Writing for Ohio Sports and Fitness has done a lot to help me reconnect with proper training and experts in the field of running and exercise. I called Dr. Nilesh Shah, someone I’ve known since he was a distance runner at Mentor High School and was coming to me for off-season training programs. He’s now the Medical Director for the Summa Center for Sports Health and for the Akron Marathon as well as team doctor for the Indians minor league team, the Akron Aeros…among other things. Better still…he’s completed 15 marathons and done a half-ironman triathlon. He walks the talk every day.
I’d sent him a list of questions about my ‘Good pain…bad pain’ article, which he’d answered, but I still had questions. He’d surprised me when he’d answered that he didn’t think running surface mattered to injuries. From personal experience and readings I’d done over the years, the harder the surface the worse it was for the lower body.
“I’ve run the road my whole life and the body adapts to the surface,” he said. “It does help to vary surfaces…strengthens and prepares the body in different ways…but you certainly don’t want to do all your running on trails and then run a marathon on the roads. That’s asking for trouble.”
This made sense and is probably the reason that anytime I leave the trails to do any running on the roads, I’m sore or injured the next day. Though I’m only running 15-20 miles a week, it’s all on the trails. And since I have no intention of running road races again…I think I’ll just stay there.
The other big question…‘if you could do one thing to prevent injuries in runners, what would it be?’
“Core strength. Everything else spins off the core. Do exercise that work the muscles of the butt, low back and abs together if you really want to do something good,” he said. He went on to describe the kinds of training he meant. Crunches, planks, and bicycles to name a few... all things I was doing as part of the Survival Workout. “I really like working the balancing muscles while lifting…like sitting or laying on one of those large balls and trying to lift weight. Trying to balance on the ball forces you to use your core muscles. If you’re lifting or pressing a weight for your chest or shoulders at the same time, all the muscles have to work together…like they do in real life situations…and that’s a good thing,” he concluded.
I invited him to a Survival Workout so I could get a critical evaluation and advice for ways to improve it. He agreed to join me…something I’m looking forward to.
During this conversation, I was sitting with a heating pad pressed against my lower back. My core was messed up again. I wake up with pain in my lower back about twice a year and this one was right on schedule. It’s not so bad that I can’t do anything, but it is bad enough to keep me from wanting to…so I took the night off. Clearly, I need more work on the core.
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