Common Running Injuries: Jacob Hayes

In this month’s episode of the Next Level Running Podcast, Coach Sean Henning and I are joined by Certified Athletic Trainer Jacob Hayes for an in-depth conversation about common running injuries. We break down some of the most frequent issues runners face—like shin splints, IT band syndrome, plantar fasciitis, and more—along with practical tips on how to prevent these setbacks before they start. Jacob also shares valuable advice on effective rehab strategies, when to seek professional help, and how to stay smart and healthy in your training. It was a fun and insightful chat about some of the not-so-fun parts of running, packed with actionable takeaways for runners of all levels! 

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Transcript

Jacob Phillips 0:18

This is the Next Level Running Podcast, brought to you by the expert coaches at Run Doyen, helping runners of all levels crush their goals on race day by matching with the perfect coach or training plan. Hello and welcome back to the Next Level Running Podcast. I'm your host, Jacob Phillips, and this month, Coach Sean Henning and myself welcome Jacob Hayes onto the podcast. Jacob is the athletic trainer at Dallas Baptist University, which is a school I work at. We talked through uh your common running injuries, how to prevent them, how to rehab them, and just really some good pieces of information on how to be a healthier, stronger, better runner. This was a fun conversation. It's actually uh our second attempt at this conversation. Back in April, uh my audio file was corrupt after we recorded this. And so we were finally able to align our schedules and have Jacob back on the podcast. And so this was a real treat. Jacob, uh you know, he was an active runner in high school, uh, and in college. He's still a runner today. And to have an expert like him on the athletic, more medical side of things, this is just a really good conversation that we've been wanting to bring to you. Um, but hey, look, if you're looking to feel better in your runs, maybe you're dealing with some of these common uh running injuries, maybe you haven't dealt with them yet, but they're coming. This is a great listen. Um you know, I want to thank Jacob for his time. And obviously, Coach Sean, as usual, as my co-host. This is a really fun conversation. But before we jump into it, I want to point it to the show notes below. As usual, I'll have you know the link to rundoyen.com. If you want a professional, expert running coach that can help you take your running to the next level, look no further than rundoyen.com. We have a unique matching feature that will help pair you with the right coach to help you crush your running goals. If you're not quite ready for a full-time running coach, you can check out the Doyen Dashers for$39 a month. You get a program written for you, uh, for your goal by one of our expert running coaches. It's a little bit more hands-off, it's a little bit more flexible, but it's like having that first step before you jump into the deep end uh of having a full-time coach. So check that out. I'll also have our socials listed below, you know, the Instagram, the Facebook community group, all that good stuff as usual in the show notes. Um, but please feel free to reach out to either myself or Coach Sean if you've got any questions or suggestions for this podcast. It's been fun uh doing this podcast with Coach Sean, and we obviously want to bring you uh some great content month to month. But again, this month was special. Close friend of one of my best friends, our trainer here at Dallas Baptist University, Jacob Hayes, and we're talking through the common running injuries and just some tips on how you can be a better, healthier, stronger runner. So let's jump in. Hey, what's up, man? Hey, how are you? I'm good. You know, this is the time of the summer it usually gets pretty pretty boring for me. So I'm I'm uh I'm ready for kids to get back onto campus. I'm ready to get back into you know the the the daily life of uh a college cross-country coach. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

So Well, that makes one of us. I'm still enjoying the uh I'm still enjoying the the time away from 40 athletes. It's uh it's nice to have uh have those mornings where you, you know, you don't have them in the in the the year, you know, for nine months you really don't have them. So it's nice to have those mornings with the family and and uh yeah, have a slower, you know, slower pace in the morning and um not have to not have to coach for a little bit, but uh because once it starts, it it's it goes for for nine months.

Jacob Phillips 3:56

So it it does. I I think every summer I get to this point, you know, we're probably about the halfway point of the summer, and we get uh I get I get super bored. And it's part of it's it's it's uh it's really hot here in in uh in Dallas. And so like being outdoors is just not as fun, you know. So and then the fall gets here, and you know, anyways, the weather starts to get better, but uh yeah, it's just yeah, I'm ready for but I always get to about you know April and you think, wow man, I I wish I would have summered a little harder, you know, but uh but we forget. But but uh how was uh you you worked at camp, how was camp?

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Yeah, I was at a a camp in uh in Santa Barbara, uh UC Santa Barbara track track camp. I was uh I guess it was a technically it was a it was a it was an all sports camp, but I worked uh with a group of cross country runners, about 20, I think 25 or 26 of them. So it was good. Can't complain about the spot we were in. I mean, we're literally right on the beach, you know, right there overlooking it. So there was some good dirt to run on. And um, yeah, it was it was a good time. Um taught taught a lot of good stuff to these kids that you know they don't it was anywhere from junior high to high school. They don't they don't know a lot of uh impart some wisdom and see some kids learn a lot and and grow. So that was that was definitely enjoyable and um but it was good to be back. It's it's a they're long days. You're pretty much you're with them all day. So it's good to good to wrap it up. And now we're heading out to heading out to Tucson uh tomorrow. Actually, we'll be out traveling for for a week. Uh so yeah, another another trip now. How about you guys? You guys got back, you had a trip and now you're you're back?

