Running and my legs

[Duronos]

Hey sports section, I don't tread down here to much and I'm sure there are a few people who know their stuff regarding running. I'm training for Pararescue which is a Special Ops job in the Airforce and it has a 90% wash out rate meaning 90% of the people fail in the Indoctrination part of the training that lasts for 10 weeks. I just started running a few days ago (I've been doing pushups every night for the past 2 months) and no matter how hard the run I decide to go on is, I'll keep going.

My thighs started to hurt after a 4 mile run through many hills and I did a mid distance sprint towards the end of it. They are still hurting and I know that even though I'll never give up so to speak should I be careful about my thighs from just failing? I had a run last night (2.5 miles) and I just ran it normally and it didn't seem to bother me to much but going up and down stairs hurts a bit. Is it strain on my thighs because I'll be honest, I personally don't care about the strain because I think pushing myself is the only way I'm going to make Pararescue but I don't want to mess my muscle up.

[Reg]

What does the pain feel like? Does it feel like you're being stabbed? Is it a burn? Does it feel tight?

[Duronos]

What does the pain feel like? Does it feel like you're being stabbed? Is it a burn? Does it feel tight?

Tight seems like a good way to put it, feels like when go down a stairs the muscles are sucking themselves in.

[Reg]

Tight seems like a good way to put it, feels like when go down a stairs the muscles are sucking themselves in.

Most likely didn't stretch it out properly or possible a bad cramp. Stretching is just important as the run, and make sure you stay hydrated. If the tightening sensation doesn't go away in 2-3 days, see a doctor.

Does it hurt if you're just sitting and touch it, or does it just happen when you are using the muscle?

[Slummish]

Take some Tramadol. I take it for everything; moving furniture, bathing the dogs, walking down to the mailbox, etc. It's great and I don't feel a thing.

[Reg]

Take some Tramadol. I take it for everything; moving furniture, bathing the dogs, walking down to the mailbox, etc. It's great and I don't feel a thing.

Very bad advice unless absolutely needed.

[Duronos]

Most likely didn't stretch it out properly or possible a bad cramp. Stretching is just important as the run, and make sure you stay hydrated. If the tightening sensation doesn't go away in 2-3 days, see a doctor.

Does it hurt if you're just sitting and touch it, or does it just happen when you are using the muscle?

Only when using it.

[Reg]

I'd say don't push yourself as hard for a couple days, you don't want to aggravate anything else. But you also don't want to put your training on halt, so light cardio is fine. Make sure you are stretching before and after your workout and hydrating. I like to drink Smart water myself. It has added minerals that help with blood flow, so if it is cramps you are getting, it will help.

[Furiex]

Sounds like its down to stretching, I personally like to do Cycling races, and before I ever set foot on my bike either to just ride or to start my race I spend 30-45 minutes of good long stretching, usually going over my routine 2 times. Dont stretch to hard, but get it to where you feel as "loose" as possible, and ALWAYS stretch and do a light jog after, That will make your legs love you. On days of EXTREMELY hard workouts I do a ice bath, Which I fill my bath tub up to about my waist (when im sitting down) and then have my Wife drop 3-4 Large bags of ice into the tub and Ill sit there for about 15 minutes. Its hard to get used to doing it but boy after your first time of doing that, Youll log back on here and thank me.

[Reg]

Oh man, ice baths ... I do not miss those at all. It definitely helped rotating hot and cold to relieve muscle stress, but the ice baths were just ... brrrr. lol

[Duronos]

Ice baths sound painful but I'm sure there are far more painful things in life.

[Deleted]

As long as there's no highly localized and sharp pain, you'll be fine.

Main things:
1. Stretching is your best friend.
- if you make sure to do a 15-20 min "reset"/relexed deep stretching every day before you go to bed, then the pre-stretch before serious runs should not be deep but it can be short and extensive (cover a lot of different parts of your body)
- critical stretching areas in order of importance with emphasis on running: hamstrings, glutes, quads, adductors, calves, ankles (not stretching, more full mobility) and if you do a lot of longer runs the "IT band"
- warning about depth: I find best results when I reserve deep stretching only for end of day stretches. I have felt my muscles and connective tissues strain, and I think I have even lightly injured myself once, when I did deep stretching before a run. It is easy to forget that your body needs to recover from deep stretches almost as much as it would from exercise.
- stretch immediately after the run too. Again keep it light (unless you're actively trying to develop flexibility), but as extensive as you like. Everyone's body is different, but I find my adductors/groin needs to be stretched first before I can stretch other parts of my body after a run.

