7 Common Running Myths BUSTED!!

This episode busts common running myths, exploring the truth behind knee health, mileage, strength training, and more. Perfect for runners looking to optimize their training and avoid misconceptions.

key topics

• Running myths and misconceptions
• Impact of mileage on knee health
• Strength training for runners
• Proper warm-up and stretching routines
• Fueling and recovery for optimal performance

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Rochelle. And this is my co-host Sarah. And together we are Runversation, a conversational paced podcast for your easy-paced running journey. And we're here to chat about all things running, community, and everything in between. Hello Sarah. Hello, Rochelle. And hello listeners. As always, Sarah, what did you see on your run or in the gym this week?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

So this weekend just gone. My husband and I we ran eight kilometres around the river, and in that eight kilometres, which isn't that far of a distance, we went through two park runs, and we were also in the middle of another running event that was happening around the river. So it's which had, I think, half marathon, 10k and 5k distances, I think. So we saw all of that in just uh eight kilometres. So it was nice to see, I guess, the running boom at the moment. So many people were out running.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Well, I'm gonna say snap because that was mine. I got caught though at the front end of that half marathon. So I got down to coaching earlier because there was a lady that I coached who was in that event, and I wanted to see her start. So I headed off and the half marathon started before her 10k. So I was like, I'll run out 3Ks and I'll turn around and I'll come back. As I was coming back, I didn't realise that the half marathon headed out in our direction for 1k before turning around. And so I got caught in the turnaround. The next minute, I was literally running with like hundreds of runners at the start of their fun run.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

So we didn't have that even in the middle of that event. We actually went past Monate station and it was very spaced out by them that yeah, we didn't didn't really make an impact on the running event like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Well, how funny we both think that had the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Well, I had really nothing else had really happened that was that interesting. Interesting. And we went through two park runs.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Furswood and Claysbrook.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

They're very close together.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

They are very, very close. I feel like there's a lot of park runs in that. And then you've got to be James Mitchell Park, of course. And that's where the fun run started for.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah, which would have been very busy that way.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

So I don't know how parkrun went that day. The other ones were still going. I wonder if they knew there if that event was on and they got down there and they were like, hang on a minute. I mean, it's probably always busy in that area. Yeah, so um, cool. So today I just wanted to like bust some myths with you because I feel like that would be fun.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

We'll go through a few running myths and go through a little bit of science and other perspectives on it, I think. I think so. Did you want to go first? Did you want to take it away? Yeah, well, my first one was something that I've heard a lot as a physio, I guess, or I guess just from a lot of people that when you say you're into running or you run a lot, this is probably the number one thing a lot of my clients would say back to me is that running ruins your knees.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

So I think a great comment. A lot of people make that.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, and um what they've actually found is in this, which is only not that long ago, 2017 study showed that recreational runners have lower rates of knee osteoarthritis than sedentary people, which there you go. So the people that are saying often saying that myth are actually more likely than us potentially to have knee osteoarthritis. There is, however, a bit of a U-shaped relationship in that on the other end of the spectrum, they were sort of saying that elite or high volume competitive runners, and they classified this in terms of their professional status rather than the amount of mileage they did that these people were running more than 15 years or something like that competitively, did show a slightly higher prevalence of ostearthritis. So I guess there's kind of like a sweet spot. But that would be like wear and tear, if it's like over a long period of time. And they do show that uh while we break down our cartilage in the next 24 hours, we actually recover that and rebuild. So yeah, there is a bit on each end of the spectrum. But then it was interesting then the other research, the mileage when they were comparing it to like what high volume is by mileage, it was all over the place. Some were saying that high volume was 92 kilometers per week, and some were saying 32 kilometers per week, which I thought was a bit interesting to be not that much, I would have thought.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Well, I think to us that's not that much. To like maybe an everyday runner who doesn't necessarily have a goal or a coach, that might be a lot. If they're just fitting in 5Ks here or 5Ks there, and they do that, say five times a week. Well, that's gonna work their 30k's up. But for us, we're running probably, you know, between 50 to 100 in a week. So our mindset's probably different.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, it just doesn't sound a lot like a lot, but we've probably been conditioned to think that is not a lot. But yeah, as you said, like many of people that I'd have come into the clinic would only run two or three times a week. So hitting 32 kilometres is is quite a lot of mileage, really.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

