Do you have a New Year’s Resolution to get in better shape or run more? I love seeing people aspire to improve their fitness at the start of the year but, unfortunately, many adult athletes, and runners specifically, become frustrated due to injury early into the training process.
Use these 7 injury prevention strategies to help you run at your best in 2026.
The commonly used saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure.” holds a lot of merit when it comes to running related injuries.
Injury prevention strategies, which I’ll discuss in this post, include sensible and progressive running training, properly identifying and addressing baseline deficits, performing optimal evidence-based strength training consistently (most runners don’t do this even if they are performing some sort of strength training), adding appropriate variety of training stimuli in your training, optimizing lifestyle, or ecosystem, factors such as protein intake, sleep, and stress, and performing all of these things consistently will make a huge difference in your running performance in 2026.
I’m a physical therapist and have spent over a decade learning evidence-based assessment strategies including different special tests, objective measurements, and functional tests to use in running populations to identify deficits and address them.
However, none of these deficits and corresponding strategies to address them matter if your training isn’t consistent and progressive. There is a lot of energy in running subculture places on what percentage is safe to progress mileage per week and I do think that is an important consideration. But I’m a much bigger believer in utilizing fluctuations in mileage over weeks and months, with small general increases occurring over time. If you would like to see how I use a block system to progress mileage for my athletes over time, check out this post.
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Sometimes pain is one of the last indicators that an injury has occurred. Sometimes the presence of pain is actually used as the definition of a running related injury. However, that is a misleading way to view injuries as deficits in range of motion, strength, movement control, and power will often occur before pain sets in.
Early and consistent monitoring of these different factors can identify risk factors associated with running injuries overall and even specific running injuries in some cases.
As a physical therapist, I work with injured runners but a large portion of my caseload is dedicated to helping runners prevent injuries from occurring. Check out my PT for Runners page if you’re interested in the assessment strategies I utilize to help runners manage and prevent their injuries.
Between working as a PT and running coach and having a lot of active participation with running groups in the Augusta area, I hear a lot about what runners are doing for strength training. About half of the runners I work with professionally have not been performing any form of strength training and of those who are, only about 10% are performing it in a way that adequately improves running performance.
There are ways to individualize a runner’s strength training program which can undeniably make the process more optimal but the core principles of strength training to improve running performance can be applied to anyone.
Strength training for runners could be an entire post series or course (stay tuned as I’m in the process of making one) but the most fundamental principles involve lifting heavy with longer rest times. Check out this article, 13 Signs You’re Not Lifting Heavy Enough to Improve Your Running Performance, to see many of the common mistakes I see runners make with their strength training as well as the optimal training parameters (reps, sets, weight, etc) to optimize your strength training.
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Training variability can come in many forms including strength training, plyometrics, and cross training but this point is specifically regarding adding variability in the running itself.
Running is a very monotonous activity and any small change you can make can be helpful to reduce repetitive loading. Some common ways to add variability into your training include rotating running shoes (which has been shown to reduce injury risk), varying your terrain, varying the incline and elevation of the run, utilizing different speeds throughout a training block, and cadence modification.
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Runners are notorious for working extremely hard while skimping on the fundamentals of recovery and performance which include adequate sleep duration and quality, adequate nutrition (namely protein intake as most runners do not even meet minimum dietary standards for endurance athletes), and stress management. It’s outside of the scope of my practice to give specific interventional strategies for many of these but I often provide my clients with established guidelines to optimize these factors.
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Consistency can be difficult with the multitude of life stressors most people face on a daily basis. But consistency with your running training, and different strategies covered in this article, will undeniably minimize the likelihood of sustaining a running injury and improve your running performance in the long run.
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