Jacob Phillips 5:34

Yeah, we did yeah, we did Galveston, and yeah, I feel like it's been forever since we've done one of these podcasts, you know. The it got busy towards the end of the year with us, you know. Obviously we we both had athletes at nationals and um yeah, and I think like, you know, it just we did this. We're actually gonna, you know, we're gonna have uh Jacob Hayes on again and we weren't able to post that podcast. We've actually done this conversation and had some yeah, we had some uh the there was like a critical failure of the of the video or the the audio or something. I couldn't get it to upload. And so um, but I that's the last time I think we've actually sat down and done this because I hosted last month, I hosted uh an it was like a a podcast crossover type of thing. And so yeah, I just yeah, just kind of vacation's over, we're done with that, you know. It's vacation Bible school time for my kids and my wife this week, so they're busy. It's like, yeah, it's just I I'm telling you, I'm I'm ready for I'm ready for students back on campus. I'm ready to get going.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

But um well, in some ways it'll be good to do this podcast again. I I feel like we we had a good one um with Jacob before, but there were some issues with uh uh like cutting in and out, I think for part of it. So even though obviously the it didn't end up working out with the just the the file in general, but there were some parts that cut out and it was kind of disappointing, you know. And so we'll get to do it again and hopefully we'll do it, do it even better this time. So um well and I think I think there's so many, I was gonna say there's so many great questions that we can ask uh, you know, an athlete will you know he'll introduce himself, but but he's an athletic trainer, he's he's a he's a he's a runner, he's he knows the sport, and he'll be able to answer a lot of questions that I think uh most of the listeners will love to learn more about, you know. Um so I'm I'm excited about that to talk to an athletic trainer about running specific stuff.

Jacob Phillips 7:19

Yeah, no doubt. And and he he actually just popped into the guest room, so I can I can let him in, let him introduce himself for a little bit, and and we can kind of get rolling with, you know, the the the approach we took last time, you know, we were unfortunately weren't able to post it was uh you know the the common running injuries that that you know uh and how to how to how to not have them happen and and how to maybe deal with them and come back with them. So I'll let Jacob in and and uh and we can uh get get rocking and rolling once he once he pops in here. So um yeah, let's go. Hopefully, yeah, fingers crossed. You know, the the last uh the last Zoom podcast I did, it worked, it was fine. It got uploaded to Spotify. So let's hope this one goes well. Jacob, there you are. Hey. Welcome back. Thank you, appreciate it. Well, we've got the uh somewhere somewhere in the in the you know in in the interwebs is uh is a great interview that we did with you back in you know March or April, and now we're getting to redo that. So um I appreciate you taking the time to to come back and you know, especially on the night of the uh of the home run derby, I'm sure you're gonna tune into that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

So I yeah, I love uh all-star weekend. Of course, baseball is one of my favorite sports. So yeah, I mean, uh we got we got possible ALM VP and Cal Raleigh, man, the catcher showing up big. I'll be rooting for him tonight.

Jacob Phillips 8:35

Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be fun. So uh Jacob, I know you and Sean, Sean know each other, but we're gonna we're gonna let you uh introduce yourself. I know you're the athletic trainer here at DBU, but I'm gonna let you introduce yourself, kind of your your background, and then um we're gonna jump in. We're gonna talk, you know, common running injuries, how to prevent them, what to do when you have them, that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Okay. Well, yeah, my name is Jacob Hayes. I am the athletic trainer for cross-country and track and field at Dallas Baptist University. I've been there for four years, two years as a graduate assistant, and then two years full-time. So I'm going into my fifth year working with the Patriots. Uh, I have a background in collegiate running and in high school running. I was on a very good collegiate runner, and a lot of that had to do with suffering several running injuries and learning through not only my education and athletic training, but also um as an athlete myself, how to go about dealing with those injuries and not so much necessarily dealing with them when you have them, but also how to prevent them.

Jacob Phillips 9:28

Yeah, that's awesome. It in the you know, cool tidbit, uh Jacob of myself and uh an assistant coach uh Angel Luetta that we have uh hired back to DBU, we've started a little summer running group and uh you know, some of those as we get back into shape and get back into some of those little little injuries we're probably gonna talk about have have have reared their head for at least for Angel as he's gotten back into it and such. But uh John, yeah, yeah, I'll let you I'll let you jump in with uh with the with the the first question or or what have you.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Yeah, well good to see you again, Jacob. Thanks, Sean. Good to see you too. Yeah, sorry we had have to do this again. I was telling Jacob we hit a home run on the first one, but uh but that's all right. We're gonna we're gonna hit a grand slam. Uh we're gonna we're gonna win the home run derby. I'm gonna keep this baseball themed here. We're gonna do a really good job here. So um, but yeah, I I was I I was telling Jacob I'm excited that we have an athletic trainer who who really knows the sport, you know. That's that's uh that's such a blessing for us as coaches, and like you you know it because you've been around it. I know your family and your brother and you, and and so you know the sport, so that just makes your uh your your uh insight so much more valuable. But um, yeah, I'd love to know um a little bit uh of uh you know maybe the biggest issues that you find with with uh runners in general, like what are some of the the biggest injuries uh that that you feel like you deal with uh kind of on a day-to-day, year-to-year basis? I mean, uh there's a whole plethora of injuries, but I'm sure you see some themes. Um and like if you could um, I guess with maybe those whatever two or three injuries, like what what do you see as um I guess like why are those happening? You know, so like what do you see, what do you see often, and what what do you typically attribute that that injury or those injuries to?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

