Joe: 00:25

Welcome back to another episode of the Freedom Talks podcast, everybody. This is your host, Joe Ogden, And we're sitting down with my coworker and fellow running expert here at Freedom Physical Therapy, Doctor. Charlie Koonan. Charlie, what's up, dude?

Charlie: 00:37

Good to be here. Hi, Joe.

Joe: 00:39

So today, topic wise, because in October when this podcast is going to be released, our theme in October along with PT month is kinda running awareness if you will from we're gonna be talking about shoes, socks, running form, exercises to strengthen your running cadence and decrease running injuries. So today is gonna more focus on if there is a running injury in a therapy setting, like what exactly we can do and what are some of the things we look at as running experts, who are trained like Charlie and I. But we're more so gonna pick Charlie's brain because he he does a lot of stuff with runners in general. Right, Charlie?

Charlie: 01:17

Yep. Sounds good. So you and I are actually certified through the same company for some of our running stuff. Right?

Joe: 01:23

Run DNA.

Charlie: 01:24

Doug Adams, he's he's the guy that put all that together. He does a really good job. I love all of his stuff. I've had the privilege, not not here, but when I was a student, I was able to use some of their three d analysis software and hardware, which was awesome. So that's something that I think took my my ability to look at runners and treat them to the next level.

Charlie: 01:45

Now we don't have that equipment here, but it's not super necessary to do a good job with runners. But I think it was more of the training that I really loved from Doug Adams and Run DNA.

Joe: 01:54

I feel like running, you know, in the outpatient setting, we've talked about this to death. Think depending on what subset of people you're really trying to capture in your rehab setting, there's settings and situations where the objective data is really good and necessary to work with. There's others that if we just look at the general imbalances, we can still effectively treat that. Mhmm. Where the framework, I think, from run DNA was absolutely fantastic on how to look at stuff.

Joe: 02:23

This is done the framework on where to go. And then the data just enhances what you already think is going on Mhmm. And strengthens what we're trying to do. Yeah. Do you have all the level one, level two?

Joe: 02:34

I know you're the endurance coach.

Charlie: 02:36

Yeah. Yeah. I did the coaching. And I took level one for sure. I got to some see of the level two stuff, but I didn't take it myself, technically.

Joe: 02:43

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Charlie: 02:43

Yeah. Yeah. But had a lot of experience working with runners. I've I've I don't even know how many I have under my belt, but I've had I've had a lot of reps with it.

Joe: 02:51

So let's I think today, like, let's talk about just kinda like a hypothetical case, I guess. I think, you know, if someone comes in a freedom, this is kinda, you know, what we look at Mhmm. Things we can do. I think kinda give some low hanging fruit things that Mhmm. Queuing stuff, I think, that we like to do.

Charlie: 03:06

And Yep.

Joe: 03:06

I think that we'll go from there.

Charlie: 03:08

Sounds good.

Joe: 03:09

So what would you say as far as runners that we work with or is is the pretty, you know, typical injury presentation?

Charlie: 03:17

Most commonly injured part of the body is the knee by far. I think there's some there's a lot of good data on on a lot of this stuff. But I think depending on how you define it, up to eighty percent of runners experience an injury every year. So the knee is by far the most commonly injured area. What I tell people is the knee is kind of the middleman between the hip and the ankle.

Charlie: 03:39

It kind of just gets told what to do and takes a lot of the a lot of the force. So it doesn't surprise me that that's the area we see most commonly. But I think also perfect storm for for some of this stuff. There's a lot of factors when it comes to why people develop running injuries, but usually it has to do with load control, how much they're doing, how quickly they're they're loading up and progressing through their program. Usually you can look at some things like demographics as well, tends to be women, tends to be people who are around 30 to 40 years old.

Charlie: 04:10

Also, prior history of any injury is the one risk factor for developing that injury again. And then this is also the time of the year where people are starting to get ready for fall races. A lot of people are putting in really heavy weeks with their training. And so again, that comes back to just load tolerance management. When I get someone in the clinic like that, on top of the physical assessment, asking about where the pain is, maybe trying to figure out the source of it and the tissue structures that are involved, I spend a lot of time talking about what their running habits are like.

