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The Mamri. Should we run gentler?
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There was an article on page 9 of The Times on Saturday (2 June 2018) - "Parks packed with the jogging wounded."
That thousands of runners can be found every Saturday at 9am doing Parkrun, "puffing their way around hundreds of parks. Trussed up with knee braces and liberally anointed with Deep Heat, thousands of novice male runners in their forties and fifties are limping through 5km races with shin splints or swollen joints."
"The first scientific study to catalogue the ailments of the UK's recreational runners has revealed that nearly half of them are soldiering on in spite of being injured. The jogging wounded are disproportionately likely to be men of a certain age, with little prior experience of training and even less willingness to admit defeat. If 2010 was the year of the Mamil (middle-aged man in lycra), then 2018 may well be the year of the Mamri: the middle-aged man running injured.
"Linda Linton, a physiotherapist and researcher at Edinburgh University, and Stephanie Valentin, of West Scotland University, surveyed 1,145 participants in Parkrun, Britain's most popular running club. The results, published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, show that 570 of the runners were injured but 86 per cent of them had carried on running regardless.
"Almost a third said they were in moderate or major pain, with another half reporting minor pain. The remainder are injured but don't report any pain. The most common parts of the body to be afflicted were knees, followed by shins, calves, hips and ankles.
"Men were 45 per cent more likely than woman to be injured. The scientists put this down to the Mamris' tendency to follow homemade over-ambitious training plans which put too much strain on their creaking bodies. 'Female runners tend to get overuse injuries due to their biomechanics: weak hip muscles, dynamic knee valgus,' Ms Linton said. 'Men tend to get injured due to training errors, increasing pace and distance too quickly when they are training for an event.' "
A comment box, inset, says;
"How to avoid becoming a Mamri:
Anyone who has taken part in Parkrun knows how to spot a Mamri (Oliver Moody writes). Perhaps he takes off at the pace of Roger Bannister before lapsing to that of Roger Daltrey. Injuries cannot be totally prevented, but the risks can be managed. Linda Linton offers five simple pieces of advice:
* Warm up before running, with a brisk five-minute jog or some dynamic stretching.
* While running, aim for 160 to 180 steps per minute, as a shorter, faster stride is less of a shock to the body.
* Cool down after run.
* Stick to a specific training plan.
* Interleave running days with days of other exercises, such as squats, lunges and gluteal strengthening."
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Food for thought.
That thousands of runners can be found every Saturday at 9am doing Parkrun, "puffing their way around hundreds of parks. Trussed up with knee braces and liberally anointed with Deep Heat, thousands of novice male runners in their forties and fifties are limping through 5km races with shin splints or swollen joints."
"The first scientific study to catalogue the ailments of the UK's recreational runners has revealed that nearly half of them are soldiering on in spite of being injured. The jogging wounded are disproportionately likely to be men of a certain age, with little prior experience of training and even less willingness to admit defeat. If 2010 was the year of the Mamil (middle-aged man in lycra), then 2018 may well be the year of the Mamri: the middle-aged man running injured.
"Linda Linton, a physiotherapist and researcher at Edinburgh University, and Stephanie Valentin, of West Scotland University, surveyed 1,145 participants in Parkrun, Britain's most popular running club. The results, published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, show that 570 of the runners were injured but 86 per cent of them had carried on running regardless.
"Almost a third said they were in moderate or major pain, with another half reporting minor pain. The remainder are injured but don't report any pain. The most common parts of the body to be afflicted were knees, followed by shins, calves, hips and ankles.
"Men were 45 per cent more likely than woman to be injured. The scientists put this down to the Mamris' tendency to follow homemade over-ambitious training plans which put too much strain on their creaking bodies. 'Female runners tend to get overuse injuries due to their biomechanics: weak hip muscles, dynamic knee valgus,' Ms Linton said. 'Men tend to get injured due to training errors, increasing pace and distance too quickly when they are training for an event.' "
A comment box, inset, says;
"How to avoid becoming a Mamri:
Anyone who has taken part in Parkrun knows how to spot a Mamri (Oliver Moody writes). Perhaps he takes off at the pace of Roger Bannister before lapsing to that of Roger Daltrey. Injuries cannot be totally prevented, but the risks can be managed. Linda Linton offers five simple pieces of advice:
* Warm up before running, with a brisk five-minute jog or some dynamic stretching.
* While running, aim for 160 to 180 steps per minute, as a shorter, faster stride is less of a shock to the body.
* Cool down after run.
* Stick to a specific training plan.
* Interleave running days with days of other exercises, such as squats, lunges and gluteal strengthening."
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Food for thought.
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Comments
Middle aged men are more likely to ignore injury and plough on regardless, while women take a more sensible approach? This is news?
More scandalous is how a self-reporting 'survey' with no control group and some guesses as to somehow rationalise the results can be described as 'scientific study'.
Ta. I reckon around 95% of statistics are just guesses in any case.
I do like the way his Wiki page says that "More or Less won Mensa's award for promoting intelligence in public life." Well come on, did he win or not?
Anyhoo - More or Less is always worth a listen. They did parkruns a few months back - but it was about times rather than injuries.