How do marathons work

While you can accomplish pain relief with a foam roller at home, a massage therapist can often push your muscles further than you would on your own. A sports massage is not a relaxing massage, but it is designed to break up knots. It may hurt a little bit in the process, so communicate with your massage therapist if something hurts too much. Look for a professional who has earned a certificate in sports massage therapy, but if you find yourself sore or bruised three days after a massage, find another practitioner.

If you are sick above your neck — a head cold, sinus infection or allergies — you can most likely run and be fine. Get better first, then be on your way.

Not sure if you feel up to it? Run a half mile. When training for a marathon, you are certain to have your days of soreness and fatigue.

A lot of small pains and soreness can be resolved with rest, ice, compression and elevation. Use the acronym R. Taking time off may make you anxious and worried about hitting your goals, but your top priority should be to get to the starting line healthy. If that means taking two or three days off to rest a sore hip or a turned ankle, so be it.

Tendonitis is the inflammation of a tendon, which is what attaches bone to muscle. Tendonosis is more extensive damage to that tendon. These injuries can happen almost anywhere in the lower body for runners, but common spots are hips and feet.

If you have either of these you will feel a dull ache, especially when you try to move the affected joint. The Fix: Since these injuries are caused by overuse, rest can help. So can strengthening the muscles in the affected area so they place less stress on the tendon. Tendonosis typically requires longer periods of rest and may end your training. If you try to run through it, tendonosis can often lead to a stress fracture. Stress fractures occur when a muscle is so fatigued it stops absorbing the stress that running puts on your body.

Instead, that job is sent to the bones. With too much stress, the bone fractures a little. For runners, stress fractures can happen anywhere along the lower body, from your pelvis down to your feet. They are much more common in women, especially if they are not menstruating, said Dr. Stress fractures will cause localized pain when you run and sometimes when you walk. They are often caused by running too much without sufficient rest, increasing intensity too quickly or running on a hard surface, like concrete.

The Fix: Rest. No way around it, said Weber. Stress fractures require significant time off and will end your training. It will cause pain under your knee that is difficult to pinpoint and can feel worse after sitting for a prolonged period of time. It can also be caused by weak muscles in your thighs or tightness in the hamstring or calves. The Fix: Stretching can help lengthen your hamstrings and calves. Strength training exercises for the quads and hamstrings can also help. Sometimes called IT-band syndrome for short, iliotibial band syndrome is an inflammation of the ligament that runs from your thigh to your shin.

The Fix: Rest, along with stretching or strengthening the hips, quadriceps and gluteous muscles can help. Try the one-legged hip raise! Running on an angled street can create an imbalance between your legs that causes your IT band to stretch, causing this syndrome.

Take your runs to flatter ground. Plantar fasciitis is a common foot pain caused by inflammation in the band of tissue that connects your heel to your toes. If the underside of your foot screams when you take your first morning steps, you have most likely developed plantar fasciitis. The Fix: Stretching your feet will usually help. You can also wear a splint at night to keep your foot stretched as you sleep. Compression socks can also contribute when they add too much pressure to your toes.

The Fix: Affected toenails eventually fall off, so be patient. In the meantime, find better-fitting shoes. See a podiatrist or physician for advice. Blisters can happen as a result of poorly fitting shoes. They can also occur when you start to increase your speed or distance. Vlahovic says to leave the outer skin of the blister on because it protects the raw skin underneath. You can also apply lubricant like Body Glide to your feet before running.

Medical tape can also help. Jen A. Miller is the author of "Running: A Love Story. Twitter: byJenAMiller. One of the greatest marathon runners of all time was Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia, who became the first black African to win Olympic gold by winning the marathon in a world record time at the Rome Games. Four years later he became the first man in history to successfully defend the title.

All Lifestyle Performance Culture. Season Top Lists All time Top lists. Its benefits include:. As more people took up running for health and sport, road racing became popular. These races spoke to people's competitive natures and offered an opportunity for runners to socialize with one another. While many runners work up to the In the s, marathons boomed in popularity.

From to alone, marathon finishers increased from 9, to 9, [source: Bloch ]. Who's running these races? The majority of these runners are men, but female participation is increasing steadily. Katherine Switzer, the first official female Boston Marathon participant, explains in her book "Marathon Woman" that perception of age plays into the number of women runners -- 40 is no longer considered "old," and women in their 50s and 60s are embracing physical challenges.

She adds that women today are outgrowing the cultural perspective that athleticism is "unladylike" [source: Young ]. While most races require participants to be more than 18 years of age or to have a guardian-signed waiver, Running USA reports that over the past 15 years, the percentage of runners under 20 years old has increased from 1 to 1. Another surprising statistic? Road Running Information Center shows that most long-distance runners are college educated -- anywhere from 74 to 93 percent of them [source: Running USA ].

