stress. Fartlek mixes in few intervals of different distance and duration.

Intervals. Intervals contain short or long bursts of intense effort. These running workouts get separated by equal or slightly longer segments, of slower running, jogging or walking.

Temp runs. You must perform them at the fastest pace that you can sustain for a period.These workouts help you to increase and support speed. They are also called as threshold runs.

Hill repeats. These workouts are short segments of uphill running that you’ll repeat to increase your aerobic power, pain tolerance, high-intensity fatigue resistance, and strength.

Recovery run. These sequences are also known as easy runs, and you can do them at a relatively comfortable pace. The best time to do recovery runs is after a hard workout such as the interval or tempo runs.