Charlie: 04:44

So we talk a lot about load management. I don't always get into a ton of nutrition, at least not on day one, but that's a big part of what supports your running, being able to fuel the fire per se. So when there's a 100 things that you could talk about with someone, it's you have to pick out the most important things on day one. And usually that comes back to load control, load management. And then for the person sitting in front of me, what tissues we're going to treat and how we're going to treat it.

Charlie: 05:10

What about you?

Joe: 05:12

I mean, I would say I'm in part of this is just my nutrition certification. You know, depending on their skill level, if you will, or their experience in running. Like, if they're a really experienced runner, you know, that's been, you know, multiple marathons, college runner, like that type of thing, high school runner, whatever. I'll probably get a nutrition right away and really be like, okay. If you're having this load capacity injury, which I feel like I see the most too.

Joe: 05:40

Mhmm. How are you feeling both during the run, pre run, post run? Like, what does that look like? What kind of gas are you putting in your engine?

Charlie: 05:48

Mhmm.

Joe: 05:49

And then what does your actual load look like? And now, I mean, I would say post COVID because running has just skyrocketed. The load talk out there, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all that stuff out there is now the access we have is just through the roof. Mhmm. But a lot of people don't see that, which I think is interesting, especially with social media now.

Joe: 06:11

Like, if you're not in the niche, you miss all that content.

Charlie: 06:15

Yeah.

Joe: 06:15

Which I think is crazy. Mhmm. But I'd say nutrition, I don't get in a ton of running form immediately because I feel like look at the tissues that are being affected. Look at your load management, really objectify what's going on. And then some nutritional stuff that takes care of a lot of low hanging fruits right off the bat.

Joe: 06:36

Yeah. And then if there's something that still remains, which there probably is, then I get more to a running analysis.

Charlie: 06:42

Yeah. What what does it look like for you? What kind of different things do you consider when it's someone who's younger, high school, college aged athlete versus someone who's thirty, forty, maybe a master's runner? What kind of things do you think is different between the populations? Or how do you handle that a little bit differently?

Joe: 06:58

I feel like kids and this is changing, I think, too, which is kind of fun. Like, I think with access now, I think coaches at the high school level, at the at the in intermediary level, there's more information for them to relate to kids. But I feel like a lot of kids, like, when I ask, like, okay. So you went on six runs this week. You run-in every day.

Joe: 07:20

Like, what do those look like? They're like, I don't know. I just Mhmm. Like, is it easy pace, hard pace? A lot of times with kids, they're just running full out for the entire time.

Joe: 07:30

I'm like, your your tissues are just drained. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of kids too. And I always I always say this personally to, my high school runners, even college runners.

Joe: 07:40

If you have an injury at that time, that shows how important the strength is. Like, for me, it's really fun. They come in, right? They're having knee pain, ankle pain, hip pain, whatever. Mhmm.

Joe: 07:49

We go through a full body assessment and we find, okay, you have some serious strength limitations. Strength, strength. I'm a big proponent of strength. Mhmm. They start adding the strength in and they're like, oh my god, like the pain goes away.

Joe: 07:59

And I just kind of sit there like, yeah, it's not rocket science. Mhmm. And they can see it directly that that strength addition to what they're doing running wise, they're seeing a direct correlation. So it clicks in their head, which I'm like, perfect, we're doing our job.

Charlie: 08:10

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe: 08:10

What would you say?

Charlie: 08:11

I would say when I consider some of the differences in demographics, I would dare to bet when you're looking at someone who's a little bit older, generally find that those people are not new to running. So I think that has implications for sometimes how long they've been dealing with an issue, how chronic it sometimes can become. I also think that with adults, I find that they have a better grasp on some of the things, especially if they've been running for a longer period of time. The load management coming back to that. So easy runs versus workouts.

Charlie: 08:44

Do you take an off season? And what does your nutrition look like? Sometimes I find that those topics are not necessarily foreign to them, but maybe they've had this issue that they've experienced before. And it's just we haven't rehabbed it the right way before. Sometimes when I think you're working with a younger athlete, it's maybe their first time coming in the clinic.

Charlie: 09:03

There's a lot of there's a lot of new things you can teach them and lower hanging fruit. But I think I think the big difference is sometimes you just see different types of injuries. Like I think with the younger runners, you'll see a lot more knee pains. And I think with older runners, you'll start to see a lot more. I think Achilles tendinopathy or tendinitis is one of the more common things that you'll see for older people.