That's a great question. I think we'll let's go with these general four. There's actually a ton of uh aches and pains that runners deal with, but the four general ones that I think that also the audience would relate to well, first one's got to be shin splints. I feel like I see shin splints a lot, and that was uh alluded to earlier with our assistant coach Angeluera. He's dealing with that as he's getting back into it. Say IT band syndrome, and we can talk a little bit more about the details of that, but having some lateral knee pain is uh, I think a common second one, and then classic runner's knee, which would be pain on the front side or the anterior side of the knee, would be a third, and then the last one down the foot would be plantar fasciitis. Say those four are probably the four most common. And the the causes for those are all different, but I think we can make an umbrella statement about all of them and say that a lot of them have to do with a combination of poor running mechanics, which then in turn leads us to looking at what are our biomechanics looking like while we're running and how we can improve those. A lot of that I think has to do with building good functional strength, so we can talk about a muscle weakness relating to that pain. And then also uh having to do with poor training and uh I think and poor equipment. If we're running in a bad running shoe, a shoe that's not giving us good support, we can certainly come up with lots of different types of pain. And then also for people who are, you know, they maybe they signed up for running a half marathon and suddenly they're recognizing it's only a month away, they haven't done any training, and so they get after it and they put in way too much volume way too early, and suddenly they're wondering why they're in a ton of pain. And there's uh a lot of great reasons for that. We don't necessarily want to ramp up going from zero to 100 in the course of 48 hours, uh, but certainly over time. Uh so I'd say, yeah, overuse or quickly jumping in training, having bad equipment and uh having poor biomechanics, poor functional strength.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yes, great. No, those are, I mean, those pretty much were the four that I would have picked as well, just from what I see as a coach. So um sounds like things aren't that much different in Texas than California. So um maybe you can uh talk a little bit about um, I wrote down in particular the IT band uh issues and planar fascitis. I'd love to know from your standpoint. So you get an athlete that comes in and they say, Hey, hey Jacob, I've got uh I'm dealing with an IT band issue or I've got planner fascitis. Like what what is your next step with with an athlete like that, with both of those scenarios?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Let's start with with IT band syndrome, that lateral knee pain. Having pain on the lateral side of the knee isn't exclusively IT band syndrome. I would say for runners, especially if it's an insidious onset, something that is kind of there a little bit, maybe towards the end of the run, and is becoming more and more frequent, even to the point while just doing daily activity it hurts. There's pretty good reason to believe that that would be pain that's caused by the iliotibule tract. That's what IT stands for. That pain is not um very well solved or understood by looking at the knee. We want to look at the surrounding structures of the knee and particularly where our IT band starts and finishes. It has multiple insertion points on the lateral side of the knee. And so saying that it exclusively inserts at what we call GERDIE's tubercle is a bit of a misnomer and uh a generalization. And that actually helps us get a better understanding of the function that it provides based on where it starts. So we think about our hip and the muscles of our hip have a huge role in our ability to run effectively and to run with good strength and with good speed. Our IT band starts up at our hip with two muscles. Those two muscles are one of our glute muscles, our glute max, and are one of our muscles that helps flex our hip. It's called the tensor fascia latte or TFL for short. When those two muscles are not functioning the way that we want them to, that tends to resolve or tends to lead ourselves to having lateral knee pain. Uh, whether it's because those muscles are tighter than we want them to be, because those muscles aren't activating when they should be during our gait cycle with each of our steps as we land and we pick our foot back up. And sometimes it's because those muscles, uh, whether they're not activating or they're too tight, it's because they're not strong enough and we need to strengthen them. But all three of those causes have nothing really to do with the knee and have everything to do with the hip. So when we evaluate an athlete with uh lateral knee pain with IT band syndrome, I'm going right to the hip and I'm looking uh specifically at where we can evaluate, where where in our gait cycle are we having failure of those muscles to work as they should? A lot of times it has to do with what we call mid stance, which for every runner would um has that feeling of when they're all of their weight is on one foot and the other foot is in the middle of its swing. And when we have pain on that uh stance leg, the leg that's touching the ground, oftentimes we find people with lateral knee pain, their knee buckles in, or we will call having a valgus force, and those, which means the muscles on the outside aren't activating a way to keep our knee over our foot in the balance area. So instead of a nice straight line, we have it kind of going bending in and then coming back. Weight distribution through our knee that way is not the way our knee is designed to work. And so when in that spot, we need our glute max to activate, we need our TFL to activate. Uh, and not only in just in midstance, but landing into mid stance and the pushing out, um, particularly when we talk about hip flexion in our TFL. So when uh once we kind of see that with our athletes, even just walking, doing a single leg balance test, and we see, oh yep, that's where we're having lateral knee pain. I can see the knee collapse in. We go right to attacking functional strength. So I put people on a balance board and I tell them you can't collapse your knee. They know that's the problem. And I watch them do it. I have them even think about their kneecap sitting right over that second, third toe gap. And then I put a force to say that I'm trying to pull the knee in and teaching those glute muscles to activate, to keep the knee out in place, keep the knee out in place, keep it over the foot. And when we do that in a position that's similar to running, what I talked about with mid stance, if I keep them in that mid stance position, we get those muscles to activate while we want. And then we put them back into uh a walking or running, and we notice that that knee is better positioned because our muscles are being trained to do what they're supposed to do. Um so I we really function on or really focus on that functional strength aspect. And once we get some basic level, okay, we can balance better, we can balance on something a little bit unstable better. Then we start doing some more um active movements, things where we're actually running and then uh attempting to see how we can do over longer periods of time. I think that's probably the best way to go about it. Not to say that we neglect the knee pain, obviously, if the athlete's still in pain, we want to treat the pain, but our solution isn't treating the injury by looking specifically at the knee. Our solution is found by looking at the hip.

