Running is a super-high-impact sport, and there's a lot of, like, body weight with every step. It increases by about seven times the bodyweight with every step when you're running.
Running is definitely hard work. You are constantly breaking down and building up new muscle fibers with every run. You are putting stress on your body. Of course, you are going to feel tired and sore, but there’s a fine line between recognizing the difference between general soreness and fatigue and overtraining.
If you find yourself feeling like you are working at a consistently hard effort, even on easy runs, you may be overtraining.
Here are 12 warning signs from your body that this may be the case:
Feeling exhausted, even after getting enough sleep
Heavy legs before, during and after runs
Emotional highs and lows
Appetite changes
Consistently higher resting heart rates
Lack of motivation for usual workouts
Easy workouts consistently feel harder than usual
Persistent achy-ness, stiffness or pain in the muscles and/or joints (beyond the typical delayed onset muscle soreness felt after a workout)
Frequent headaches
Drop in athletic performance
Not able to complete your normal workout
Lowered immune system
How to avoid overtraining
What can you do to ensure you don’t fall into the overtraining trap?
Follow a 10- to 20-percent increase in training volume over a three- to four-week period
Do one high intensity training session per week
Don’t do back-to-back challenging workouts
Make rest and recovery days/weeks a priority
Control your personal stress
Make sleep a big priority
Stay hydrated
Make good nutritional choices before, during or immediately after workouts
Finding the Right Shoe
As Sports Podiatrists, we know feet. We've seen it all, and we know someone with the same problems you are suffering with right now. When it comes to footwear, we can give you the right advice to make sure you get the right shoes for the task, whatever that might be.
We provide a range of customized and orthopedics footwear, including sandals to fit orthotics, extra wide and extra deep footwear for hard to fit feet. These include shoes to suit people with diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, or peripheral neuropathy.
We also can provide specialized running and sports footwear advice for athletes looking for an edge when training or competing. We can guide you in making decisions about minimalist footwear, or in choosing footwear for different training surfaces or different sporting codes.
If you are lost in the shoe racks and unsure which footwear to pick, make an appointment with one of our specially trained foot doctors to help you make the right choice the first time.