Charlie: 09:24

So I don't think that the basics and the foundations change much, but I think sometimes it just changes your expectations for what you're going to look for as as a clinician.

Joe: 09:36

Yeah, I think sometimes it's tricky too with, you know, more experienced runners where you start having kind of the same topic conversations that they've, you know, lightly talked about their entire running career, but maybe have never, like, really dove deep on exactly what it means. So I feel like sometimes at the beginning, it kind of falls on deaf ears where they're like, yeah, I understand. I've already done all this. I've done all this strength and I've done all this, you know, the typical rehab and it just hasn't really worked. And then you dive deeper and figure out, Okay, what's your training look like?

Joe: 10:05

I feel like a lot of people, it's just it's the same cycle. Yeah. Where your body is just like pushing back, pushing back, pushing back. And then we have to really dive deeper and, Okay, I got to peel some layers away. We got to change a couple of things and then we're off and running.

Charlie: 10:18

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe back on the topic of of load management in general, this could be for any runner. But when it comes to things that support running, we've we've touched on nutrition and maybe how we tackle our conversation. I think cross training and periodization are super important as well.

Charlie: 10:38

I find cross training to be one of the best tools that we have for runners. There's a time and a place to go all in on just the running. Maybe you're getting closer to a race and it's a new distance for you and you really need to push how much you're putting your legs through in a given week. Maybe it's something where you're trying to specifically for a week or two, put a lot of fatigue into the legs, a lot of workouts, a lot of miles, but you're pulling back from that at some point. Or maybe you're just trying to build volume over the winter months when it's not time to push super hard, but just stack bricks, be consistent.

Charlie: 11:13

I think cross training has a super important role. Now, when it comes to cross training, I don't really harp on one versus another. I think whatever you like, if it's the bike, if it's swimming, if it's rowing, whatever it is, I think it's just got to be some other form of aerobic activity that takes some of the impact out of your training. And I think there's a lot of good workouts you can do with your, your cross training as well. Something I'll do often with people, especially early on in a season, is I'll have them do almost all of their easy aerobic work with running, and I'll have them do their workouts on the cross training.

Charlie: 11:55

That is something that I think if you're dealing with an injury, you're starting to train, trying to do more training, something like that. If you're just trying to build in one way or another, that's a safe way to do it that I find. What do you think about cross training in general? You

Joe: 12:09

and I are similar, but at the same time, a little different on how we look at the cross training. Like, think the cross training is super important, especially like injury wise. I want to take your intensity just like you do, and I want to move that intensity to some sort of cross training workout, so to speak. Keep the running if it's a running injury, keep that as easy as possible for the injury. I want to load that tissue strength wise as much as we can.

Joe: 12:33

This is a great opportunity because you're not running at that volume to add strength to your frame. Mhmm. I mean, I'm a big leader than, you know, many, many, many, many, many, many runners are not strong enough. Yeah. Which could go into a whole different rabbit hole of this whole hybrid model that's now out there with people just going way too nuts on volume Mhmm.

Joe: 12:53

Because they see all these influencers doing it. And to be honest, the the the regular person can't handle that volume. And that's not bad. That's just the reality of Mhmm. Most people don't eat enough.

Joe: 13:04

Most people can't train at that intensity for that long.

Charlie: 13:08

Right. Yeah. So strain training being another thing that you kind of need to support or be a more holistic and healthy runner. I'll be the first to say, you know a lot more about that than I do. You were power lifter at one point, and you have a lot more education and training and and strength than I do.

Charlie: 13:25

How much strength training should runners be doing?

Joe: 13:30

I would say, like, at the bare minimum, I mean, I like a push pull leg split, and I've always liked that. Mhmm. I just think that from my standpoint of how you do that and it's the same thing running wise. It needs to be period periodized a little bit. Mhmm.

Joe: 13:48

There needs to be a plan. And then we could talk about this in a different podcast too, but the different training that you and I are doing back and forth, You need to have a push day, which is just upper body because that works on your actual running mechanics on the upper half. Your pull day is the same thing, and that can get an argument whether you use a deadlift on a pull day or not because that's gonna work your legs. Then your leg day, which I love doing a leg day right before a speed day. I want my legs to be heavy on a speed day because if you can get through those two things, you're good.

