Do you get in shape to run or do you run to get in shape? A lot of runners get injured because they jump into running in order to shed extra pounds from the holidays, but are dealing with muscle weakness that sets them up for injury. Watch the video below for more details, and click here if you want to learn the most common cause of running injury and some of the most important exercises to prevent it.

If you’re already dealing with a running injury in Austin, click here or the orange buttons above to request a completely free consultation with a running-expert physical therapist. We can quickly figure out what’s causing your pain and limiting your mileage without it costing you a dime.

Video Transcription [Please excuse grammatical errors due to the conversational nature of the video]:

Hey guys! It’s Ben from CarterPT.

It’s Friday. Thank goodness! My beard is still growing so I apologize for that. I hope that everyone is having a good time and  running season is well underway. The mileage is really piling up, and people are already doing races here in Austin. We’ve got the Austin Marathon coming up in February and the 3m in January, so our runners are in full swing right now.

One thing I want to talk about for running is do you run to get in shape or do you get in shape to run?

It’s a really good point that I heard from a trainer when I was a young physical therapist. I thought it was really insightful. For most of us, we run to get in shape, especially since the holidays just started. Thanksgiving was here. Christmas is coming and you put on a couple extra pounds.

Then we’ll naturally want to do some running to stay in shape. But that can be a recipe for injury! It’s really important that you supplement your running with some strength training because it makes a big difference.

A couple years ago I was training for a half and I started having some knee pain. I really wasn’t doing a lot of training outside of running. My best runners are those who do other things besides run. They swim, they ride their bike, they play tennis, they golf, and they supplement their routines with other activities. So if you’re only logging miles because you want to hit a race, make sure that you’re introducing some strength workouts in the way.

Click here to learn some really important exercises for runners and how to prevent one of the most common causes of running injury. With the exercises at this link, you can start the process of getting in shape to run rather than just diving into runs and getting injured.

If you guys have any more questions, you can go to www.CarterPT.com/runners for more information. Thanks, take care!