Plasker Family Chiropractic Blog

1.  Back pain:  If you have a spine that is out of alignment, jogging or jumping rope would create downward pressure with each step or hop over the rope. This acts like a hammer banging a bent nail into a board.  Have you ever tried to drive a bent nail with a hammer?  What often happens to that nail? The same thing happens to your spine if it is bent out of alignment.  Therefore, running and jumping rope are not good ideas in this case.  Perhaps, swimming, cycling or using a non pounding elliptical machine would be a better way to get an aerobic workout.  If you loved jumping rope or running ask your sports oriented chiropractor for ways to help this condition and allow you to run the races you desire.

2.  Hip pain:  If a person has one hip higher than the other, exercise can cause hip pain.  This shift and imbalance can be a physiologic result of a pelvic misalignment or an anatomical result of one side growing longer than the other.  Both of these conditions will cause an imbalance in weight bearing, most commonly leading to the short side carrying more body weight than the longer side.  If the short side is carrying 10 lbs more for 1,000 steps in a workout, that translates to 10,000 more pounds affecting that short side with each workout.  Which side do you think will wear out faster?  You can choose to stop working out or fix the problem and continue to work out towards your goals.  The solutions are generally a heel lift for a person that has an anatomical imbalance which will create the balance necessary or if the person has a physiologic imbalance we can make the appropriate chiropractic adjustments necessary to create proper balance.  Ask the sports oriented chiropractor, if you would like more information.

3.  Knee pain:  Often happens when there is an upper lumbar misalignment, a pelvic misalignment or a foot imbalance.  Your exercise can be causing you more harm than good if your knee pain is coming from anyone of these three issues.  Often times we exercise in a linear plane, for example running a straight line, cycling in a straight line or swimming in a straight line.  This creates repetitive linear motion of the spine, pelvis and feet which leads to knee pain.  This repetition often causes excessive wear at the area between the spine, pelvis and feet which is the knee.  You can attempt to vary your exercise to incorporate lateral or diagonal movements which can prevent injury that results from straight forward linear repetitive motion. If the varied directional exercise does not help, the underlying foot, pelvic or spine issue must be addressed.  If the lumbar spine or pelvis is involved a specific scientific chiropractic adjustment is needed to re-align it.  If the foot is involved, sometimes adjustments to the foot joints are necessary and a foot leveler spinal pelvic stabilizer support is needed.  If the change in exercise does not work feel free to ask your sports oriented chiropractor.  

• A bent mis-aligned spine can become worse with pounding type exercise like jogging or jumping rope.  Switch your exercise or get your spinal mis-alignment fixed.

• Unbalanced hip levels can lead to premature wear and tear of your hip joints unless it is leveled out. Think of an unbalanced out of aligned car.  If you leave the car in the garage and do not drive it, the tires will not wear out prematurely.  Drive it and drive it hard and it will wear down quickly. 

• Misaligned lumbar spine, pelvis or foot can often lead to knee pain.  Add lateral and diagonal exercises to create greater balance of the musculature around the knee joints.  If that does not change it, ask your sports oriented chiropractor about specific scientific chiropractic adjustments or spinal pelvic stabilizers.

As with most things in life, training for a 5k takes some planning. No matter your experience with running, a little bit of forethought in developing a training schedule will help you stay strong and healthy until you cross the finish line.

First off, allow at least 12 weeks to train for a 5k, and allow at least 3 rest days per week. This will allow you to build up your strength and stamina while also allowing for your body to get the regular days off it needs to stay healthy and injury-free.

So now you know that you need 12 weeks at 4 days a week. I have found that a schedule of training on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday works well, but really it’s up to you.

The next thing to consider is allowing walk breaks in each training session you accomplish. Here is where experience matters. If this is your first time training for an event, you’ll want to plan on running for no more than 10 minutes in each session to start. Run for 1 minute followed by 2 minutes walking and then repeat for half an hour training session.

If you have experience with competitive running and want to bump it up a little at the start, that’s great - but don’t go over 20 minutes running. Break down your training session to small increments of 2 minutes running followed by 1 minute walking for your half hour session.

Another way in which experience will matter is whether you should rest on the 3 off days per week or cross train. If this is your first time running an event, definitely take the rest days off to build your stamina. If you are already used to this pace of training, some of your rest days can be used for cross training.

No matter your experience, always start off running slower than you think you can! This is the number one way to prevent an injury while training. As you build confidence and want to go faster, remember not to increase your running time or intensity by more than 10% each week to prevent fatigue.

Lastly, remember to give yourself a recovery week every 4 weeks. A recovery week is a training week where your training continues but time, distance or intensity gets reduced back to a former weeks schedule.  This recovery week is as essential as your recovery days to prevent injury.  I have also found that it is an active way to show how my endurance has improved. I remember when I began training in 2005, the rest days and recovery weeks were essential to me. I did not even want to think about cross training back then but you can decide depending on your current fitness and endurance level to add these cross training efforts.

So, to summarize, if you are ready to  take on that 5k event:

• Choose a race date that allows you time to train properly

• Allow 12 weeks for a 5k, regardless of your experience level.

• schedule your running days and rest days in advance

• Start off running slower than you think you can

• Don’t be afraid to take walk breaks

• Never increase time distance or intensity greater than 10% week over week

• Give yourself a recovery week every 4 weeks  

If the schedule seems a little overwhelming, I have published a good template that you are free to use on my website.

Good luck, and I hope to see you out there!