Charlie: 14:17

Yeah. Sure. Yeah. You ever do plyometrics? Love it.

Charlie: 14:22

Yeah.

Joe: 14:22

Love it. I think on your leg day, it's a plyo day too.

Charlie: 14:24

Yeah, definitely. I so And I use those as fillers a lot too.

Joe: 14:28

Yeah. So like, like I'm a big fan. I haven't programmed it with you yet just because you're in a different Sure. Category.

Charlie: 14:35

Uh-huh.

Joe: 14:36

Right? But so like, I love super setting stuff and then on your rest, I need a plyo. Yeah. Like, it's just I love it just as fillers. Mhmm.

Joe: 14:44

Because that's a part of your HEP, if you will, but you're just getting it in.

Charlie: 14:47

Yeah. Yeah. I I find plyometrics super useful. I also think that's something from from when I was in college learning exercise science that has changed is I don't think we need as many ply ometrics as we think we do to be effective. And there's some more research I've heard of recently off the top of head, Devin have it with me, but they have looked at and dosed biometrics based off of ground contacts.

Charlie: 15:15

And I think, you know, no more than 50 in a given session is enough. And then if I mean, if you're doing your double leg pogo hops, 50 takes thirty seconds, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little less, but it's not much at all. So strength training and plyometrics are a must. Anecdotally, the fastest I had ever run was also when I was lifting the heaviest I've ever done and when, I have weighed the most that I ever have. And I just think that that is something where there's a lot of reasons that we've come to this point but I just don't think that people value it or see it in the way that that us as clinicians do.

Charlie: 15:55

And I think that it's it'll take a big shifter for a lot of people to get on board.

Joe: 16:00

Well, again, I think it's one of those things that, you know, I totally understand this because I'm a light bulb guy. Like, I think you have to until you see it work, all these theoreticals that I tell you, you you tell me, like, until you see it work, I think it's really hard to actually understand the impact it can have until you try it, fail it, to be honest. Doing it the wrong way. Then you do it the right way. You're like, oh, I get it now.

Joe: 16:24

But I think that's just the the spectrum that people have to travel. Yeah. Which some, I guess, could argue that that's our job to educate more. But if you're not willing, whether it's subconscious or consciously willing to accept that new method, it's just not going to go anywhere. And I say that all the time with different things, too.

Joe: 16:44

Like, until you see that light bulb moment, it's going be hard to really empathize with that and do it.

Charlie: 16:48

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. So

Joe: 16:51

I think plyos too are not overrated, but like and especially in the strength category. I feel like we do so much overcomplicating things. Like the basic workout format, push, pull, hinge, lunge, squat, Mhmm. Carry and anti rotation. Like, simple.

Charlie: 17:11

Cover your bases with all those.

Joe: 17:12

You know, I'm not one of those people that, you know, with especially runners. You know, I'm gonna put you on an upside down BOSU ball. We're gonna work on a lunge. You're gonna balance on a medicine ball on your back foot. And I wanna put a band around your waist and pull on you.

Joe: 17:26

Mhmm. Like, when are you running on an unstable surface like that?

Charlie: 17:30

Not often.

Joe: 17:31

So I don't prescribe to a lot of that stuff that's out there. And I feel like it's coming back now to more simple stuff and just get your work in and get out and get better.

Charlie: 17:38

Yeah. I don't think it needs to be rocket science either. Think of you. Think if you do the basics well, you'll stay out of the clinic.

Joe: 17:45

Yeah. No, I agree.

Charlie: 17:47

Do you dive deep into footwear with your injured runners? Where do you where do you take that with with some of your runners?

Joe: 17:57

First and foremost, and this applies to anybody, not just runners. This is anybody. No matter what, you have to get in something that's comfortable for you. Like, personally, me, I'm not knocking the company. They just don't work for me.

Joe: 18:10

HOCOs for me, I've just never I've never liked I run through them really fast, so it's expensive. Mhmm. And they just don't fit me well. But a lot of people love them. Mhmm.

Joe: 18:19

Like, you're wearing them today, aren't you?

