Conventional wisdom says that more padding is necessary to reduce stress on the body and therefore we should wear shoes, especially ones with padding. However, I would say that most on this site do not buy that. There have been thousands of books written about running and I would make the assumption that people, who are serious about running, read a lot about it from the so called experts and despite that, 75% of them get injured per year. One book I read says that you should never incorporate any type of speed work until you have been running at least 25 miles per week for one year, because otherwise your body will not be ready for it.
I used to think that it was better in lifting to not push too hard and was conservative about increasing weight until I could do at least 12 reps. I recently found out that unless your brain gets the signal that your muscle has a temporary failure it will not significantly change the number of active, wired, contracting cells or change the composition of them to make them stronger, which equates to marginal improvements.
To me fast maximum effort sprinting may be the same thing. Is it not possible that sprinting may make us less injury prone by the added stress signaling to the brain that the muscle, tendon, bone needs to be stronger? It was my thought that you would see form improvements as well. I read that the injury rates are similar among slow and fast runners, so that tells me that you don’t avoid injury by holding back. What do you guys think?
Jim
I agree completely. You really need to train all three components of running fitness. When you run fast or up hills, you're recruiting maximum muscle fiber. Once that fiber becomes used to being activated, it can be trained for endurance and stamina.
And like you say, it's the same with weights. If you want to become strong, you gotta lift the heavy stuff. Then if you want to improve your stamina, you should do HIIT or circuit training.
Without the right stimulus/stress, you won't get the right adaptation. On the bench press, for example, when I can do 3-5 reps comfortably, I know I'm ready to add 20 pounds, for 1-3 reps. If you don't sustain the stimulus, you stop adapting. Nothing wrong with just maintaining though. It all depends on your goals.
Finally, I'm also with you on the form issue. Everyone has better form when they run fast. Your body will try to maximize efficiency in order to maintain a faster pace. It doesn't experience the same physiological and biomechanical stressors at slower paces. Running economy gained at faster paces can then be applied at slower paces. Personally I notice a break at around 9 mm pace. It's right around there, which is basically my lactate threshold, that my form becomes smoother and I don't really have to think about it. When I run 7-8 mm pace, I feel even better. My goal for this year is to be able to run an hour at 8mm pace.
As far as injury, I've read the best predictor of running injury is volume, not pace. A lot of people get injured in crossfit type functional fitness programs too, because they haven't learned good form. When you lift heavy weights, you gotta have good form or you're not going to lift anything.
But most importantly, even really experienced, physically gifted runners get injured when they make sudden jumps in volume or pace. I think that's the number one factor. It's all got to be done gradually because there's so much repetitive stress involved in running, and so the damage can be cumulative, and you won't even notice it until it's too late. I learned this the hard way a couple of times. Now I do try to do everything gradually, and hold myself back sometimes when I feel like I could do more. There's always tomorrow, or next week, or next month. The gains will come as long as you're consistent, and the only way to be consistent is to remain injury-free.
For speedwork, again, I think you just need to build up to it, just as with heavy weights, but there's no reason to have a set time period before you begin. It all depends on your prior fitness and age. Run faster than you do now for, say, a 440. Then next week run two 440s or more. Then run the same number of intervals at an even faster pace the following week. And so on. I think as long as you take a gradual approach, your body will be able to dictate the rate of increase without risking serious injury. In my own personal experience, the two "runner's injuries" I've experienced--ITBS and an MCL sprain--have come while running slower paces, so I don't think speed in and of itself is much of a risk factor. As with distance, it's how you apply it.
