Running or jogging to keep fit or competition might sound like a simple activity, but up to half of all runners can get some kind of injury each year. This injury might be relatively minor and they run through the injury until it improves or it could be significant enough for them to have to cease running. The most common reason for these injuries is that they just over did it. They ran too much before the body is given time to adapt or get used to the miles being run. Every time that a load is applied to the body it is very important give it a rest before you apply another load by going for another run. If too much load is applied before recovery from a previous run, any damage get amplified and this might progress into an injury. Rest is just as important as the training runs and that is how fitness and strength is increased and is also how injury is avoided.
In addition to the too much too soon situation, biomechanics also plays a role. This is the way that we run and different runners do it in different ways. Different running techniques will affect different tissues in a different way and load some tissues too much, so that when running that might be enough to result in an overuse injury. For example, injuries such as medial tibial stress syndrome (shin splints) may occur when the distance between the foot placement when running is too narrow. Runners with this problem might benefit from running with a wider base of gait. Another common biomechanical problem in runners is tight calf muscles. When running this will cause the arch of the foot to collapse or overpronate and can result in a numerous conditions such as plantar fasciitis to runners knee. These runners may benefit the most from a calf muscle stretching rehab plan. The management of running injury will depend on the cause and really should be geared towards that cause, whether its biomechanics to training load issues.