Hi,
Does anyone have any ideas for low-impact running options? The big goal is another IM in a couple of years. The long run will be on a crushed gravel trail. The shorter runs, which have been previously done on the road, are the concern. I would appreciate any ideas.
Thanks
Scott
Treadmill, with or without a Lever system. Run in the best shoes you can afford. The new super foams are so much easier on your legs. Not a fan of the elliptical for this.
soft packed trails, grass fields, trail running are all options. The treadmill was already mentioned.
Increasing your run frequency, especially if you’re at 2-3 runs per week can also mitigate concern. At 2-3 runs per week you’re not running enough to be durable. Increase that to 4-5 -6 runs per week. You can just add short 15-20min runs in those days. If you do them easy the recovery cost is very minimal. Yet you can gain big run fitness gains from them.
Here is a blog post I wrote a long while ago on how to increase your frequency:
Hope those help
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Aqua-jogging. I’ve coached athletes with it, they weren’t able to run until race day and they had some of their best runs ever.
Treadmills typically have flexy tracks that significantly lessen impact, and there is the option to add an (expensive) system like Lever to reduce your effective weight.
For outdoor running, grass or trails.
On the equipment side there are now tons of max cushion, super soft training shoes. When I was looking to reduce impact, I started doing runs in the ASICs Gel Nimbus 25. The shoe is slow af, but is like running on marshmallows.
I had a knee injury a few months ago and I decided to try out Lever. I was super sceptical bc of the overwhelming pro social media presence (dont know why but that always makes me think a brand is trying too hard).
I did the rental and it only took 1 run for my skepticism to go away. I ended up buying it out at the end of the first month. Only issue I have with it is the shorts are small, but they have free exchanges on them so it worked out. I still use it every week for some of my runs.
Is there a major advantage to aqua jogging versus just swimming with an emphasis on kicking? I have some running friends who swear by aqua jogging as a way to stay in shape while recovering from injury, but even they will say it’s a pretty boring activity, particularly if you’re alone. I just wondered if someone could get most of the same benefits from swimming and doing a lot of variety in their kick sets.
Yes. Certainly swimming can help your running. Running tends to love swimming. I’ve coached a lot of athletes in aqua jogging. There are ways to make it a lot more engaging to the athlete which in turn makes it a lot more impactful.
I hope this helps and if you have any other questions, please let me know.
Tim
Have you got any gently sloping hills in your area? Just throwing an idea around: running up a hill is low impact (unless your hamstrings are particularly vulnerable). Running back downhill can be more impactful but (i) the duration is shorter (ii) you can just slow down to a jog.
Colleagues,
Thank you very much for the advice and ideas - Very helpful. Knowing others have worked through the same issues is motivating. Now I have to get it done!
Scott
Grass,soft sand and treadmill . I think the only time I run on roads or sidewalks is the 400meters to the beach to run on the sand…Oh and Aqua-jogging with cut-off fins on.
Hi Scott,
I feel as if this topic may open a can of worms. That being said, at the risk of the potential onslaught of comments I’m going to say that the idea of lowering your impact while running might prove to be detrimental in the long run. Running by itself is a low-enough impact activity.
From what I remember the studies on impact of varying surfaces showed that there will be some increased stresses from running on softer surfaces and likewise some tradeoffs from harder surfaces. Can be “six of one half dozen of another” situation.
Likewise some of the systems that reduce your weight (lever, anti-gravity, etc" will actually increase some other tradeoffs like altered mechanics and reduced load which can lead to maladaptations in the body.
So to answer your question I would ask you what is the goal? Why do you feel you need to “reduce the load?” Whenever I’m working with runners who are concerned with their age, excessive time off, injury, etc I tell them to adjust their timeline and add in more walking into their programing. Time on feet is still beneficial. And IMO more beneficial short and long term compared to the other options.
The stress from the sport is good for your body; we often need to adjust the timeline and expectations, not the sport itself.
Cheers
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Arc trainer or elliptical are both good for me when wanting to avoid impact. Surprising good at transferring to the road
Sand can be problematic; a bad step on loose sand can wreck an ankle or knee
Packed beach sand at low tide is not much different from wet concrete
In my experience, anyway
Soft sand is only problematic if you try to run with the same running technique that you use on normal surfaces. It is a totally different style of running (it is actually better done barefoot). The difference in technique between soft and hard sand running is night and day.
I do ruck running and weighted bag drags on the beach and the hard sand portion is the recovery part of the session.
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Parker Valby won the NCAA cross country championships and went to the Olympics this summer. She did a lot of training on a Cyber Arc over the last two years because of injuries and impact. That said, the duration and intensity of her training sessions on those machines were described as beyond intense by her coaches.
From the links that I found, she uses this
Excellent advice that seems right up my alley. I’ve been doing a track workout, tempo run, and LR every week for a year totaling 15mi/week and figured my cycling and swimming volumes were enough cross training to supplement my lack of run volume, but now that I have my first 2 Half Ironmans coming up I have increased my LR, but I will take your advice and also increase to 5 runs per week with the extra 2 runs being short a couple miles each