Exercise Physiologist Nathan’s Top Tips for succeeding in a fun run
Tip 1: Stay healthy
It sounds simple, but your basic body function as well as performance during events all revolve around eating well, sleeping well and staying active.
Stress, both psychological and physiological, can play a big role in our performance and how we feel.
Make sure you are doing the basics, such as getting eight hours of sleep, eating enough calories (in particular, enough carbohydrates for fuel and protein for body function and tissues) and keeping your lifestyle active and balanced.
Tip 2: Stay consistent
Whether you’re attempting something that you haven’t done for a while or maybe you’re trying a new challenge, your body has to be given time to adapt.
Exercise is the best way to condition your body towards a particular activity. We should incorporate a mixture of cardiovascular activity (150 weekly minutes of activity that makes you breathless is recommended) and resistance and balance activity (at least 2-3 times per week ie. weight training, bodyweight exercises, single leg standing).
It can often take at least 4-6 weeks of consistent training for soft tissues like muscles and ligaments to finish remodelling to your recent activity. When your consistent exercise becomes too easy, it is important to slowly increase its intensity over time to make sure you continue to improve.
Tip 3: Know the load
Being specific is the key to ensuring your body is capable of handling whatever you plan to throw at it. Running over long distances involves thousands of repetitive impacts through the legs into the body that we may not experience on a day-to-day basis.
That means it’s essential to practice running, building from slow and short intervals to full length over time. Resistance training, like weighted squats and calf raises, will make sure that muscles are strong enough to tolerate this increase in load.
In patients with knee pain, research has suggested that a decrease in 10% of bodyweight can result in up to 50% less knee symptoms. Considering Nathan our exercise physiologist is increasing his bodyweight by 9kg with his vest (~10%) this City2Surf, he is likely to experience significantly greater load through each step of the 14km, and Nathan has prepared himself by practicing landings!
If you’d like to learn more about how you can best prepare for a fun run, contact our team of exercise physiologists or physiotherapists today on 02 9907 0321.
