7 Common Running Injuries That Organizations Should Know About

At least 50% of runners get injured at least once during a normal running year.

That’s one out of every two people. If you’re planning on hosting a race or are an organization that deals with runners, you might want to be aware of the common running injuries.

You’ll also want to make sure you have the right insurance coverage in case any participant or volunteer tries to sue.

If you’re not sure of what injuries to look out for, keep reading for the seven most common running injuries.

Achilles Tendonitis

Achilles Tendonitis occurs in your lower calf down to your heel. You usually feel this injury the most every time you push off to run on your toes.

Why does this injury occur? Well, the Achilles actually takes on several times your body weight with every stride. That means if you are a 150-pound woman, your Achilles is bearing over 400 pounds of weight with every stride.

If you run at a faster pace, you have more of a chance of hurting your Achilles as well since you are withstanding more strides per minute.

How Can I Prevent Achilles Tendonitis?

To help prevent this annoying and painful injury, you need to stretch and strengthen your calves. You should do calf raises to strengthen and to stretch, you should keep your heel on the ground while lifting your toes toward your shin.

Runner’s Knee

Runner’s knee is a very common overuse injury that occurs in a lot of runners. The pain centers at the front of your knee right below the kneecap and can spread around the kneecap.

If you don’t have strong muscles in your hips or around your knees, you are at a higher risk of developing Runner’s knee.

Runner’s Knee symptoms often get worse with prolonged sitting, squatting, and climbing stairs.

The best way to take care of Runner’s knee if you happen to get injured is with a physical therapist. They can give you an exercise and strengthening routine to help your muscles recover. You may also want to take time to rest your knee before continuing with running.

IT Band Syndrome

Your IT Band is a long piece of connective tissue in both legs running from the outside of your hip to the outside of your knee. Pain occurs in this band with runners due to tight muscles, causing the band to rub against the leg bone.

In addition to tight leg muscles, you may also get IT Band Syndrome if you have weak gluteal or hip muscles.

A great way to deal with IT Band pain is to use a foam roller several times a week to loosen up the muscle. Since the injury often comes from being tight, the roller will help prevent further injury while offering a gentle massage.

Shin Splints

While shin splints may seem like a very mild injury since they are one of the most common running injuries, they can become very painful, especially if they turn into stress fractures. Shin splints occur in the front of your lower legs, right on the shin bone.

To reduce the pain that shin splints are causing you, you’ll have to cut back on the number of times you run per week. Cutting down the mileage each time you run can also help.

Hamstring Injuries

Just like with any other injury, if you have weak or tired hamstrings, you are more likely to injure them. Sprinters often suffer from hamstring injuries quickly, while distance runners’ hamstring injuries often come on slowly because of tearing over time.

To help prevent hamstring injuries, you should strengthen and stretch your hamstring on a weekly basis. Deadlifts, bridges, and hamstring curls are great strengthening exercises to prevent injury.

Ankle Sprain

Foot injuries from running are very common, especially in people who are running with an odd gait or do not have the strength to support their consistent running efforts.

With a lack of strength around your ankles or running with an odd gait, you are more likely to land on your feet incorrectly. This will lead to an overstretching of the ligaments in your ankle, ultimately causing an ankle sprain.

If you suspect you have an ankle sprain, look for the following signs:

• Discoloration
• Pain
• Swelling
• Bruising
• Difficulty moving your ankle

Noticing some of these signs? You should see a doctor right away to start the process to recovery.

Stress Fractures

Stress fractures are exactly what they sound like – a fracture (most likely in your shin or foot) because of too much stress on the body. Most stress fractures due to running occur because you did too much of a new activity, too fast.

To prevent stress fractures, you need to give your body time to get used to new activities to prevent injury.

If you continue to put more stress on your bones even after you feel pain, you are slowing down the time it’ll take for recovery. You should go see a doctor right away if you suspect you have a stress fracture! To heal from this injury, it can take up to 8 weeks.

Why Get Insurance as an Organization?

Getting insurance as a fitness or other organization is meant to help protect you as the organization and any volunteers for a race. It also helps protect the runners.

Since volunteers for organizations are not employees, there is no worker’s compensation. Having an extra layer of protection for volunteers and runners is never a bad idea. And with Pomi, any potential injury claim stays off your organization’s general liability policy helping to keep those premiums down.  Also, with reasonable accident and health coverage in place, your organization can avoid potential lawsuits from those who may be injured during an event.

Common Running Injuries and Why Insurance Is Important

Now that you understand just how common running injuries are and how many of them there are, you can look for insurance for your organization that will help protect you and any volunteers for your organization.

You can also implement running injury prevention tips on your website or at your events to cover yourself even more.

Contact us today to learn more about what we do at Pomi and how we can help you with your needs!