Every runner knows the feeling: a little ache in your shin, a tight hamstring that just won’t ease up, or a knee that complains halfway through your long run. These “niggles” may not stop you immediately, but they’re worth paying attention to before they start affecting how you run or how consistently you can train.
The good news? We can reduce the risk of many running injuries, and even when they do pop up, smart management can keep you running stronger for longer.
We can’t completely prevent running injuries, and this blog isn’t a substitute for an assessment from your physiotherapist or another appropriate healthcare professional. What we can do is reduce injury risk, recognize when something is changing, and make sensible training decisions when pain starts creeping in.
Common Running Injuries and Warning Signs
Running injuries can show up in plenty of different ways. Some of the more common ones include:
- Medial tibial stress syndrome, often called shin splints
- Patellofemoral pain, which is commonly felt around or behind the kneecap
- Iliotibial band-related pain at the outside of the knee
- Plantar fascia pain around the heel or arch
- Calf strains
- Hamstring strains
- Achilles tendon pain
The exact diagnosis matters because different injuries need different management. Sharp pain, symptoms that progressively worsen during a run, pain that changes your gait, focal bone pain, or symptoms that continue to worsen between runs are all good reasons to get assessed rather than guessing.
Why Do Niggles Happen?
Most running injuries are multifactorial. Training is often part of the picture, particularly when mileage, speed, hills, terrain, or frequency change faster than your body is currently prepared to tolerate.
Your capacity can also change. Poor sleep, under-fuelling, illness, life stress, reduced strength, or time away from running may mean that a training load you previously handled comfortably suddenly feels very different.
Strength, mobility, biomechanics, footwear, and previous injuries can also be relevant depending on the runner and the injury. There usually isn’t one single thing to blame.
How Can You Reduce Your Risk of Running Injuries?
Start by paying attention to changes in your training rather than relying on one universal progression rule.
The old 10% rule for weekly mileage has never had particularly strong research behind it. A large 2025 study involving 5,205 runners found that overuse injury rates increased when the distance of a single run jumped substantially compared with the runner’s longest run in the previous 30 days. Week-to-week mileage changes weren’t associated with increased injury rates in the same study.
I go into that research in much more detail here: Why the 10% Rule for Running Isn’t Magic.
Strength training, adequate recovery, and being sensible when adding new stressors such as hills, speed work, or different footwear are also worth considering. You don’t need to change everything at once because you’re worried about getting injured.
What Should You Do When a Niggle Starts?
The first step is usually to look at what you can modify rather than immediately assuming you need to stop all activity.
That may mean temporarily reducing mileage, shortening your long run, removing speed work or hills, or swapping a run for cycling, swimming, or another form of cross-training while symptoms settle.
Pain response can also help guide the decision. Depending on the injury and how symptoms behave, you may be able to continue running if pain remains at or below 2/10. Pay attention to whether pain increases as the run continues, changes your gait, lingers afterward, or is worse later that day or the following morning.
Pain-monitoring approaches have been used successfully in rehabilitation research, including allowing continued running and jumping during Achilles tendon rehabilitation when symptoms were carefully monitored.
Foam rolling, massage, mobility work, or other symptom-relief tools may help you feel better, but they shouldn’t replace addressing the training or physical factors that contributed to the problem.
If symptoms persist, worsen, or you aren’t sure what you’re dealing with, get assessed.
What Is Prehab for Runners?
Prehab is work you do before an injury develops or returns, with the goal of improving your ability to tolerate the demands of running.
That might include calf and soleus strengthening for a runner doing a lot of hills, hip and single-leg strength work, foot and ankle exercises, or eventually plyometrics to prepare for higher running forces. The exercises should reflect what you actually need to be able to do rather than becoming a random collection of “injury prevention” drills.
Prehab also doesn’t need to be a separate 30-minute routine added to an already full training week. Many of the exercises can simply be part of a well-designed strength program.
What Does Running Rehab Actually Need to Do?
Rehab has a different job. Once an injury has occurred, the goal is to rebuild enough capacity for the tissue to handle running again.
Early on, that may mean reducing or modifying the loads that are aggravating the injury. From there, rehab should progressively restore the strength, mobility, control, and loading tolerance that the runner needs.
Pain settling is only part of the process. If you rest until something feels better and then return immediately to the same distance, pace, hills, or training schedule that your body wasn’t tolerating before, the underlying capacity hasn’t necessarily changed.
A gradual return-to-run plan can bridge that gap. Run-walk intervals are one option because they allow you to reintroduce the mechanical stress of running while controlling the dose. Progression should reflect how symptoms respond during the run, later that day, and the following morning. Frequent, gradual exposure can help rebuild soft-tissue tolerance, with progression adjusted according to symptoms and comfort.