Jacob Phillips 17:54

So, so obviously, you know, when you're talking about the IT band, you know, a lot of times you're feeling the pain at the knee, but it's it's from the hip. What about, you know, Sean asked about the plantar fasciitis? Is that is that similar in that regard where you're feeling the pain at the in the arch, um, but maybe it's it's you know, same same thread of thought there, or is that more of a localized injury?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

I think we can look at plantar fasciitis in two different ways, and it's a bit more difficult to tell without having uh imaging of uh what the patient is, but I think for the most part we can say, especially for um I I I wouldn't know this from a study, so I'm I'm happy to be corrected on this. So we'll speak on anecdotal evidence. The athletes that I've seen that have had plantar fasciitis, I've had a few where they've actually had a tear in the planar fascia. The tissue is torn. Okay, that's the location of our problem, right? I don't need to look anywhere else. That's where the pain is. We need to solve our injury by dealing with the fact that our tissue has torn. And in other cases where we have inflammation, particularly in the planar fascia, if we think about um that tissue on the bottom of our foot, it starts at our heel and works its way towards our toes and actually starts in a bundle and it spreads out, going to each of our toes. And when we look at towards the heel space where that tissue starts, um, in the same way that all of our uh tissue-like muscles can be really taunt and tight or really loose and relaxed, our calf muscle, which enters on the other side of the heel that comes down with our Achilles tendon, has a huge influence on how taunt or relaxed our plantar fascia is. So oftentimes we find people with plantar fasciitis, their calves are incredibly tight. If you have them go into a squat, they can't go into a squat without lifting their heels up because they don't have very good dorsal flexion. All of these mechanics around the ankle that they don't have very good, again, biomechanical movement, good running functional movement. And the way I think to best treat that, especially with dealing with calf stuff, is with our classic maybe um running um our running treatments, things like using a foam roller or something more aggressive, like even a low crossball, to really attack into our calf muscle to get nice and loose and relaxed, to our tissue is more pliable, more movable. It can go through a greater range of motion. Uh, same thing goes with the planar fascia, even though that tissue is tight. We can roll that out too using a lower crossball, or maybe something even more fine-tuned like a golf ball, although the golf ball is pretty hard on the bottom of the foot. Rolling that out, getting just a little bit of extra lengthening of that tissue is valuable. You're not going to see this huge benefit, or really rarely will you see a huge benefit from doing it once, but doing it continuous day after day before a run, after a run, I think shows really good long-term effects. So again, with the planar fascia, uh, the plantar fascia problem, we can look outside of that and see, okay, actually, if we evaluate our lower leg and see that we have really tight soleus and gastroc, those are our two significant players that are of our calf muscles that create go down into our Achilles tendon. If we work on those muscles, get them relaxed and functioning properly, they have a positive effect on them the tissue on the other side of that lever arm uh attaching to the calcaneus, which would be our plantar fascia.

