What Should You Be Drinking Before, During, and After a Run?

Much like other areas of performance training, proper hydration as an essential aspect of a comfortable, enjoyable run. Although it’s normal for runners to experience a small amount of dehydration, drinking enough fluids can significantly reduce the chances of any adverse effects. On top of that, proper hydration can improve your energy and endurance and even minimize recovery times.

Here are some general hydration recommendations to maximize run performance.

1. Pre-Run

Your hydration strategy should begin long before you start putting on your running gear. What you drink in the hours before a run is perhaps one of the most important aspects of hydration. Be mindful to drink plenty of fluids throughout the day before your run. Then, about 15–30 minutes before heading out the door, drink 250–500ml of fluids.

2. During The Run

The general rule of thumb is to drink 5–10 fl. oz. every 15–20 minutes while you are running. Again, this requirement can vary based on your individual needs or the temperature at the time of your run. However, this is a great general rule to set a baseline for how much water to bring along for your run.

If you don’t like carrying a water bottle or wearing a hydration belt, you can plan out a running route with access to water fountains along the way.

3. Post-Run

Post-run hydration is essential to get your fluid levels back to normal and helps prepare you for the next run. The general rule of thumb is to drink 16–24 fl. oz. of water for every pound lost during your run.

Final Thoughts

Everyone — and every run — is different. Some days it’s hot and humid, and you’ll likely want to increase your fluid consumption. Other days you may only be running for 20 minutes, in which case you might not even need to bring water on the run. The more you experiment with different hydration techniques, the more in-tune you’ll be with your body and its unique hydration needs.

Get The Most Out of Your Runs!

Whether you’re an elite runner or weekend warrior, rest days are equally important. In our years as a physical therapy clinic in Bethesda, we’ve taught our patients that the rest days are a crucial component of any good running program.

Resting is necessary to recover appropriately, avoid burnout, and develop as a runner. On days off, your body repairs and rebuilds broken-down muscle tissue from strenuous runs and training sessions. Without proper rest, you may end up needing a physical therapist in Chevy Chase or Bethesda.

Here are three simple things you can do to optimize your days off.

Catch Up On Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important aspects of recovery. During sleep, your muscles relax, and hormones that promote tissue recovery are produced.

Without sufficient sleep, your muscles might remain tense and sore, which can even lead to chronic pain. On your days off, try getting to bed an hour earlier to catch up on this vital muscle recovery component.

Perform Light Movement

One of the most important things you can do on a rest day is perform a relaxing home exercise routine to address any inflammation or muscle tightness. Examples include light mobility work, yoga, or whatever else you may enjoy. This will help reduce muscle soreness and improve your range of motion. They’ll help your legs feel fresh and get you ready to run hard the following day.

Fuel Your Body

Another important aspect of rest and recovery is nutrition and hydration. Just because you aren’t running on a rest day doesn’t mean you should deviate from your normal nutrition strategy.

On rest days, it’s essential to fuel your body with foods that support muscle recovery and growth. This means prioritizing protein-rich foods, complex carbs, healthy fats, and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Focus on healthy, nutrient-dense foods to help improve muscle recovery.

Final Thoughts

Just as your training runs are vital to your running performance, so are your rest days. Without taking the proper time to rest and recover, you’re putting your body at greater risk for injury or burnout. These three simple techniques can help optimize your rest day and improve your recovery. If you want a customized approach to optimizing your rest days, our sports physical therapy clinic in Chevy Chase can help!

Athletic injury rates are on the rise

As the weather warms up, COVID-19 cases decline, and spring sports resume, many young athletes are eager to return to their favorite activities. While the excitement to get back on the field is high, it’s crucial to prepare your body properly to avoid injuries and maintain good health. In the Bethesda and Chevy Chase areas, proper performance training can make all the difference between a dream season and being sidelined.

After a long break from sports, the risk of injury is elevated because the body isn’t accustomed to the demands of sport-specific activities. That’s why it’s essential to spend time before the season starts preparing both mentally and physically for peak performance.

Research shows that strength and conditioning training can reduce sports injuries by 33% and overuse injuries by nearly 50%. Therefore, it’s important to begin with simple, manageable exercises to get back in shape and stay injury-free.

A smart approach to preseason training starts with individual sport-specific drills focused on conditioning. From there, athletes can gradually progress to drills with a partner or opponent. Eventually, they can increase their activity level to include team drills, scrimmages, and full game play. This gradual increase in activity, similar to what is seen in professional and collegiate sports, allows the body to adapt and handle the cumulative stress.

The best way to develop a sport-specific training program that meets an athlete’s individual needs is to consult a professional who can tailor the program to their unique strengths and weaknesses. If you’re looking to optimize your performance after a long offseason or recovery from injury, consider seeking performance training in Bethesda or Chevy Chase to kickstart your dream season.

Here’s to a fantastic new season—don’t forget to enjoy it!