It's interesting how we think like that. Like I just think, yeah, and you think 32k is oh, that's nothing. That's like two runs, there you go. But for somebody who does it every day.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

And so Matt people, I mean, people training for marathons and hitting consistently over 100, 32 would be that's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

That's it. Like I used to run 140, 150k a week, and now I'm like 80ks consistently, and that's a lot. For me, it feels like nothing, but to the average person, it's a lot. It's a lot, it's a lot. It is a lot, yeah. So, ah, so run as knee. I like that. That is something that so many people always say, Oh, how are your knees?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, isn't that a common thing? It's just first thing that I often hear back when I yeah, tell my clients that I run as a hobby or a lot, you know, recreationally, definitely, but still like the shock of like, oh, that must be sober.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

And it's like, oh yeah, make sure you look after your knees when you're older.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

But yeah, we know that being sedentary also isn't looking after your knees.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So, yes, you know. Well, let's go into another myth that kind of frees onto that. More mileage equals better result. This can be really misleading, especially when runners start to compare themselves to others, kind of like what we were just doing. Just because somebody else has higher mileage, that doesn't mean that it's necessarily right for you. And they've usually built that up over a few years to get to that point. So more mileage doesn't automatically mean better results. It often leads to probably fatigue or niggles and burnout. And if your body isn't ready for that, it's generally not ideal. The goal isn't to do more just for the sake of it or to prove that you can be like somebody else. It's to do the right amount of where you are so that you can be consistent and have longevity in the sport. Yeah, so we want quality over quantity. Correct. And that would look like so maybe two quality sessions a week and the rest of just easy running.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yes, otherwise, yeah, as you say, how can we do the quality sessions if we've got all these other runs that are not really adding to anything else?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah, they're just junk miles, really. Yeah, I often hear that term thrown around a lot. So a way that you can increase your mileage if that's something that you're looking at doing is like what I said in our previous episode with Matt, is just sneakily adding them in. So you might have a 15-minute warm-up and a 15-minute cool down on your program, add an extra five minutes and make them 20. There's an extra 10 minutes a week. And if you've got two key sessions that you're doing, well, then there's an extra 20 necessary.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Instead of doing an extra 20-minute run some other time during correct.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah. So that way you're getting a little bit more time on legs without your body necessarily feeling the increased load drastically.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

I guess as well, their mileage should be dependent on what they're actually training for and the individual injury history and what they are able to actually tolerate, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, like their lifestyle. So, like work, family, health, lifestyle. And most people, if they're training for, say, a half marathon, a minimum of three runs a week is fine. Yeah, you don't actually need to be running every day. No, your time, obviously, is going to be quite variable depending on the amount of runs that you can do throughout the week. But if you've got, you know, a lifestyle where you can only manage a minimum of three runs, well then that's okay. You can still work two quality sessions in a long run within that.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah. To get in what you need.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

So what's next on your list of SI had being bigger or stronger will make me slow, which is uh, yeah, this is a good one. I guess once again, I guess there's kind of a sweet spot. You know, if we were to gain significant muscle mass, um, it would eventually slow us down in a long distance event. That's we know that's you know, because extra weight does require oxygen to transport, or we need does require oxygen to transport that to the muscles, which increases our metabolic cost to a point. Um but however we know being stronger can make you a faster and more efficient runner. So in studies, runners who strength train improve their time to exhaustion by up to 35%, as their muscles were better able to maintain proper form and power even when they were fatigued. So like anything, there is a balance there. But I think the general assumption is that we stereotype runners by their build and say, well, that person's bigger, so they would be slow. And I I think that more recently people have shown that's quite incorrect.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