Jacob Phillips 20:54

Nice. Very cool. I I I got a question that you know, I don't know if it deals directly with what we just talked about, but as I think about like myself, you know, we're here in Dallas. It's it's it's very hot. We're we're running short runs and we're and we're we're it looks like we went swimming. How much of a role does does proper hydration play in something like a plantar fasciitis with a fascia? Um maybe not as much with an IT band, even though that's uh like what what are you what are your thoughts on that? I mean, like I feel worse in the summer than I do in the winter, right? Like I feel more beat up from my running in the summer than I do in the winter.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yes, that I'll I'll delve against that. I forgot one thing on planner fascicles that's important, and that has to do with the shoe that you're in.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Um so some uh individuals, uh, and this is something that I would recommend for anyone who wants to run, is I would go to a running shoe store or a place where they can evaluate where your foot is at when you're landing, when you're striking the ground and when you're pushing off to make sure you're fitted for the right shoe. I would I ideally, if everyone had really strong feet and really strong lower legs and solid biomechanics, you actually your foot should do its job properly and You wouldn't need anything fancy within your shoe. But the idea is that not everyone has uh perfect feet. In fact, I would say basically no one has a perfect foot. And so we can uh help some of our deficiencies by being in the right shoe. If we're in a shoe that isn't good for our feet, then we can certainly create planner fasciitis by not even doing anything, just by wearing the wrong apparel. So that's an important um addition to add to plantar fasciitis. When it comes to hydration, um I think there's some strong components outside of maybe we'll talk about the orthopedics or the mechanics of running that have to do with injuries. And that's our ability for our tissue to do what it's designed to do based on what it's being fueled with. Um our muscles, our tendons, ligaments, bones for that matter, they don't function um perfectly without being fueled with the right uh with the right fuel. And that water is a huge uh part of that fueling system. When we don't give tissue fluid, particularly water, it can't go through its proper cellular uh respiration. It can't break down sugar like we might want it to or in an effective manner. It can't deal with uh cellular waste like we need it to. And when that happens over time and time and we don't replenish that, we don't fuel ourselves with necessary hydration, then our our tissue is unable to perform like we need it to. On top of that, just having uh extra water in tissue, not in a sense where we feel bloated, but enough to where our uh we have a storage of sorts where our tissues are flush with fluid makes it so that those uh processes are efficient and effective and uh throughout the course of a run. And so that's why when we certainly when we worry about really, really warm temperatures pushing into things where you're worried even beyond just getting a cramp per se, but going into something like heat exhaustion or heat stroke, those individuals tend to suffer from a significant lack of hydration and their body shuts down because they need the water in order for just a base level cellular processing to happen. Forget about the ability to run, but how about for your heart to beat or for uh blood to get pumped uh through your body for your nerves to work? All of that plays an important role that uh hydration plays a key factor in.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Cool.

Jacob Phillips 24:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Yeah, that's great. Um I um well, I uh yeah, you know what? I'm gonna ask you this follow-up question. I was debating them whether I wanted to or not, but sure, let's let's find out what you uh what you think about some of these different products out there. So hydration, obviously, water, of course, but what are your thoughts on, you know, there's so many different products. You've got uh element, you've got liquid IV, you've got gator, you know, like it's uh all these different products. Um I don't know if you have an uh you know a hot take on any of these things. I uh um I'm sure you guys um yeah, you probably have used all of them in uh at DBU at some point or another. But you as an athletic trainer, do you have a personal preference on like if if an athlete said, Hey, what what should I take? Do you have a personal preference on that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 24:53

I that's a great follow-up question because it it uh it actually attacks an assumption that I made in the words I'm speaking, which is assuming what the word hydration means. Hydration is not exclusively water. And if we make that uh that mistake and say, oh, I just need to pound a bunch of water, we'll do some benefit to our body, but that hits an extreme or a point where that's no longer actually helping our body do what it needs to do, because our body doesn't work exclusively with water, but it also works in combination with our micronutrients or our minerals. And that's where some of those uh examples that you gave, like an element, a liquid IV, a Gatorade, play an important role in helping with our body's total hydration. It's not exclusively water. We want to look to things above and beyond that. Gatorade and liquid IV are both um solid choices. I think people look to liquid IV because it's marketed as maybe a more uh healthy version of a Gatorade. It doesn't have the food coloring. People don't want to have that, which I totally get. I'm personally not a fan of uh consuming things that have dyes in them. Uh both of them have, though, a base level component of carbohydrates. They have sugar in them. And that's important. If we want to keep our blood sugar up, sugar, of course, provides us with energy. We break it down, we get ATP, our cells can do what they need to do. So they play a valuable role in recovery. We want to have some carbohydrates uh post-run, uh, depending on how long that workout is and what our nutrition looks like throughout the day, we certainly want to have at least some of that at that point. Elements, at least the packets that I've seen, don't have carbohydrates in them. But what they do function on more is having a really strong ratio of uh micronutrients or minerals that we need, particularly magnesium. I think magnesium, here if you want a hot take, here's my hot take. I think basically everyone is magnesium deficient. I think there's very few people who can say that I have enough magnesium in my body to be able to do my daily processes in a highly effective manner. And there's something to be said about uh not only magnesium for sleep, which I think a lot of people use it for, but you need magnesium in order for your muscles to work. If you look at all the processes from the moment that your nerve activates in your head as it goes down the axon without getting into too much detail, at some point you need magnesium to do its thing in the actual muscle cells. If you don't have enough magnesium, your muscles aren't going to work efficiently. Element plays a big role in that. And um, you know, without we're not sponsored by them, but we do use element at DBU, and I think that has been of of at least some uh effect with our athletes in helping them improve.