In addition to strengthening your body, the marathon also builds another important muscle : your brain. The marathoner must always think ahead. From planning training schedules to finding thoughts to occupy your mind on long runs of 15 miles or more, you must find ways to overcome burnout and boredom and listen to your body.

She ran the In this video from Reuters, see how she accomplished this goal. If you were expecting a how-to section here, brace yourself: There's no one way to train for a marathon. And even if there were, we couldn't cover all your training bases in one measly section! Training for a marathon takes months of preparation and hard work. Training regimens vary widely across the board. It's easy to get carried away by the different schools of thought in running, the number of running shoes on the market, the many diets that promise to complement your regimen and fellow runners who offer unsolicited advice about the sport.

At its most basic level, marathon training is preparing your body to run In addition to the workouts your training regimen prescribes, this preparation usually encompasses:.

The many sources available for training can be helpful but confusing, too. In your search for the ideal regimen, it's helpful to consider your goals for the race.

Do you want to run the entire distance or walk parts of it? Finish in under three hours -- first in your division -- or even first overall? Or do you simply want to finish? Time isn't the only factor to consider. If you're a social runner, you may scope out local running groups in your city. Even if you're a lone wolf, the support of fellow runners may get you out of bed and on the pavement when your training hits a rough patch.

What's more, they'll hold you accountable for training. You can hold yourself accountable and measure your progress through a training journal. This vital training tool is a place to record your daily mileage or time, routes, body weight or other changes in physiology and notes about weather, stress level or schedule that may have affected your training. While the smooth-worn rubber soles of your running shoes and your sharply defined calves attest to the miles of training you've put in, there are some internal changes that speak to your hard work, too.

Next, let's take a look at the physiology behind marathoning. Is there a difference between running and jogging? No -- it's simply a matter of semantics. However, running and jogging are distinguishable from walking.

When walking , one foot is always on the ground. While running or jogging, at one point, both of your feet leave the ground. This nuance may seem small, but it makes a big difference in terms of impact. Walking is called low-impact exercise because it puts less pressure on your joints.

Running and jogging are high-impact because the force of returning both feet to the ground can deliver a impact that's three to six times your bodyweight [source: Big Peach Running Co. You can appreciate what you're putting your body through if we take a brief look inside it. What's more, it's easier to listen to your body when you understand what it's doing. A quick anatomy lesson about marathon muscles : There are two groups of muscles that are important to your training, slow twitch and fast twitch.

Slow twitch muscles are the most important of all. These muscles are good for endurance events because the fibers contract get tense and tighten, thereby becoming smaller slowly. Fast twitch muscles contract much faster, which makes them ideal for speed events, like sprinting. Elite marathoners might have a physiological edge over other runners.

Some studies have shown that they have a significantly larger proportion of slow twitch to fast twitch muscles [source: BBC ]. But, you can train your muscles to work for you -- no matter your proportions. You develop your slow twitch muscles through endurance training, like your weekly long runs.

And you build fast twitch muscles through your speedwork. Nearly all training programs advocate days of rest in your regimen. On a rest day, you abstain from running to give your muscles time to heal. When you tax muscles, they rip and tear. Don't worry -- they're designed to do this. When your muscles repair these tiny tears, they grow back even stronger than before. If you're feeling particularly sore after a grueling workout, your body is probably giving you a cue to take it easy.

In addition to getting your muscles ready for the run, you're also prepping your lungs for the race. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. After all, running seems like a positive "trend" to jump on, since it gets your heart pumping, your muscles moving, and your lungs breathing in the fresh outdoor air.

However, pounding the pavement or trail, track, or treadmill for so many miles has us wondering if there are any serious bodily risks involved. To get to the bottom of the potential risks and benefits of marathon training, we turned to two running experts.

Meet the Expert. Jonathan Cane is an exercise physiologist and certified running coach. He has been coaching marathon runners for over 30 years, and is the author Triathlon Anatomy. While Cane and Rowley shared that there are definite benefits to training for and running marathons, there are a handful of risks and consequences as well. Our experts have some great advice on mitigating the potential risks, below.

According to Rowley, by far the most common downside of logging so many miles is that it causes a significant amount of wear and tear on joints and muscles because of the frequent and heavy impact. A research review of risk factors for running injuries found evidence suggesting a correlation between a history of previous injuries and a higher risk of incurring new ones from running.

Runners who previously suffered overuse injuries should be sure seek assessment by a physical therapist to address and correct whatever factors led to that injury—be it improper footwear, overly aggressive training, muscle imbalances, or nutritional deficiencies.

Failing to remedy the root cause is a recipe for a recurrence. Even though running injuries are common during marathon training, there are several steps you should take to minimize your risk. The first is to train smartly. Runners who do too much too soon, overdo it in general, or train too sporadically are all at increased risk for musculoskeletal injuries.

The body needs time to adapt to training, and recovery and rest are also critical for tissue repair. Make sure you work with a coach or get a proper training plan.