Mileage: The #1 cause of injury in runners and triathletes

Q: How many miles should you run to prepare for a marathon?

A: As few as possible.

The Crossfit Endurance prescription incorporates a Westside template, serious metabolic conditioning, along with interval training and drastically reduced mileage. We’re not trying to win any awards for “most training miles”. We’re trying to win races. Not surprisingly, Crossfit Endurance has a far lower rate of injury than other running modalities – and this is because (according to numerous epidemiological studies) the most highly correlated factor in running injury is training mileage (high volume). Now, this may be a posture, form, or movement issue that gets exposed over those repetitive miles (which is our opinion), but the fact remains that greater training mileage has been correlated with greater incidence of injuries.

The run portion of the Triathlon represents both the greatest training and competition risk for those athletes as well. Again, mileage is the likely culprit, and it’s no wonder that one of the cornerstone’s of the CFE philosophy is Brian Mackenzie’s maxim “Running is the most dangerous sport in the world.”

We could tell you a million success stories (ok, probably less than a million), that we’ve experienced with the CFE model (people training for everything from a 1 mile police fitness test to an ultramarathon). But published scientific research is scarce. However, if we go back to 1989, we can find a peer-reviewed case study where a veteran distance runner (10k) cut his weekly mileage in half and started adding interval training, only to find he’d knocked 10 seconds off his race time in eight weeks! We’re going to bet some serious money that he ALSO had less potential for injury during this time (at least according to all of the research that correlates mileage with injury). Now imagine how many seconds he might have knocked off his 10k if he added some weight training (perhaps a modified Westside template, hmmm….)…What we have here is a prime example that you can cut your training miles down, as long as you put in the intensity. Dig it:

J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 1989 Sep;29(3):245-52.

Effect of reduced training volume on cardiac function, VO2 max, and running performance.

Berg K, Olsen R, McKinney M, Hofschire P, Latin R, Bell W.

Abstract

 

This study examined the physiological effects of reducing training mileage in a veteran long distance runner while increasing exercise intensity. Variables measured included stroke volume, cardiac output, maximum oxygen uptake, ventilation threshold and performance time in a 10,000 m run. For 8 weeks, training mileage was reduced from 75.8 miles per week to 42.5 miles per week including interval training twice weekly. Following the specialized training, performance time was 10 seconds faster although VO2max and heart contractility had decreased. It was concluded that distance running performance can be maintained while considerably reducing training mileage and increasing exercise intensity twice a week.