Jacob Phillips 27:14

And that is a hot take. Quick a quick quick quick note on magnesium. Uh my wife is not magnesium deficient. She uh she's had three children, she's never had uh morning sickness, and she says that uh that's a uh that's a sign of magnesium deficiency. So my wife has got the magnesium covered. So look at that.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Actually, no doubt, if there's anyone that is actually probably perfect when you do like uh, you know, if you were to do blood testing, it's gonna be Rachel Phillips. She's got everything dialed in.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Yeah, that's that's incredible. Wow. Well that's that's interesting to know. I'm I'm gonna I'm definitely gonna tuck that one away and uh ask more athletes about that when they get their uh when they get blood panels done. That's super interesting. Um yeah, I I wanted to ask, kind of switch gears a little bit and ask you um about uh maybe the uh as an athletic trainer, what are the the biggest dis deficiencies you see with runners? Like like like you know, just weaknesses you see uh uh physically, biomechanically, what are things that you notice that are common among distance runners? You know, like they're we're not they're not living in the weight room, right? Uh obviously they they do strength work, but it's it's a little bit different. And the the sport is not a speed power sport, it's uh it's an endurance sport, you know. So, like what are some things that you see in the athletic training room that are pretty common among distance runners, just deficiencies that that distance runners can be working on?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Um well, I think I'll let's I'll I'll give you two. The first, and maybe another one of my hot takes, is that, and this and this really is focused on the collegiate level, because that's of course the athletes that I see, but I would argue that this is across uh every uh age group across the board, and that's a lack of sleep. Yeah, no one sleeps enough. And the more and more I read about sleep, and I I'm certainly not uh a uh a professional or a specialist when it comes to sleep and sleep health and how to make sure that that's effective. I know there's certainly people who can't sleep because of certain conditions, they can't sleep as effectively. But if you the the studies that I've seen that if you can average eight hours of sleep with some conditions, which is that you go to bed at the same time every night. This isn't a random, like I'm gonna go into bed at 8 p.m. one night and then 11 p.m. the other night, and then well, I gotta stay up later so it's 2 p.m. But I slept till 10, so I still got my eight hours. Not like that. Eight hours every night, where you're consistently going to bed at the same time, you're consistently waking up at the same time, and you're not um can uh consuming or visually seeing blue light, which things like from a computer screen or from your phone. Uh, you're you letting the uh the sunset kind of actually dictate using some circadian rhythm to dictate your sleep. That has a huge effect not only on recovery, which is uh something that runners certainly lack in. They're willing to just go, go, go and burn the candle at both ends. It lets your body recover well, actually let your muscles repair themselves, but it gives you the energy that your body needs to be able to perform the next day in a way that makes it so that we're gonna have a reduction in in total number of injuries and total number of pain. You're actually gonna be able to do the activities that you want to do because you feel better. No one has ever, or I think very few people have ever woken up from a good night's sleep, a solid eight hours, multiple times, and said, Man, I regret that. I wish I had stayed up and been on my phone more or whatever, right? Everyone loves a good night's sleep. And all my goodness, are uh especially collegiate athletes chronically sleep deprived. Chronically sleep deprived. And so that's the number one thing. If you can't sleep well enough, there's nothing else that you can't do to you can do to overcome it. You got to be able to sleep well. Maybe there's a few outliers, and I'm willing to, you know, there's the one person who's like, I've only slept five hours and I never have any injuries. Dude, good for you, man. I'm not like that. Um, I need eight hours, um, and I'm not even doing the collegiate training that they're doing. But just for my functional activity, I function so much better when I have eight hours of sleep. So that's the first deficiency. I think the second one, when we look at, let's go back to some of the biomechanic stuff. Most runners and most, I would say most, we'll call them mid-level athletes. Like they're collegiate athletes, but they're not maybe competing at the national championships. But they're certainly important to making sure your team can compete, maybe at the conference level. They tend to be quad dominant runners, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's just something that we notice when we look at what muscles are activating more than others. Quad dominant runners tend to really focus on their anterior chain and create strength by having good drive up and off the ground. But over the course of time, that doesn't particularly help us when we're looking at longer distances. Um, and honestly, I think you could make really strong arguments that doesn't really help you with any distance. We of there was a study that was done that looked at uh sprinters that qualified for the Olympics or the Olympic trials in the United States, and they looked at their ability to activate muscles within their anterior and posterior chain, and they found their ability to activate their glute muscles was far superior to the average athletes. Uh, and even though they they still use their quad muscles, of course, it was the fact that they're able to use their glute max, glute mead, and glute min along with their other internal and external hip rotators to be able to generate strength in a way that most people can't. And so, again, going back to the IT band syndrome, I we mentioned shin splints earlier, and I also think that this has to do with runner's knee and inability to use our glute muscles effectively through our gait cycle. And so, even just doing some base level um glute activation patterns, uh, we do what we call the Big 12 for uh what we do at DBU and just gets that muscle activating. It doesn't necessarily within like a functional movement pattern, although we can certainly add to that and create to that. It's telling uh he's giving ourselves a mind muscle connection that says these muscles are important within our running cycle and we need to use them more. And I know that everyone's seen it for um when you're looking at runners at the end of races, and it looks like they're fatigued and their legs look like they're kind of collapsing underneath them. It's because they're not using their glutes, they're not using their their hips to keep themselves up and push themselves forward. So there's a I think we have a chronic deficiency in sleep and a chronic deficiency in our ability to use our glutes. That's crazy.

