The Strava app helping runners avoid injuries, using the latest sports science
A couple of months ago I released a new model to predict tendon adaptation to training. The feedback from runners has been overwhelmingly positive, so let’s dig into why tendons need their own overuse injury model, and how it’s implemented in myTF.
Somewhere in the last fifty years, running acquired a rule: “Don’t increase your weekly mileage by more than 10 %”. The 10 % rule gets mentioned all the time, but nobody is quite sure where it came from. It’s a rule of thumb, a nice and easy thing to remember, it sounds sensible and it’s easy to calculate. But the 10 % rule has 0 % scientific evidence going for it, quite worse in fact: almost 20 years ago a randomised control trial concluded that the 10 % rule makes no difference whatsoever to prevent running injuries (Buist et al. 2008).
We recently added a new chart on the Trends page showing how many days per week you’ve been running, on a rolling 7-day basis. Sports science studies have shown that weekly run frequency is linked with injury risk, especially for those running only once or 6-7 days per week. The data suggests a balance between frequency and mileage is important for injury prevention.
Cyril