I see more runners than anyone else for massage. Why?

Weekly, I see more runners than anyone else for massage. Why is this?

Running is impactful on your body...

• Each step sends an impact throughout your body. It's not one large impact but lot's of small ones.

• A 5k can be around 5,000 steps. All these steps have impact.

Muscle overuse to the max

• Running smashes the same muscles repeatedly without much variation. This obviously causes tightness and imbalances & it happens fast due to the repetition.

Your tendons and your ligament

• It's not just your muscles, your ligaments and tendons are under a huge amount of repetitive stress.

  
  

The feel good factor..

• Runners tend to love running. It's a huge amount of endorphins, it's fun because its easy to track progression, its easy to access which means overtraining is easy to do.

• With all the above points, it makes it easy to miss recovery and miss out the boring part of recovery like a simple stretch at the end of a run.

So, I think I see more runners in Saffron Walden more than anyone else mainly due to its addictive nature & it's ease of accessibility, making it a activity which is easy to overtrain. Combined with how impactful it is and its repetitive blows this makes runners super acceptable to getting tightness and injury's.

I'm going to be honest with your runners...

You guys and girls need Sports Massage regularly if you can. Many of you love running, it gives you more than you may realise. It's a daily challenge which pumps out endorphins, it's competition between you and let's be honest your mates, and that's addictive too! When things are addictive that's when over training happens.

if you suddenly are injured or too tight to run well, you will be super regretful that you did not prioritize your recovery. Don't think you won't get tight muscles or injuries because you feel good now...injuries happen when you're doing well...they pop up out of nowhere and will ruin that runners high.

A sudden drop in that feel good factor from running will be very upsetting and irritating.

Strength Training does not help that much....i said it....

It was a shock to me, as I'm a advocate of strength training but check this fact out.. "A NYC Marathon RCT with 720 first-time marathoners compared a self-directed 3x‑per‑week strength program to no program. Results showed no difference in injury rates (7.1% vs. 7.3%) or finish times" - A Randomized Study of a Strength Training Program to Prevent Injuries in Runners of the New York City Marathon - PMC

"A smaller trial with 129 new runners testing resistance vs. functional vs. stretching found no significant differences in running injuries across groups" Running injuries in novice runners enrolled in different training interventions: a pilot randomized controlled trial - PubMed This was a surprise to me.. I did find one or two studies which showed strength training did help but it seems most studies prove that strength training is a bit "wishy washy".

Are you a runner? Book in at my Saffron Walden Massage room

A weekly massage would be ideal but I understand not everyone can manage that. Once a month will help if you also combine your recovery with the foam roller and/or a massage ball..

Also, if you can't afford or get to my massage room in Saffron Walden, consider renting my compression boots! This is an affordable way to speed up your recovery

Thank you :) and happy running!!