#mindovermiles

Been earning about how important goals are lately. I’ve been having trouble keeping up with running the past week or two. My plan after Thanksgiving (my last registered run of the year) was to work out for 1/2 an hour a day 6 days a week. Strength, running, yoga, doesn’t matter.  Just do something for 30 min almost every day... but when there’s not a race to work towards or a new PR to try and hit, missing a day or two doesn’t seem so bad.  And then that day or two stretches to three or four.

I need new goals!!!

              Cross-Training Tuesday: Swim Night

I’m falling in love with Experience L!fe magazine.  It’s just all around interesting, and it doesn’t focus to much on one topic...sometimes I get bored with fashion or cooking magazines because every issue is just the same “OMG FAB” articles over and over again.  EL Mag seems to have a good variety of articles, and this one about strength training made me want to cross train and appreciate all the benefits of strength training on top of my running regimen. 

Summary of what strength training can do for you:

1. Keep you healthy (Overall health, not just muscle)

2. Helps you age well

3. Balances your hormones

4. Keeps you lean

5.  Tones your gray matter (aka improves mental capacity an decreases chances of/symptoms of dementia)

Running causes knee arthritis later in life.

According to a study done from 1984-2002, and then published in 2008, “long-distance running among healthy older individuals was not associated with accelerated radiographic OA“.  The subjects were an average of 58 years old when the study began in 1984, and when they compared x-rays of the runner’s knees vs. the non-runner’s knees over time (up until 2002), there was no significant difference in either the amount of people with arthritis or the severity of the arthritis that was present.

Not saying they didn’t have arthritis at all...but basically everyone does after age 50 whether it bothers them or not.  Just saying that running is not the reason for it like the world seems to think!

...I also found a second article that backs up the first one and I linked them both below so y’all don’t have to take the word of an semi-anonymous social media post.  The second article also stated (twice), “There also is strong evidence that sex (female), former knee injury, quadriceps strength, smoking, running, and regular performance of sports are not associated with progression of knee OA.”

BAM.  Myth busted :-)

Sources: 

Chakravarty EF, Hubert HB, Lingala VB, Zatarain E, Fries JF. Long Distance Running and Knee Osteoarthritis A Prospective Study. American journal of preventive medicine. 2008;35(2):133-138. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2008.03.032.

While up hill running puts more of a strain on our cardiac and physiological systems, down hill running has higher forces and more mechanical stress associated with it (tibial shock combined with impact shock, for example, easily cause overuse injuries) .  Therefore chance of injury actually increases with downhill running.  

That being said, here’s some tips for downhill running:

Shorten your stride length and increase your stride speed

Focus on letting your knees bend a little to absorb the shock -- don’t lock them out when you land!

You can actually lean forward a little bit downhill rather than leaning back

Keep control of your center of gravity (and therefore reducing that “omg I’m falling” felling when you’re leaning forward) by activating your abs.  

Best way to do this?  Think about pulling your belly button to your spine.  Hold it!  You can breathe and do this at the same time, promise :-)

Got the idea to do this from my Uphill Running Tips post, which people seem to like.  Happy and healthy running!

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