Injury index

Running injuries and how to avoid them. Most are overuse injuries from training-load errors, not from running itself, and staying healthy enough to train consistently beats every marginal gain. These pages are a general knowledge base, not medical advice; see a doctor or physiotherapist for an actual injury.

• Running injuries — the overview: load errors cause most of them, and what actually prevents them
• Injury prevention — what actually lowers risk, ranked by evidence: load and strength do the work
• Bone stress injuries — stress reactions and fractures, why the site matters, and the link to low energy availability
• Tendinopathy — the general loading principles for tendon pain
• Achilles tendinopathy — the headline running tendon injury, where midportion versus insertional decides the loading
• Patellofemoral pain — runner’s knee, the commonest running-clinic diagnosis
• Plantar fasciopathy — degenerative heel pain worst in the first steps of the morning; load it, do not just rest it
• Calf and hamstring strains — sudden mechanical tears from fast running, treated by early progressive loading
• Common overuse injuries — iliotibial band syndrome and shin splints (medial tibial stress syndrome)
• Practical niggles — blisters, chafing, black toenails and the side stitch
• Exercise-associated muscle cramps — the cramp that strikes late in hard or long runs; why the electrolyte theory is largely refuted and what actually stops one

Treatments and therapies

The hands-on and passive treatments runners seek for pain and injury, graded honestly. Most give short-term, largely non-specific relief; loading does the durable work, and one option stands out.

• Manual and passive therapies — the evidence-graded tour of the whole cluster, and where it fits
• Shockwave therapy — the best-evidenced of the group, an adjunct for chronic tendinopathy and plantar fasciopathy
• Chiropractic — spinal manipulation helps back pain modestly; the subluxation theory does not hold
• Osteopathy — the same manipulation evidence as chiropractic; cranial osteopathy has none
• Dry needling — short-term relief for muscular pain on thin evidence
• Acupuncture — a small, contested effect over sham needling
• Soft-tissue therapies — ART, Graston and cupping: branded soft-tissue work on weak evidence
• See also return to running and strength training for runners