Charlie: 18:20

Yeah. Am. Yeah.

Joe: 18:21

For me, like, Brooks have always been great. So I've got my my progression in shoes. I think a lot of people overwear their shoes.

Charlie: 18:28

Yeah.

Joe: 18:30

So, I mean, I track miles in my shoes a lot and you can tell, I think, when they're done. Mhmm. Yeah. I don't talk much about, like, stack height or anything like that.

Charlie: 18:38

Sure.

Joe: 18:38

It's a little out of my comfort zone now. It's on my to do list just to kind of get a better grasp of it. What about you?

Charlie: 18:47

I it's usually not the first thing I talk about with people, but when I bring up the conversation, the the first thing I usually bring up is, first of all, are your shoes still in good condition? Do they need to be replaced? Which generally speaking, that's up to the runner. If you're starting to run an issue and you've just got some weird little aches and pains that come up when you're running and they're pretty minor, you know, you've got a lot of miles, it's probably time for a new pair. If someone can make this happen, if it's feasible for them, having a rotation, depending on how much they run, maybe it's two, maybe it's three different shoes that they rotate through is one of the better ways that we can use shoes to help, you know, ward off or try to negate how many repetitive forces you're putting on a single tissue.

Charlie: 19:37

So if you're if you've got a shoe for something like easy runs, one for your workouts, maybe one that you use for long runs, that's a good way to just vary the forces that you're putting your you're putting on your body. And I think that it can just take some of the stress and shift it elsewhere on a given day. And I think you're a little less likely in theory to run into some overuse injuries. That's usually where I start with shoes. Comfort is is key with shoes, so you can do all of the speculating you want.

Charlie: 20:05

But sometimes you just need to get in the store and you need to try things on and you need to just make sure it works for you. So where it gets a little difficult is, you know, they say the closer you get to the ground, the more important biomechanics become. And any shoe is going to change how your how your foot is moving. So I do my best when someone sitting in front of me to take into consideration what pain they're dealing with, what I have found in my assessment, and maybe what kind of shoe would best fit where they're at. But I don't think that it's one of the lowest hanging fruit that we have.

Charlie: 20:39

So if someone's been working on something for a while and I know that they've got a good pair of shoes that fits well and they have maybe tried a couple of different ones, I usually don't harp on harp on shoes too much. I just don't think it's the best place to start.

Joe: 20:53

I agree. I mean, again, I'm I'm quite quite simple in a sense of, like, I wanna make sure that the basics are being done right first. And then if that stuff's not working, then I think it's important to dive deeper in some of that other little intricate details about stuff. Or I should should say if all that other stuff is good and there's still some sort of pain, there might be some other influence that's going on with

Charlie: 21:15

that. Right.

Joe: 21:16

Because as you know, like the shoe game, like it can get expensive quick.

Charlie: 21:19

Yeah. Yeah. They they've got shoes that are north of 300 now. If you look at some brands, I know Speedland, their trade shoes are believe they're over 300 for some of the pairs. But, you know, some other racing shoes they advertise are $2.75, $2.50.

Charlie: 21:36

It it can get pretty inaccessible pretty quickly.

Joe: 21:40

Oh, totally. Totally. What else would you say is like, you know, from a treatment standpoint, like, are some things that you really like to implement with people or even like an overarching theme that you're like, okay, I've seen this enough times where I feel like most runners will benefit from this, whether it's a cue exercise, like, whatever from a treatment standpoint, like what are some of the big themes that you see?

Charlie: 22:07

Biggest themes I would come back to strength, really. I think for the most part, unless you've got someone who's well versed in running, done it for a lot of time, done some high level training. Usually they're they're not up to speed with how much string training they really should be doing as a runner. So I think that's usually one of the first places I go. I generally also think you just have to be pretty mobile to be a runner.

Charlie: 22:33

And I, you know, the classic, like, generally people who run a lot and have these overuse injuries, you look at the first ray, you look at the ankle, you look at the hips, you look at the spine. Those are generally where I'm finding the most mobility deficits that we need to address. And then honestly, on top of that, I throw in my modalities just to try to modulate some some symptoms, but it doesn't get much fancier than that. It really doesn't. At least at this point in time with how I'm practicing it, that those are the three things I come back to.

