Training for Summer: How to Prepare Your Running Season

Summer is upon us, which means it’s time to get your body in shape for your favourite summer sports, including running. Whether you prefer road or trail running, whether you’re an expert or just beginning, it’s important to be well-prepared to avoid injuries and start the season off on the right foot. Here are some tips from Camille, kinesiologist and certified coach by The Running Clinic, to start or resume running and maintain good habits for the summer.

Running Technique

Before you even start, you need to know how to run. So, let’s start this series of tips with running technique. First, as you are running, you want to make as little noise as possible under your feet. You should also take small steps and aim for a running pace as close as possible to 180 steps per minute.

Regarding your foot strike, it is often said that it is better to run on the forefoot, but if you are not injured, make very little noise while running, and are comfortable with an average cadence of 180 steps per minute, then there is no need to change your foot strike, for example, from heel strike to midfoot or forefoot strike. In this case, changing an already well-established habit puts you at risk of injury.

However, if you have a history of sports injuries or if you want to improve your performance, it may be beneficial to consult a kinesiologist or a certified running coach.

Warm-Up

A major misunderstood aspect in running, and physical activity in general, is the warm-up. Indeed, warming up before a run helps minimize the risk of injury. However, static stretching does not allow you to warm up properly; on the contrary, static stretching before running should be avoided, as it negatively impacts performance and could even increase the risk of injury.

So, how should you proceed? First, you can wake up your motor coordination with educational movements, such as high knees, butt kicks, and leg flickers. You can also include simple functional exercises like squats, lunges, and some calf raises. And of course, the goal of the warm-up is to increase our body temperature, so you should always start your outing with a walk or light jog, while gradually increasing the speed.

Strenght Training

Another important aspect to prepare your body for running is muscle strengthening, either in the gym or at home. Strengthening exercises improve performance and running economy, and can also reduce running injuries if the exercises are supervised and practiced diligently.

Regarding the exercises to prioritize, you need to aim at strengthening your quadriceps, glutes, and calves through squats, lunges, deadlifts, hip thrusts, and calf raises. For more experienced athletes, you should focus more on strength training, which means doing about three sets of four to six repetitions each, with heavier weights.

To obtain a personalized, safe training program that will guide you towards achieving your running goals, we recommend consulting a kinesiologist or a certified coach.

Training Program

Now that you have everything you need to resume or start running, it’s important to plan your workouts and running sessions. So, how can you organize all this?

First, it’s better to run often and for shorter durations than rarely and for long periods of time. We aim to accumulate three to six outings per week, and if your schedule allows it, we recommend you add one to two strength training sessions to your week. And of course, it’s recommended to stay active every day, even on the days you don’t run, with sports like cycling or swimming. This type of training, called ‘cross-training,’ will still work your cardiovascular abilities while preventing injuries related to repetitive movements, making your sports practice much more diverse and motivating.