2. Ice baths
- yeah, they can hurt. But they are so good after really tough routines that world class athletes, especially cyclists use them all the time. They aid fast recovery and reduce soreness.

[Spectral]

Agree that it probably wasn't warmed up correctly when you went hard. Warmup routine is fairly discretionary, but you can't just go out, go hard, and tell yourself to grit through it, it almost guarantees that you'll be straining something at some point. I don't think it's anything serious, just give it a bit of rest and you should be fine in short order. I think it sounds like you're taking a bit of a macho attitude towards slight injuries, and I don't think that's a great idea, given your goals. Yeah, you're going to need to be a tough SOB that can shrug off minor injuries, but you're also going to need to avoid more significant injuries that will prevent you from accomplishing what you want to do. Train, but don't overtrain.

[Duronos]

Agree that it probably wasn't warmed up correctly when you went hard. Warmup routine is fairly discretionary, but you can't just go out, go hard, and tell yourself to grit through it, it almost guarantees that you'll be straining something at some point. I don't think it's anything serious, just give it a bit of rest and you should be fine in short order. I think it sounds like you're taking a bit of a macho attitude towards slight injuries, and I don't think that's a great idea, given your goals. Yeah, you're going to need to be a tough SOB that can shrug off minor injuries, but you're also going to need to avoid more significant injuries that will prevent you from accomplishing what you want to do. Train, but don't overtrain.

I wish I had a Spanish Accent and was big and buff.


OT: I agree fully with what you're saying and that's why I made a thread regarding this, it seems like after swimming this morning a lot of the pain subsided. I still feel it but not like I was before.

[Nuadu]

Stretching shouldn't be your primary concern before a workout. It isn't a bad thing overall, but getting blood into the muscles via a good warm-up is going to benefit you more than stretching will.

Let me clarify so I don't sound off my rocker. All soft tissues are more extensible when they are warm. Stretching would be almost friutless if done without a warm-up first. Also, any stretching that's done needs to be done for at least 6 seconds...but more beneficial would be a slow gradual stretch lasting between 10-20 seconds.

[Reg]

Stretching shouldn't be your primary concern before a workout. It isn't a bad thing overall, but getting blood into the muscles via a good warm-up is going to benefit you more than stretching will.

Stretching should be part of your warmup, but not necessarily the "static" stretching I see a lot of people do, which athletic medicine has battled on for a long time on whether it is worth it or not. One thing both sides do agree on is that stretching is good because it gives your body a neurological readiness for activity, which can help prevent injury and enhance performance. So while it's argued stretching may or may not be physically beneficial (I feel it is, so I do it just in case and have had no issues) it is said to be mentally beneficial in preparing the body.

[Deleted]

Stretching shouldn't be your primary concern before a workout. It isn't a bad thing overall, but getting blood into the muscles via a good warm-up is going to benefit you more than stretching will.

Let me clarify so I don't sound off my rocker. All soft tissues are more extensible when they are warm. Stretching would be almost friutless if done without a warm-up first. Also, any stretching that's done needs to be done for at least 6 seconds...but more beneficial would be a slow gradual stretch lasting between 10-20 seconds.

I think you are misunderstanding what everyone means by pre-workout stretch here. I am certainly not referring to stretches that last even 10-20 seconds for each pre-workout stretch. Just basic warmup motions on all limbs with movements to beyond normal range around joints.

For example, a primary pre-workout stretch where you split your legs sideways. You're not aiming for max range or 20 second stretch. Just split well beyond seated range so all the long muscles and connective tissues are prepared instead of being jerked out of their normal daily range of motion. Then, twist your body and touch each toe with the opposite hand a couple of times to make sure you hit the adductors and hamstrings. It is not ballistic stretching either because you're nowhere near max range and it is controlled motion.

Another example: similar quick stretching motions for calf muscles and tendons. Just a very short and moderate resist against a wall with one leg forward, other behind and after that a gastrocnemius stretch by lowering your foot against a step with the tips of your toes at the top of the step.