If you look a lot at the female marathon runners, they're not what they were 20, 30 years ago, which was quite lean and light. They're actually looking stronger because they're hitting the gym and they're doing exercises that are valuable for running.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, exactly. So we're seeing now that that belief is sort of going away a little bit, where yeah, carrying that little bit of extra bulk and being stronger isn't really a bad thing. Yeah. And we're using that, they're using that to their advantage to be to be a more efficient runner.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah. I notice a significant difference within myself when I go to the gym. So I've noticed for myself when I go to the gym, I actually feel stronger and better within my performance. If I don't go for a period of time, when I do go running, I feel sluggish or I feel like I'm in a poor posture, like my back strength is different, my core strength is different. Doesn't necessarily mean my leg strength is any different, but that sort of like middle sort of part of the body that holds you up the trunk just feels blh.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

I think though, when you do go to the gym for the first time, you may feel heavy. And I think that's what people expect, and that's probably why people don't strength train is they think, well, you know, if I do a leg session, that's gonna make me feel heavy and awful. But you know, the more you do it and get used to it, you won't really have that feeling anymore. And you know, it'll take it will still take weeks to see a positive impact from that. You don't just go to the gym once and get results. Yeah, like even to build strength, it would take six weeks, I guess, for a beginner to see any difference. So once you've done it for that long, you won't have that heaviness. And so you just have you have to keep persisting with it. But I think it's it's hard when you do that first one and you feel the delayed, you know, yeah, the DOM the DOMs, and you go, Well, this makes me feel crap running. I'll never do, you know, I'm not gonna do that. Yeah. So you have to be in it for a bit longer to really get the the benefit of it. And I think that's hard to sell to people, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Absolutely. And it's also programming the training that you're doing in the gym to suit your running as well. So you I mean, you're not gonna do legs the day before uh interval session, are you? Like you're probably looking at more of a an upper body or core sort of strength workout, and then perhaps on an easy day or a rest day, looking at those leg exercises. That kind of like flows again into what I was gonna bring up, which is lighter equals faster. So you've done like the stronger, makes you slower, lighter equals faster. So this one is quite dangerous within the running scene. Um, and when you look at runners like I was saying 20, 30 years ago, they were a lot leaner, they were a lot lighter, and that was the mindset that marathon runners or half marathon runners and 10K runners needed to look like. Uh people that see somebody who's achieving highly automatically thinks lighter makes you faster. But the reality is performance comes from being properly fueled and being strong and being able to recover from your training properly. So if you're under fueling and you're hitting a session and you're not following that up with the correct fluids and the fuel, then you're not going to be recovering ready to go for the next sort of session. So you're gonna have low energy, you're gonna get poor sessions, slower recovery, and a higher risk of injury, which generally unfortunately are bone stress-related injuries.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Um definitely we go into that energy deficiency state, yeah, but a really dangerous place to be.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Kind of like what Alyssa said back in her episode, it kind of works until it doesn't. So you'll notice for a short period of time that okay, you might be performing better because your body's losing a little bit of what it's been carrying, but then there's going to come to a point where your body can't sustain running on such low energy and being able to perform when there's no strength behind you. So I think instead of focusing on being lighter, the focus should be being on being stronger and healthy so that you can have consistency and longevity.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

I think the message is gradually getting better about fueling before, you know, or during after runs. I feel like that is getting better in the cu in the general running community that I don't think that was something that was probably talked about no five, ten years ago.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

I guess it's more female focused as well. Like females are seen to look and be a certain way when they're doing different things. So yeah, societal pressure. Yeah, where the men, okay, they might be quite slender and slim, but it's not necessarily because they're like they're not putting enough into their body, it's just that's their makeup. Men have high testosterone, so of course their bodies are going to be slightly different to the female's body where we carry more father.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

We do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

So yeah, I think yeah, lighter equals faster is not true. And not a good thing to strive towards. Definitely not. Not the kind of goals that we want to work towards. No, yeah. I always want to be stronger, faster, and healthy. Yes, so that I can get to the finish line, but also get to the start line.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

And keep running for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Yeah, forever, if I can.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