An Essential Part of Athletic Physical Therapy: Strength Training for Runners

Many of the runners that we work with at CHP supplement their running with strength training. Strength training is a large component of athletic physical therapy and provides a host of benefits including, but not limited to; reduced injury risk, increased muscular endurance, and faster running times. Research shows that regular strength training improves a runner’s speed and VO2 max. VO2 max is a measure of the maximal amount of oxygen that a person can use during exercise.

However, there is one important caveat to all of these great benefits. A runner’s strength training program must be designed and executed appropriately, and according to the runner’s goals and individual characteristics.

Luckily, most runners have similar goals. They wish to run faster and/or farther, and avoid injury.

Strength training programs for runners should consist of exercises that improve qualities specific to running.

When running, there is never a time when both feet are touching the ground simultaneously. The arms and legs are constantly moving in opposite and alternating directions as the body transitions from one foot to the other.

Therefore, we commonly advocate for runners to include more single leg exercises into their training.

These exercises include, but are not limited to: lunges, single leg squats, split squats, and single leg RDLs (Romanian deadlifts). Simply adding one of these activities into each of your strength training sessions can have a large impact. Take a look at the videos below for examples of these activities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aazACzyUR-Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK05iugeIDE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjDtPek261c

Furthermore, runners should not neglect upper body training. Arm drive is an essential component of running and helps to drive leg action. An effective runner cannot have one without the other!

A thoughtful and more scientific approach to strength training, specifically designed for runners, may be all that is needed to drastically improve your running performance.

How Tom Brady Approaches Off-Season Training

Tom Brady is a marvel to the world of Sports Physical Therapy and performance training.

As you may know, Tom Brady is about to make his 10^th trip to the Superbowl at the age of 43. The opposing Quarterback in this game will be Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes was in kindergarten when Brady played in his first Superbowl back in 2002!

Athletes like Brady approach their off-season training with very specific goals in mind. These include sport and position specific goals (ex. Improving footwork, accuracy, throwing mechanics), as well as goals related to health and fitness.

The greats across sports such as Brady, Lebron James in basketball, and Wayne Gretzky in hockey focus their off-season training on staying healthy throughout the upcoming season. They understand the classic saying that “the best ability is availability.”

They realize that attributes that make them more resilient to injury will also improve their performance on the field, court, or ice.

Brady requires a great deal of mobility to best absorb the hits that accumulate throughout a football season. An increase in mobility will also allow him to throw accurately from the variety of awkward positions that the body is contorted into throughout a game, thus improving his performance as well.

Lebron James possesses an incredible amount of single leg control and strength. This is necessary to propel his nearly 270-pound body into the air as he jumps off 1 leg. This control and strength are equally important to avoid injury as he lands and must quickly adapt to awkward situations (players falling under him or contact him in the air).

Much like Brady, Gretzky must also be capable of contorting his body into a variety of different positions to pass or shoot from varying angles, absorb contact, or maneuver around opponents. These abilities require lots of mobility and strength throughout a variety of different positions.

The actual off-season training for Brady, James, and Gretzky will look different for each. However, the bulk of their training likely will not include commonly performed gym-based exercises, such as deadlifts or bench press. These are fantastic exercises when performed in the right context, however do little to help with the performance of these athletes.

It is essential for more athletes, specifically youth athletes to think more like Brady, James, and Gretzky when approaching their own off-season training. What are their goals for the off-season? What attributes best contribute to success on the field of play and help the athlete to stay there? Are the exercises being performed the best choices for this?

The optimal off-season program is unique to each individual and will even be different among athletes that play the same sport. However, it is essential that the previous questions are asked at the start of the off-season to ensure that weight room improvements will be transferred to the field of play.

Would you like help determining the attributes that you must work on this off-season to take your performance to the next level for the upcoming season? A custom designed off-season training program may be what you need to blow your coaches away.

Fact or Fiction: Do our bodies actually fall out of alignment?

We are excited to begin a series of posts discussing common myths in the realm of athletic physical therapy. Today’s myth commonly applies to back pain physical therapy as well.

Many of our patients have been told that their body may be “out of alignment”, or that their joints need to be “re-aligned.” Unfortunately, this is not the greatest advice.

Human beings are never in a static position. Even at rest, the simple act of breathing creates movement. By definition, being in alignment means that our bodies are in a straight line, or that all parts of our body are consistently in the appropriate relative positions to one another.

We cannot consistently be in alignment because we are always moving. If our body was constantly aligned, we would be unable to move anywhere.

Your body can feel as if it is out of alignment when you overuse or rely upon specific movement strategies or body positions. This can happen for a myriad of reasons and results in feelings of stiffness and discomfort that often temporarily feel better with an adjustment.

An adjustment can be helpful if the causes of stiffness or discomfort are also addressed. The root causes of stiffness or discomfort are typically addressed by focusing on movement limitations that are present.

Any relief provided by an adjustment will be temporary when the root cause of the discomfort or stiffness is left unaddressed. Check out the article below for some activities that may help!

3 Home Exercises to Help Your Back Pain

We hope that this provided some insight into a common rehab myth. Stay tuned for more to come!