Shin splints and knee pain were the stories of my running life when I was younger. I tried all sorts of shoes which did not help fix anything. Then I developed a stress fracture in my foot, ouch! In the past few years, I have been reading more articles about having higher strides per minute and shortening your stride. There have been "injury" freestyles of running for older people developed that is just a very high stride per minute count with a short stride length. Interestingly enough the whole barefoot running movement is running with shorter strides because you lack the cushion to overstride and get away with it. So what is a good stride per minute count, let's do 170 to 180. It takes some practice to get there! Some ways to do it are to download a metronome app and set it to 170 to start. First, sit down and move your arms to the beat. Once you get a feel for it go for a short run with the metronome.
The second way to reduce your injuries once you have started running with higher strides per minute is to be very slow to increase mileage per run. Start with a mile no matter how good you feel. Run a mile every day that week but realistically shoot for five days a week. Your bones, muscles, and tendons all need to adjust. The next week you can add a quarter mile and so forth. Listen to your body,
you may only want to add 10%. An intelligent way to do say 10 miles per day would be to do 5 miles in the morning and then 5 miles in the evening. Less wear and tear on your body and it has a chance to recover between runs! If you have not been running start with a mile for at least five days a week. Make short distance and consistency more important than a long run once a week. Happy Running!
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