Regardless of how frequent accidents are amongst runners, we nonetheless know comparatively little about what particular components trigger them, or methods to forestall them. We all know even much less about why some runners endure a number of accidents in a season, whereas others appear to have the ability to run without end with subsequent to no points. Not too long ago, researchers in South Africa tried to know what causes some runners to expertise a number of accidents, and their findings might shock you.
The research
The research, which was printed within the Journal of Sport and Well being Science, collected running-related harm information from 75,401 race entrants throughout 4 years (2012-2015) on the annual Two Oceans 21.1 km and 56.0 km races in South Africa. The typical variety of accidents for every runner yearly was calculated by taking a runner’s race entry historical past and harm historical past under consideration and categorizing entrants into 4 a number of harm danger (MIR) classes — excessive, intermediate, low and really low.
The researchers used odds ratios (a number of logistic regression modeling) to find out which components predicted a excessive danger of a number of accidents. The components they thought-about included demographics, coaching and racing, chronic-disease historical past and historical past of allergy symptoms.
The outcomes
Curiously, the outcomes confirmed that lower than 10 per cent of the runners surveyed skilled an harm over the 4 years, and solely 0.4 per cent of them skilled a number of accidents throughout that point. This, the researchers admitted, is comparatively low in comparison with different research, which have beforehand reported between 19.4 per cent and 79.3 per cent of runners experiencing no less than one harm yearly, and warrants additional investigation.
The research decided three unbiased danger components that appeared to foretell a better occasion of a number of accidents. These included older age (greater than 40 years outdated), an extended historical past of leisure working (greater than 20 years) and working longer distances, like ultramarathons. Counter to what it’s possible you’ll assume, neither weekly working mileage nor any of different training-related danger components have been predictors of a excessive fee of a number of accidents.
Persistent illness and accidents
The researchers additionally recognized two novel danger components for a number of accidents: a historical past of persistent illness or a historical past of allergy symptoms. Almost 19 per cent of all runners concerned within the research reported no less than one persistent illness, and these individuals accounted for 26 per cent of runners with a number of accidents. If the variety of persistent illnesses in a runner elevated from one to 2, their odds for having a number of accidents elevated by an element of two.2 per cent. In the event that they went from two to a few, these odds went up one other by an element of 4.7.
The authors of the research word earlier research have proven that persistent illnesses are frequent amongst endurance runners. In addition they level out that different research have reported a hyperlink between persistent illnesses like diabetes mellitus and hypercholesterolemia are related to harm. They imagine that one purpose for this affiliation is that runners with persistent illnesses are probably on quite a lot of drugs, which might affect their danger for accidents. “There may be additionally proof that drugs used to deal with persistent illnesses may be related to elevated danger of tendinopathies, ligament accidents and bone-stress accidents,” the researchers say.
Allergy symptoms and accidents
The research additionally discovered that runners with a historical past of any type of allergy symptoms had considerably larger odds of experiencing a number of accidents than those that didn’t. “Runners with allergy symptoms are prone to be taking antihistamines, particularly as a result of endurance working is an outside exercise,” the researchers concluded. “One of many oral sedating H1 antihistamines, Promethazine, has been related to extreme tissue harm.”
The underside line
Accidents are difficult and sometimes multi-faceted, and scientists are nonetheless studying what causes some individuals to develop into injured greater than others. This research has just a few particular limitations, together with the self-reported nature of the information, and the truth that not one of the accidents have been confirmed by healthcare professionals.
The outcomes of this research have been additionally correlations, not causations, and cause-effect relationships between the danger components couldn’t be confirmed because of the cross-sectional design of the research. The researchers additionally didn’t handle danger components that might doubtlessly play roles in a number of accidents amongst runners, like physique mass index, particular drugs, kind of coaching/floor or biomechanics, amongst others, and they didn’t account for recurrent accidents of their information.
Nonetheless, runners with allergy symptoms or persistent illnesses ought to pay attention to this research, and take additional precautions with their coaching. Notably if you happen to’re taking drugs on your situation, it’s best to discuss to your physician concerning the potential negative effects and how one can decrease your danger for accidents and practice safely.