Jacob Phillips 32:58

Yeah. I I I would um I'm gonna go back to the sleep really quick and just make a quick note because I like, you know, the the Sean and I, the the clients that we deal with with run run doyan, most they're not college age, right? They're they're adults, they're they're um their spouses, they're parents, they're full-time employees. And and I would just say like a lot of times, I it's just really hard to get sleep. And I would challenge you on that. Like, what are you teaching your children? What are you, what, what, what are you making your priorities? Because I think that like I'm with you, like I'm an eight-hour sleep person, my family is, we, I mean, I work it, it's get it gets dark in our house at 7 30, right? And and by 8 30, we're probably all in the bed. And I would just, I would just say, like, um, it's not just college athletes, it's it's our it's our you know, online clients that we're working with. I mean, like sleep is going to be huge. And if you want to feel good, um, then why would you not invest in that in that sleep? And and that's good for your children's growth. It's good for, yeah, it's just good for everything, mental health, everything, right? So um Jacob, we're that was huge. Unless Sean has a follow-up on that, I just with the time that we have left. I I'm curious when we're talking about um, you know, the the majority of our of our listeners are are the um the older clients, the you know, the adults, the the not really the college runners or the high school runners, it's it's the ones trying to qualify for Boston. They're running at 4 a.m. Obviously, you know, sleep they've got to figure out, um, you know, and and and and hopefully they have a good training program. If not, check out rundoyen.com, right? But what is something that you would encourage pre and post-run that's not sleep, not nutrition, not hydration, but something they can do pre-run and something post-run that's simple but actually effective.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

It's something that we do at DBU, and I think that basically every competent collegiate program, and even really every competent high school program does, and that it does some level of a warm-up. And that warm-up, which we call drills, running drills. And it basically is four, I mean, you can make them as long and complex and as detailed as you like them to be. It doesn't have to be that way. We're talking about four movement patterns that are isolating different parts of our gait cycle that help us to get our legs moving before we get our legs moving, if that makes sense. Something like as simple as lifting up our leg into hip flexion. So move moving our leg in front of our body, lifting our knee up. That movement is uh an important part of the way that our our body moves. And we want to make sure that we can do that while our other leg is standing still and we aren't teetering and uh losing our balance. We have good, solid functional movement where we get up. We would call that an A skip where we have that uh that position. We follow that with the B skip where we get into that spot and then we get into knee extension, our leg sticks out, and then we kick back and bring our leg back underneath ourselves. Um, same idea where it's all on single leg balance. And we get to a C skip, which is more, it's not, I think people look at it and see it as a butt kick, which I think is a is uh is misunderstanding what the movement pattern is supposed to be. It's really working on getting our leg back behind us, working our posterior chain, getting good hamstring activation as we go into knee flexion instead of knee extension, uh, and getting our legs up and back so that when we get back out to our strike, we have really good uh activation going back out in front of us. And then the last one, once we get all those down, is doing something that's a little bit more of a pickup, where we start with those those movements, kind of combining them all together, an A skip, B skip into a C skip. And you recognize that all three of those patterns, we do them all together, you're back to running. And so it almost is like a slow buildup, we do them slower, and then it picks up into a run, not so like a jog, but almost like a pickup, a stride, even, where we're running up maybe 60 to 70, 75% of our max speed. You do two or three of those after doing those skips, and suddenly your leg's like, hey, I feel pretty good. My muscles are activated because I've been doing things in single leg, my glutes have been activated in the way they're supposed to be. I've gotten some good strike patterns onto the ground. So my lower leg is going to be ready for the forces of whatever run I have before me. And now we're ready to rock and roll. Our body's warm, it's uh our blood is moving. We didn't just start from tying up our shoes on the couch and then we're out running whatever picks you want to run for the day. Your body will thank you by doing that uh uh uh prior to whatever the workout is assigned for the day. And then for uh a post-run activity, we also have a drill set that we do at the end. You could even do the same set of drills to really ingrain the idea of that mind muscle connection of good running form. But most of what we do is uh is focused more on creating mobility and so stretching our muscles, muscles that really get tight, they've been used. And so when muscles contract, relax, contract, relax. Sometimes they stay in that more contracted position. We want to make sure they get more into that relaxed position. There, we don't want to lose their contractility power. And so doing things like leg swings on a um on a fence is a good way of doing that for with our hips, doing a classic flamingo stretch for our quads, and these are things that we aren't holding for a minute, but we're holding for five seconds, we take a few steps, we go to the other leg hole for five seconds. They're dynamic in some sense. We're still moving, we're not going just to a quick standstill. Following that up with any amount of myofascial release, I think, is viable. I mentioned that earlier when talking about the power of uh using a foam roller or a lacrosse ball and massaging out the calf to help with some of that plantar fasciitis pain we have, especially if our calves are so knotted up and so tight. But you can do that across for any of our muscles from our hips down. Some people even love doing it on their back because they like their back gets really stiff when they run, and you get some some good manipulation with that. What I will say with that though, as a quick addition, especially going back to IT band, is I would not recommend really rolling super hard along your IT band uh by your knee. That all that tissue there is collagen tissue and it doesn't respond well to foam rolling, and you're not gonna get the same effect uh because collagen isn't the same as muscle tissue. Uh, IT band is different than your quadricept. So we don't want to be rolling down there by our knee. Uh, it's a waste of time, and honestly, it hurts. No one likes rolling down there. I would not advise doing that. Um, I don't you're not gonna get any benefit. However, rolling up by our glutes, getting that glute max, getting that TFL, we'll get some benefit from that.

