Too much exercise can lead to overuse injuries

People tend to do the same exercise routine over and over again, without varying it, without taking adequate rest, and they end up with an overuse injury.

Most overuse injuries can be blamed on four factors: 1. Inadequate recovery (when your body doesn't fully recover from one run to the next). 2. Biomechanical irregularities (such as overpronation and leg-length discrepancy). 3. Muscular imbalances caused by running itself (tight hamstrings and weak quadriceps, for example). 4. Improper or worn-out footwear. Cross-training can't help you with your footwear choices, but it can address the other three factors. If you're a beginning runner who hasn't yet developed strength and flexibility imbalances, you can get big benefits from endurance cross-training. Your ankles, knees, and lower back aren't used to the repetitive impact of running, so you can use walking, elliptical machines, and other low-impact conditioning tools to improve endurance without beating up your most vulnerable joints, muscles, and connective tissues. You can gradually mix in some running once you've established a base of fitness.

So the bottom line is that, if you're feeling pain while doing an exercise, the form might be wrong or you might be injured. Some runners just run, without doing any cross-training, and they may do the same thing every week. Strength training or weight lifting routine will help those runners to focus on their weaknesses. Also, by varying routines and taking time to recover can help with injury prevention.

Dr. David Chen
Chiropractor in Laurel, Maryland
Laurel Regional Chiropractic
www.laurelregionalchiropractic.com