Rehab should eventually prepare you for the running you actually want to return to. If your goal involves hills, longer distances, faster running, or racing, those demands need to be rebuilt progressively too.
Strength Training and the Demands of Running
Strength training plays an important role in building a body that can handle the demands of running.
The forces going through the muscles of the lower limb during running are substantial. Depending on running speed and the muscle being measured, biomechanical modelling has estimated peak forces around:
- Glute medius: approximately 4 x bodyweight
- Glute max: approximately 1.3 x bodyweight
- Quads: approximately 1.3 to 2.7 x bodyweight
- Hamstrings: approximately 0.6 to 1.4 x bodyweight
- Calves: approximately 1.2 to 6.7 x bodyweight
Research examining running muscle forces has similarly found very high demands on muscles such as the gluteus medius and soleus.
Those numbers help explain why runners need more than a few light bodyweight exercises indefinitely. Your strength program needs enough resistance and progression to create adaptation.
For many exercises, I’m looking for a load around an RPE of 8. That means finishing your set feeling like you could still complete roughly two more good-quality reps.
Strength training can improve running performance and physical capacity. The direct research on injury prevention in runners is less definitive, so I wouldn’t claim that strength training guarantees you won’t get injured. A 2024 systematic review found no significant overall reduction in running-related injuries across exercise-based prevention programs, although the authors noted limitations in the available research and more promising findings in supervised programs.
Key Takeaways
- Running injuries are usually influenced by several factors rather than one simple cause.
- A new niggle is a good reason to review recent changes in mileage, intensity, hills, terrain, recovery, or footwear.
- Depending on the injury and symptom response, mild pain doesn’t always mean you have to stop running completely.
- Prehab should build capacity for the demands your running places on your body.
- Rehab needs to rebuild strength and tissue tolerance before returning fully to previous training.
- Strength training should be progressive enough to prepare your muscles for the forces they experience during running.
- Persistent, worsening, or unusual pain should be assessed by an appropriate healthcare professional.
Want More Structure for Your Strength and Prehab?
Runner’s Strength Lab gives you progressive running-specific strength training, along with a prehab and rehab exercise library for the common problem areas runners deal with.
The goal is to help you build strength consistently alongside your running rather than scrambling for exercises every time a niggle appears.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Running Injuries
Sometimes. Depending on the injury and how your symptoms behave, you may be able to continue running with mild pain. Pay attention to whether pain increases during the run, changes your gait, remains elevated afterward, or is worse the following day. Persistent or worsening symptoms should be assessed.
Prehab is targeted strength, mobility, control, or impact work designed to prepare your body for the demands of running before an injury occurs or returns. The exercises should reflect your individual needs and training rather than being a generic routine.
Prehab aims to build capacity before an injury develops or recurs. Rehab begins after an injury and focuses on restoring the strength, mobility, loading tolerance, and running exposure needed to return to training.
Strength training helps runners build strength and physical capacity for the forces involved in running. Research hasn’t shown that strength training alone guarantees injury prevention, but it remains valuable for tissue loading, performance, and preparing the body for running demands.
References
Dorn, T. W., Schache, A. G., & Pandy, M. G. (2012). Muscular strategy shift in human running: dependence of running speed on hip and ankle muscle performance. The Journal of experimental biology, 215(Pt 11), 1944–1956. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.064527
Schuster Brandt Frandsen, J., Hulme, A., Parner, E. T., Møller, M., Lindman, I., Abrahamson, J., Sjørup Simonsen, N., Sandell Jacobsen, J., Ramskov, D., Skejø, S., Malisoux, L., Bertelsen, M. L., & Nielsen, R. O. (2025). How much running is too much? Identifying high-risk running sessions in a 5200-person cohort study. British journal of sports medicine, 59(17), 1203–1210. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2024-109380
Lenhart, R., Thelen, D., & Heiderscheit, B. (2014). Hip muscle loads during running at various step rates. The Journal of orthopaedic and sports physical therapy, 44(10), 766–A4. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2014.5575
Silbernagel, K. G., Thomeé, R., Eriksson, B. I., & Karlsson, J. (2007). Continued sports activity, using a pain-monitoring model, during rehabilitation in patients with Achilles tendinopathy: a randomized controlled study. The American journal of sports medicine, 35(6), 897–906. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546506298279
Wu, H., Brooke-Wavell, K., Fong, D. T. P., Paquette, M. R., & Blagrove, R. C. (2024). Do Exercise-Based Prevention Programs Reduce Injury in Endurance Runners? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 54(5), 1249–1267. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-024-01993-7
