DISCOVER Conference Review 2022: Pilates & Gym for Runners

To get the most out of your running – whether you’re an elite athlete or someone who likes a jog around the block on the weekends – you need to consider all four pillars of health. 

• Exercise
• Sleep
• Nutrition
• Headspace 

For nutrition, you need to know how to properly structure a diet in the lead up to your run and how to fuel your body during a run. Whether it be recreational or an event, your food and hydration intake is imperative to your success.

Sleep is another critical factor. While quite obvious, your sleep levels and quality heavily impacts your ability to perform and your recovery. Poor sleep patterns also increase your risk of injury when exercising.

Running can have a very positive affect on your mental health and stress levels. Your headspace is crucial, and particularly pertains to why you are running in the first place, whether it is something you want to do to get the best out of yourself and your body, or whether it is more of an addictive trait (this is where it can become an unhealthy part of life). A healthy attitude to running and your body will help you get the best out of your runs.

Finally, exercise! While running in itself is obviously exercise, the supplementary exercise you do away from your runs also determines how you are going to get the best outcomes for your running and overall health. Strength training has been shown to significantly improve your running capability, but is often a missing part of the exercise regime for runners.

To bring all of these insights together, we facilitated a multi-disciplinary discussion of well-rounded training programs for runners. We used examples of some of the  more complex client presentations that we have seen over recent times. 

Exercise Physiologist Scott Wood led the panel discussion with fellow Exercise Physiologist Dr. Nathan Harten, as well as Physiotherapists Bec Thiele & Catherine O’Brien. 

They looked at specific examples of how Pilates has been used to supplement work in the gym for runners using specific prescribed exercises to help achieve running and overall health goals. This then led to a discussion on how an Exercise Physiologist tracks training loads, and addresses specific weaknesses or strength deficits, to minimise the risk of injury and to enhance performance levels for runners. The advantage of our multidisciplinary approach here at Move, is the ability of our practitioners to work collaboratively with each other so that exercises prescribed by each discipline are complementary and in line with the client’s needs and goals. 

Our approach is always tailored to the individual and the type of running you are aiming to do, whether it be recreational, competitive, or even trail running! 

If you’d like to speak to one of our team about a tailored running or gym program, give us a call on 8373 5655!

Move for Better Health