I even find it beneficial to do shoulder/arm circles and arm extensions so as to hit the deltoids and remind rotator cuffs that there is more to life than being glued to a computer mouse...

So, I guess, yes, you could call that a "warm up". But to me there's nowhere near enough cardio in that to qualify as a warmup. It is a pre-stretch to make sure no body structures that you are about to use are stuck in a groove. I think it also has some benefit if there is a large temperature difference between indoors and outdoors - just getting your muscles "acclimatized" to working in that environment for 5-10mins (tops).

Of course, if you are doing a race, especially the shorter the activity (therefore more intense), then a proper cardio warmup would likely be necessary after a pre-workout stretch.

[Nuadu]

Oh for sure, I totally agree. The one thing I see a lot of with athletes in my office is their trainers more often than not do not know when to stretch and when to not stretch...because there is times when stretching is contra-indicated. For instance athlete A come into the training room with "tight" hamstrings. Knee jerk reaction to this is to stretch the hammies. However, this particular athlete has lower crossed syndrome where their pelvis is anteriorly tilted, making their hamstring elongated. Stretching an already elongated muscle is plain wrong and unfortunately most trainers do not know how to identify this.

OP: hope your training goes well!

---------- Post added 2013-04-12 at 12:25 PM ----------

I think you are misunderstanding what everyone means by pre-workout stretch here. I am certainly not referring to stretches that last even 10-20 seconds for each pre-workout stretch. Just basic warmup motions on all limbs with movements to beyond normal range around joints.

For example, a primary pre-workout stretch where you split your legs sideways. You're not aiming for max range or 20 second stretch. Just split well beyond seated range so all the long muscles and connective tissues are prepared instead of being jerked out of their normal daily range of motion. Then, twist your body and touch each toe with the opposite hand a couple of times to make sure you hit the adductors and hamstrings. It is not ballistic stretching either because you're nowhere near max range and it is controlled motion.

Another example: similar quick stretching motions for calf muscles and tendons. Just a very short and moderate resist against a wall with one leg forward, other behind and after that a gastrocnemius stretch by lowering your foot against a step with the tips of your toes at the top of the step.

I even find it beneficial to do shoulder/arm circles and arm extensions so as to hit the deltoids and remind rotator cuffs that there is more to life than being glued to a computer mouse...

So, I guess, yes, you could call that a "warm up". But to me there's nowhere near enough cardio in that to qualify as a warmup. It is a pre-stretch to make sure no body structures that you are about to use are stuck in a groove. I think it also has some benefit if there is a large temperature difference between indoors and outdoors - just getting your muscles "acclimatized" to working in that environment for 5-10mins (tops).

Of course, if you are doing a race, especially the shorter the activity (therefore more intense), then a proper cardio warmup would likely be necessary after a pre-workout stretch.

In some of the pre-workout motions you are going through you are describing stretches. If the idea behind them is to physiologically prepare them for whatever workout comes next then it is not doing the job you think it's doing. Golgi tendon organs within the muscles prevent any physiologic stretching to occur to prevent muscle damage, it is not until between 6-10 seconds of a sustained stretch does the GTO send a neurologic signal to the spine to reflex back to the muscle to relax and allow the lengthening to occur. So your warm-up movements do perfuse blood into the muscle and that is in fact a good thing, but they are not a true stretch in any physiologic sense.

[Paulosio]

If you haven't done any running for a long time and then you go running your muscles will feel very tight for a while in the days after as the muscles aren't used to that sort of strain. Warming up before running doesn't really make a huge difference to this problem in my experience either (although maybe i'm not warming up correctly). Your muscles just wont be used to the sort of strain that running puts on them because they haven't been used in that way for a while.

I have been running for about 15 years but occasionally I go through phases where I just don't go running at all for a few months. Normally the 1st time I go running after 1 of these long breaks I can barely walk for a few days after (going down stairs is particularly bad). It is normally at it's worst when I wake up the next day and a couple of days after that but it can last upto a week. Doing occasional gentle stretching in the days afterwards can sometimes help a bit but it does just go away on it's own after about a week if you rest the muscles too.

[jbhasban]

On top of what everyone else suggested, I would suggest you get a foam roller/yoga tuneup balls and massage yourself once or twice a week.

People have been talking about preworkout stretching but I think a video would be better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AmJdqLnM0Q