Joe: 23:02

Yeah, I would agree with those. I would say strength too for me. I mean, I just see a ton a ton of weakness in the hips, and that's a big stabilizer. Mhmm. I also really like looking at the first ray because I think a lot of people can actually control that the way we need.

Joe: 23:23

Mhmm. And that's where the run DNA stuff, like, really got me thinking of, like and I never thought of it this way of, like, how strong your feet have to be. Like, we just kinda take it for granted all that impact. But if you have to be able to give that force back through your feet to be able to control yourself, get the paces you need, whatever it is. So that's something I feel like a lot of people struggle with.

Joe: 23:44

Yeah. It's just actual foot control.

Charlie: 23:46

Yeah, definitely.

Joe: 23:48

So that's helped a lot.

Charlie: 23:49

Yeah. Something I do often enough to one cue that I generally go over with a lot of my runners once I get them on them on a treadmill is is cadence. I recently have been the last three or four runners that I've seen have all been over striders, really high vertical oscillation, pretty relatively low cadence. And when someone like that comes in, which is

Joe: 24:14

pretty often

Charlie: 24:16

common presentation, I think that one easy way you can get into some queuing with running is manipulating the cadence because it will change all of those. If you do it the right way, you'll decrease stride length, you'll decrease your vertical oscillation. And then that's just one way that we know that we can actually just take forces out of running. Generally, the other ways we can manipulate someone's, running gait and running form will just take loads from one area and push it to another. Like if you're trying to work on, like if someone's got some sort of ankle issue and you go through some gait retraining that has them, you know, maybe load it a little bit more into the hips, maybe you'll take away forces from the ankle, but you have to be strong and prepared to handle that increase in in load in the hips as well.

Charlie: 25:08

So it's usually not where I go with with my people in the first couple of sessions. Usually, if I'm doing anything early on, it's it's cadence.

Joe: 25:16

Yeah. Would say cadence is huge too. And I always I always think, like, the way I kind of explain is, like, I want your feet underneath you. Mhmm. You've gotta get that center of gravity underneath you, the amount of people that don't do that, and that's so much force.

Joe: 25:31

And usually with that too, what I always tell people is we gotta get a little more of a forward lean. Most people that I see either because there's going so far vertical Mhmm. They get more extension, which essentially you're fighting your own body to go forward. Mhmm. Or you're just going up so much that you're losing any sort of forward translation.

Joe: 25:49

So I try and get a a little more forward lean out of people, and that seems to also help things a lot or take care of some sort of imbalance that we see right away. And then they're like, okay. We at least can get something out of this session right away and give value too, to be honest.

Charlie: 26:05

Yeah.

Joe: 26:07

When it comes to training volume, this is something I feel like you can't talk about enough. When it comes to load management and training volume, like what are what is the biggest thing that you think leads to injury?

Charlie: 26:24

I think

Joe: 26:27

Meaning reason that they are coming to see us.

Charlie: 26:29

Yeah. Usually it's too much too soon. Usually and we're it's it's it's September. So the last few runners that I have seen have have all been younger runners coming off of a summer of either training with teammates or training by themselves and boom, they go straight into their cross country season and they've just got a ton of a ton of volume that they haven't really taken any sort of periodization since, you know, track in the spring. So either it's too much too soon, someone who's newer to running or trying to train for something new and they ramp up too quickly, or it's someone who doesn't pull back and just focus on something else for a couple days, couple of weeks, whatever it is.

Charlie: 27:17

When when it's the latter, I usually try to get people to realize that all sports at the professional level have an offseason. There's time dedicated for rest for a reason. And I think that it's it's naive of us to think that we can run as much as we do constantly for the entire year. So either it's too much too soon. And, when it comes to increasing how quickly you should do it, I don't think that the, you know, the typical 10 rule really applies.

Charlie: 27:51

I don't think that there's enough merit for me to subscribe to that one. I think it all I think it has everything to do with, how you're feeling day in and day out and just trying to manage that with how fast you're pushing. And then I think, again, it's just reminding people that, you know, you need some time away from all of the running, whether it's cross training, whether it's true rest, whether it's like playing a different sport for a season. And then just getting people to realize that how much you put your body through really does matter, how quickly you do it and how often you're doing it.