Jacob Phillips 38:58

Awesome. Sean, we got about two minutes. Any anything, any other questions for Jacob or anything else that we might might not have touched on really quickly?

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Yeah, no, that was great. Um, last, maybe just a last uh question here. Um, if you want to give us your two-minute answer, Jacob, what are your thoughts on runners working through injuries, when to when to keep going? As an athletic trainer, obviously, you see this, you you know, you get kids at the collegiate athletic collegiate level that need to be they need to be competing, right? Uh there's there's a purpose to why they're in the sport, they're trying to represent their team, trying to go to national activities. And so, you know, getting out there and competing sometimes beat up a little bit. It does happen. So, how do you address that as an athletic trainer? Um, the balance of okay, you're you're hurt, you need to rest, um, or hey, we need to kind of work through this. How do how do you address that? Only two minutes, huh? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Well, but uh, I got uh I I think well, let's there's a lot of um ways that I can create caveats of well, there's other um you know, outside pieces of information based on like let's say that we have a possible injury on a Tuesday, but we have a championship on Saturday, forget about it. We're not doing anything. We need to be able to race on Saturday, so we'll do anything we can to get to to the point where we're racing as well as we can on Saturday. Um when it comes to those aches and pains, like an IT band, like uh a shin splint, plantar fasciitis, I think we want to keep doing something. I think it's a really big mistake to do nothing. We we lose cardiovascular fitness from that, we just lose our uh our rhythm of doing something daily. And so even if we are dealing with one of these pains and we have a good exercise program, maybe we've picked it up from an online source or from a coach of some sort, we want to be doing something. So I suggest if it's reducing our running, and that could be a significant reduction, but still doing some running or uh compensating with a cross-training method, whether that be getting in the pool and swimming, that's my personal favorite. I think that most runners uh are not uh they're not much of fish, they're not very good swimmers, at least based on as speaking personally, as someone who has tried to do some swimming, I'm not a very good swimmer, mostly because I get my butt kicked. It's hard to swim. You want to get a good cardiovascular workout, get in the pool, uh, get some freestyle out there, work on some flip turns. So um, I think that doing uh some level of cross training to compensate for what we miss with running is valuable. I think getting on the getting in the pool, using elliptical, getting on a bike, people love getting on the bike, all those are great. Um, and then working with an exercise program to deal with what the injuries are.

Jacob Phillips 41:30

That's great. That's great, man. Jacob, thank you so much. I I I I I've taken some notes. I'll kind of recap it in our show notes and and such, but uh, we just really appreciate the expertise and everything from the beginning of hey, you need to have good equipment, you need to you need to have a good training program uh to the sleep, the hydration, the the pre-run, the post-run. I think I think uh yeah, this was really good. We we we really appreciate the time, Jacob.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me on. And uh I guess uh if there's any questions or anything that uh people want to discuss, feel free to uh contact Al. We'll make it happen. That's awesome. Thanks guys for the awesome thanks, Jacob.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

This is uh yeah, this is uh I think this is a this is a grand slam. This is this is really good. Those are some great answers. I appreciate it. Thank you, thank you.

Jacob Phillips 42:16

See you guys and that does it for this month's edition of the Next Level Running podcast. Thanks once again to my co-host Sean Henning and to our special guest tonight, Jacob Hayes. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. This is a fun one for us. Um and I think it was uh uh one that uh was overdue to be able to talk through some common running injuries and and just to give some tips. It's just a great conversation. And so I hope you enjoyed it. Um check us out again next month. We'll be back in August uh ripping and roaring with another podcast. Hey, it's hot, it's summer. Make sure you're hydrating, make sure you're taking care of taking care of yourself in the summertime heat. And until next time, have a great run. Thank you for joining us here on the Next Level Running Podcast, your source for training advice from the expert coaches at Rundoyan. If you're ready to take your training and racing to the next level, head over to Rundoyan.com and get matches to your ideal coach who will provide you with the highly customized online training you need for crushing your goals on race day.