Most of us has bad habits, that’s okay, but if we constantly repeat them, the development and performance start to suffer. As running is not just running, to become faster and better we have to consider every aspect of our life. This doesn’t mean you have to live like elite athlete, but there are many little things which you can do, these also often prevent injuries and improve life quality. Can you recognize yourself any of these bad habits?
1. Eating junk food after exercise. “Running burns a lot of calories, so I deserve pizza, fries, ice-cream, etc.” No, of course it okay, to eat unhealthy food sometimes, but not after exercise. One of the most common thing is that people go to eat plenty of junk food after marathon, to reward themselves. Unfortunately, junk food don’t contain proper nutrients and proteins that your body seek to recover. So, if you have to eat some unhealthy after marathon, wait for the couple days, give your body nutrition that’s need first.
2. Ignoring strength training. Many runners hate gyms and weight training, and avoid them, even though they make stronger runner. Running mostly train your legs, but you need strong core and upper body too, as those muscles affect running posture. This doesn’t mean that you have to go gym every day and lift heavy weights like body builders. Couple days a week is enough, even home training using your body weight is good.
3. Lack of rest. Addicted to running and training? Remember that most of us, have also job, other life, responsibilities. Let’s consider that you wake up early, go to work, and then go for the running straight after, are you stressed out after work? How that will affect your running. Try to time your training that you are rested and energized, it’s not always possible, but take short nap or put your legs up just for the moment after work, breath slowly, forget all the rush and responsibilities, breath and then lace your running shoes. If you are running early in the morning, make sure you go to sleep early.
4. Lack of stretching. This is maybe one of the biggest thing that people forget to do. It’s kind of understandable, once you finish training, go home and shower, you forget or feel too lazy to stretch. As a massage therapist I often heard people saying that they don’t have a time for that, but once we discuss everyone knows, it’s just an excuse. If we have time to sit on sofa front of TV, we have time for stretching.
5. Using google as a doctor. It’s okay to google, if you feel that something is wrong, but google doesn’t give statement, as some mind have the same symptoms as you, but still different injury. So doctoring yourselves or delaying to the meeting doctor it’s never good idea. It can make injury even worse, when recovery time is longer.
6. Giving up too soon. Developing fitness and building endurance and speed takes time. You can’t seek progress every week, sometimes there’s a time when the progress is fast and then times that nothing happens in many weeks.