Sports injuries

An injury can occur either as a result of an acute "traumatic" episode, for example falling down a pothole in the pavement whilst out training, or more commonly, as an "overuse" injury.

An overuse injury occurs as a result of repetitive episodes of overload on a tissue, each episode causing trauma on a microscopic scale, and accumulating with each run to cause injury, eg. Achilles tendonitis.

An overuse injury can be further classified as "intrinsic" or "extrinsic". Intrinsic factors relate to the individual's physical characteristics. An extrinsic injury is caused by an external force. In reality running injuries are often a mixture of the two.

Examples of intrinsic factors which may lead to injury are:

Muscle imbalance
Lack of flexibility (or, in some cases over-flexibility or joint laxity)
"Gait abnormalities" and misalignment problems such as overpronation and leg length difference
Body composition and size
Often such factors are not as important in the sedentary individual but can contribute increasingly to injury as running distances increase.

Examples of extrinsic factors include:

Inappropriate/worn training equipment - in the case of running: old, worn trainers
Surfaces - too much road running, running the same way on a cambered road repeatedly.
Training errors - the most common one being increasing mileage too quickly, also not allowing enough rest/recovery between runs
Environmental conditions - muscle/tendon injuries can occur in cold weather when there has been insufficient warm up; heat exhaustion and dehydration can also contribute to injuries.

It makes sense therefore that preventing running injuries involves identifying which of these factors is a problem and doing something about it, where possible!