That's the aim. Yep. Well, we both sort of shared this one, but I guess the next myth is about the need to perform static stretching before running.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yes, well, running is a movement, and static stretching is not.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Exactly. And the research, which has been around for a little bit, has indicated that holding a static stretch for 60 seconds can temporarily reduce muscle strength and explosive power. And as you just said, you know, running is a movement and it relies on the muscle tendon unit, like our Achilles, for example, acting like a spring. And static stretching reduces the spring effect, which is yeah, is going to reduce our performance. So that's why, you know, before our sessions, you make us go through a certain routine.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yes. So some of you find the first part of this routine a little bit on the silly side, but we do some side steps one way and then the other way. We do some skipping and swinging our arms forward, and this is just getting the blood flowing and moving. Um, and then we move into some walking lunges, and you don't have to do a lot of them. We normally just do five on each side, so 10 in total, and we focus on making sure that we're lowering down without our front knee going too far over our ankle. So we're trying to get that power when we come back up. We're also doing some, I don't even know what this is called. I just kind of made it up. We pull our knee up towards our chest, and then we scrape the gum off the bottom of our shoes and we bring our heel up towards our bum. So we're kind of doing two stretches each other. Fine, yeah. But we're moving forward and then we're doing some hamstring sweeps or feeding the chickens. And again, for both of those exercises, we're just doing five on each side. So that's ten in total. Another one that I like to then add in before we do our actual drills is some sort of hip and core movement. So we do some standing marching, which this is what the group finds quite hilarious. It's like their dance routine. So we're it is a little bit like that. It is. We'll do a count of ten um standing marches. So pretty much we're just lifting our knees up and down, up and down, and then we cross our arms and we do the exact same thing again. When we do that second one with the arms crossed, you can generally feel the pull through the hip flexors, which we're warming up for our drills. So they're the dynamic stretches that we go through. Um, and then, you know, some people like to just stand around and they'll do some leg swings and you know, some torso twists, but we go through um a routine of like ladder drills and hurdle drills.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Yeah, and that gets us pretty ready for the session. I guess, yeah. I don't know why we've seen this myth pop up, particularly in a physio point of view. It seems to be that stretching is the answer to prevent injury, and I don't really know where that's come from. No, because it doesn't significantly reduce our injury risk.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

More of a school day thing, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Like when we're in like primary school and high school, early PE stuff taught us that that's what we needed to do with static stretching.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah, so that's kind of stuck with us.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah, it's perpetually stayed in the sort of literature, I guess, like in the way that teachings are done.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

So we almost need to think like instead of thinking stretch before we run, we need to start thinking like move and be active. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Or also, I mean, I guess stretching can still have a place post-run, you know. Yes. Which I guess you would treat that as more as a relaxation part afterwards. You're releasing some tension if you're feeling particularly tight in a certain area. And you know, you might you might have very specific stretches to you that you need to work on that you might do post-run. Or some people just like to have that mobility stretching routine. I don't think that's a problem after a run.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

No.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Um, but yeah, we don't need to go through a whole static stretching routine. In fact, even for an easy run, I think just running your first kilometre a little bit slower and allowing your body to warm up that way is probably all we need for definitely, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

And that's something that I jog. That's something that I've always say to Matt is just go out, your first K can be your slowest K.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Not gonna matter, like no one's gonna be looking at your run that deeply that they go, Oh, Matt ran a five, 30 kilometer painting K, like oh, something must be wrong. Like, it's just allowing your body to warm up, yeah, and you work into it.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Yeah, and it's not a fitness thing, it's just uh reducing some of that stiffness and that's that you're just allowing that. But I guess people want to go out at the pace straight away that they're aiming to achieve as an average pace. And I think that's especially for an easy job, just the wrong way to look at it. Because that you know, it's meant to be easy and you're meant to ease yourself into it.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

I think we need to think of easy runs almost the same as we think of like a warm-up and a cool down pre- and post-session. Yeah. The warm-up jog is slow because we're warming up our body. So, of course, like your easy runs can have a slower beginning, and you know, you can have a slower end to that easy run too, because you can let your body Yeah, like your heart rate go back down a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

I sort of do that naturally. As I'm coming closer to home, I probably start just you know, you start just jogging a little bit, and I think that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Slow it down. I always stop probably 500 metres from home and walk. I do that as well often. Yeah, I find and even like before getting in my car after a run, if I've driven somewhere, I like to just walk around because you don't want to sit in your car all stiffen sore.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Yeah. Yeah, incorporating a little bit of a cool-down walk or something. So yeah, we can structure our easy runs like that. But I yeah, I I just like to look at the first kilometres just uh a bit of a warm-up, and you know you're gonna ease up and get faster, and it doesn't matter. It's a little bit a little bit slower, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

