28/10/2022

Good afternoon readers. Are you set for the Halloween bank holiday weekend? If you’re running the Dublin marathon I’m sure it’s carb rather than sweets and chocolate loading you’ll be doing! Best of luck to all involved, including the families who support their loved ones throughout their training!

As we approach the marathon we inevitably have a few people coming to see us with “niggles” and “tightness”. It got me to thinking about how we recognise the signs of hitting the limit with our running training, and how we can advise you to manage that when it occurs. 

There are many signs that we are reaching our physical limit with exercise. Often the early signs are not about physical symptoms of tightness, discomfort or niggling pain, rather more subtle things. If you think back on a time when you have developed some discomfort following increased running or exercise, usually there will be signs of tiredness, poorer sleep and perhaps some mood changes. 

Tiredness can be sometimes be difficult to spot as it gradually creeps in, rather than suddenly occurs. You might notice finding it harder to get out of bed in the morning, snoozing the alarm a bit more perhaps. Your concentration levels may drop, meaning tasks involving the brain power take longer or feel harder than usual particularly towards the end of the day. You may find yourself nodding off on the couch in the evening or needing an extra cuppa during the day to keep going. There of course may be many other signs of tiredness that you are aware you display from past experience, so look out for these, particularly as you come towards the harder end of a training cycle, or even at the start of a new regime. 

With overtraining you may experience poorer sleep. This can be a shorter duration, which is ironically the opposite of what you want. It may be explained by the level of stimulation or stress that your body is responding to from the exercise. You may also have more periods of wakefulness during the night or less deep / restorative sleep, if you monitor it with a FitBit or any similar device. People often report feeling groggy or drowsy when its time to get up. This of course all leads into the tiredness mentioned above. 

Our mood is of course strongly influenced by tiredness too. It can also be affected by the level of demand our body is under during the recovery from harder bouts of exercise, as ultimately the brain is processing, monitoring and controlling all the things that are going on in our body. Some obvious signs that our mood has been affected are, less patience in situations that normally would be tolerable, we are quicker to anger, become upset, frustrated or any other strong emotion that we can normally regulate. 

After these more subtle signs come the physical symptoms of the legs feeling heavy for longer after exercise, or at the start of the next run despite the same amount of recovery time / strategies. It may be harder than normal to do physical tasks such as climbing the stairs or lifting the kids. We typically see people at what I would consider the final stage before potential injury, when they start to experience a tightness, a discomfort or pain in some part of the leg. Generally speaking it is not injury provided there is no swelling, redness, heat or pain that persists for a long period at rest or with activity after the exercise bout. 

My advice if you start to recognise these signs is to:

1. Increase your recovery time between bouts of exercise
2. Apply a relative reduction in your shorter runs for speed or distance (the long ones are still important when building the mileage for a marathon)
3. Ensure you are re-fuelling sufficiently with protein, carbs and water
4. Reduce other things in your life that effect sleep (screen usage, caffeine and exercise before bed)

The most important thing is to be able to recognise some of the signs so you can intervene early to avoid injury. 

Wishing you all a Spooky Halloween!

Till the next blog, stay active and stay well!

Lonan Hughes

Chartered Physiotherapist