Joe: 28:26

I 100% agree with all of that. I'm not a big 10% subscriber. I just think there's too many other variables that you can play with instead. Mhmm. I I then still the only thing I would add to that, and again, this is just because of my certification in nutrition, is using your body as a as a guide, which I love doing that.

Joe: 28:54

And if people have access to the Oura Ring or, like, Garmin does a great job, Coral does a great job Mhmm. Or the WHOOP. Using that objective data to be like, you wake up in the morning. Let's say you're a morning runner. You wake up in the morning before you're running.

Joe: 29:11

You're like, okay. I'm pretty sore. I don't think I slept good. Okay. Check your numbers.

Joe: 29:15

Does that reflect how you feel? Is it similar? Don't let it dictate how you feel. And then vice versa too. If you feel good, check your numbers.

Joe: 29:23

Did you sleep good? Did you do that? And then really tracking, okay, if you've got a good week, are you eating enough? Are you refueling enough? Are you feeling your runs?

Joe: 29:32

Okay. Yep. Keep going. Keep going. Bump that up.

Joe: 29:35

You can even bump up 15% or just keep doing what you're doing. I'm a big just load the system. Load the system. Load the system. Fuel the system.

Joe: 29:45

And then kinda go from there. Mhmm. I mean, I I wouldn't say jump up 50 miles in a week, but you could you could jump up five, six Mhmm. Seven. I wouldn't jump up 10 total.

Joe: 29:58

But Yeah. I think the 10 is just there's too many other variables that can happen that that 10% can actually get you into trouble. Yeah. Like, I mean, I do it now. Like, if I have a bad week of eating as far as getting enough carbs in, like, I gotta pull it back because I know my long rounds could be terrible.

Joe: 30:15

Or if I've had a good week, I'm like, alright, Let's let it rip. Like, I don't know, three weeks ago, I did back to back tens. Yeah. Yeah. Felt fine.

Charlie: 30:23

Yeah. Nice. You know? Nice. Ready for it.

Joe: 30:28

So to wrap this up a little bit, from your perspective, what would be, like, just three easy pieces of advice you would give to runners to, a, avoid having an injury or just decrease their risk for an injury? Mhmm.

Charlie: 30:46

I think the the first thing you need to do is to make sure that your training when you're training, you have easy days and hard days. Your easy days can't be too hard. I think that that's a common mistake we see. And then your your hard days have to be hard as well. That kind of just ties into load management.

Charlie: 31:04

I think you need rest every once in while. You need to periodize your training. So whether it's cross training or true rest, I think you need some time away from the week in, week out training that people like to do. And then I think you need to cover your bases with your nutrition and your strength, really. I don't think it gets much more complicated than that.

Charlie: 31:24

I think if you do those things well and you do them consistently, you won't have to come see us for much.

Joe: 31:31

Yeah. The big keyword is consistency. Mhmm. You know, what's the best program that works? I don't know.

Joe: 31:36

The one you're consistent with.

Charlie: 31:37

Exactly. The one you can do.

Joe: 31:39

Yeah. Right? Yep. And that's where you and I talk about different things. But the big thing that comes back together is the consistency part.

Joe: 31:45

Yeah. I do more strength training with my stuff. Yep. You would have scheduled more running stuff.

Charlie: 31:51

Yep.

Joe: 31:52

I just offset it with the strength. But it's consistent that way so we can manipulate that.

Charlie: 31:56

Exactly.

Joe: 31:57

Yeah. That was a good one, dude.

Charlie: 31:59

Yeah. That was.

Joe: 32:01

So if there's any runners that are listening to this podcast or have a friend, family member, or you're you yourself is dealing with an injury, we'd love to see you here at Fox Point. Charlie and I both are certified in in rehabbing running related injuries, believe is the technical medical physical therapy term with it. But we also can put together some training plans on top of the rehab side of things to really get you prepared for a race or even just get you back running and and feeling comfortable again if you haven't been running for a while. So we'd love to see you here in Fox Point. If anybody has any questions or comments, please let us know when you see this posted on Facebook or Spotify or even on our YouTube page as well.

Joe: 32:43

And remember that we also have locations out in Mukwonago, Brookfield, and Grafton. Thanks, Charlie.

Charlie: 32:48

Thank you, Joe.