Injury prevention Tips

1. Avoid training when you are tired. Tired muscles provide inadequate support for tendons, ligaments, and bones, increasing the risk of strains, sprains, and stress fractures.

2. Treating minor injuries correctly prevent them form into big problems. We all know this, but we do we really actively rest and look after our body's as often as we should? Remember the time-honoured acronym RICE = rest, ice, compression, and elevation when a small injury strikes. Rest gives the afflicted area time to heal, ice reduces the inflammation and swelling, and compression and elevation lesson swelling, promoting healing.

3. If you experience pain during a workout, stop your training session immediately. A temporary loss in training time and fitness is far better than long-term damage to your body. Many athletes produce chronic deterioration of a knee joint or another anatomical region by insisting on training through pain. Remember that you’re in sport for the long run; a lost month of training to rehabilitate a damaged knee is much better than having to quit running completely sometime in the future because of joint degeneration.

4. If you want to toughen your training without raising your risk of injury too much, another good strategy is to slightly raise your average training intensity (speed, hills), instead of tacking on lots of additional volume (more KMs).

5. When you get a free moment in your week.. or just feel like your muscles need release - book in for a massage. Whether it be with a physio or the local masseur, and release you can give your muscles will assist their repair.