No, and you've got nothing to prove in that first case.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Absolutely not. The other, I guess we've got some time to go into another one that I see popping up a lot is I guess on social media, I don't know if this one's this one's quite a new one, but people saying this one workout got me this time, and it's all hinged on one particular workout, and there just is no one magic workout that exists out there.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

It's gonna change your life all of a sudden.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Well, it's almost similar to like you must run fast to get faster, right? So if you're just doing that one workout all the time at the same paces in the same order, you're never going to improve because it's consistent. I guess you get good at that one workout, but yeah, but not good at the rest of them. Yeah. And it's the same, like that with that myth, if you run fast to get faster, if you're doing all your easy runs faster than they should be, and then you do your steady runs at the same pace and your faster runs at the same pace, you're like almost like a one show pony. Like you're not getting any variety with what you can do, and your abilities to be able to use your body and understand how to move your body faster or stronger throughout a run is less because you're just doing the same all the time. So that's probably one of the biggest myths that I quite often see as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah, I just I don't know. I think I've seen it popping up on social media. It's like, and I I get it, this one workout maybe did change this. Person's training or was helpful for them, but it couldn't have been the only workout and the only thing that their whole training that they did to get to a certain time goal or or something.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Yeah, it could have just been a session within their training block that they enjoyed.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Maybe. And that's but that wouldn't be the only attribution to why they got that time though. No focusing on that one thing. Because I guess they're selling that as that's weren't working.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Do this session and you're gonna have the best 5k ever without like any context behind it. Yeah, like do this session, I don't know, monofartlek and get your fastest 5k time. Yeah, but you know what? It's a good workout, right? It is a good workout, but then they don't go, what is a monophartlek?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

And I think as well, people seeing these, you know, some of these sessions could be huge. They could be half marathon sessions, or people are seeing them for the first time that have never done a session that big, suddenly trying to do a session that big is not gonna be particularly helpful for you because it it's just not really what you need at that particular point in time. And it could be quite dangerous to attempt someone else's workout that you don't really understand why they're doing it or why you should do it.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah, and I mean it's just gonna set you up for failure if it doesn't go how it should do. Well, that's gonna demotivate you to to maybe not try again. Yeah. Stick injuries and things like that as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Yeah, stick I mean, you want to change up your workouts, of course. Who wants to do the same workout every week? And you know, you you may get some ideas from social media and other places, but I guess you've just got to take it with a grain of salt.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

But it's just another workout, and there's a lot of them that exist.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Just pick and choose what's right for you and be smart about it. If you're training for a 10K, well, you definitely don't need to be doing three by five K sessions. That's definitely not gonna add value.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

I'd say with the minute ones, like anyone can make up a do three times three minutes, do you know, you could make up any version, and they're all good workouts because they're all getting you to change your pace at the end of the day. But it's understanding what the workout is and what it's yeah, and what type bases you're trying to hit and why based on the length of the session. So it's all yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

I I do often see those on social media and I do cringe a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

I guess just for engagement though, it's that um social media hook to get you at paying attention to what they're saying because you're going, oh, that's how they got this really fast, and it you know hooks you in a bit, and that's I think that's really why that we've seen that come out. I think it's just a social media hook gets people paying attention, eyes on their content, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

But it sets you up for failure.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Well, that's making everything assault that you see on on all those platforms, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

That's it. At the end of the day, you've got to stick to the plan and play your game, not anybody else's. Did you have anything else to add? Is that it?

SPEAKER_01 24:45

I didn't have any other myths, but if anyone wants to uh send them write in, they'll send in some ones that we can talk about in another episode quickly, or any others that you've been wondering, you know, why this myth, you know, what the real answer is, send them in.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Well, if you have taken anything away from this episode, let it be that the plan works if it works for you. And if you have enjoyed this episode, send it to a running friend who might believe in one of our myths. Make sure you subscribe and like, and let's keep the conversation going.