Dr. Emily Kraus specializes in sport related injuries. Emily herself has run 6 marathons (with a PR of 2:53), including the 2016 Boston Marathon, where she finished as the 56th female overall. Pelvic, hip, and sacral injuries can stop you from running for weeks or even months, and they are becoming more common. What can we do to prevent them, and how can we make sure that what we eat is helping us to stay healthy, not making us injury prone?
Emily is also an advocate for ensuring that young athletes do not succumb to high school burnout by having sport pushed to the extremes by themselves, their coaches, or their parents. Emily has a strong passion for promoting a lifetime of health and wellness with a focus on injury prevention.
Today’s Guest
Dr. Emily Kraus is a sports medicine and orthopedics specialist at the Stanford Children’s Health Center. Her passion is in running medicine, running and cycling biomechanics, injury prevention including the prevention of bone stress injuries in runners, and the promotion of health and wellness at any age.
What you will learn about:
- How she balances her practice and running (her PR is a 2:53 marathon at the Mountains To Beach Marathon) by running with friends in the morning or during mid-day breaks at the clinic.
- How important it is to find a supportive coach who can help you reach your goals without overtraining and balance your training with your lifestyle and responsibilities.
- How even a physician in the field is not immune to making the mistake of not taking the time to allow the body to heal and recover.
- How hip and pelvic recovery postpartum is influenced by the ligament changes that the body undergoes. We also cover how the bones need to recover as well, because of the impact of childbirth and breast feeding on bone density. There is not much research on athletes returning to competitive fitness levels postpartum.
- We discuss the importance of adequate nutrition in support of both training and recovery in order to ensure adequate bone health and bone density. Under-fueling in general puts runners, both male and female, at a far greater risk of bone injuries, both insufficiency fractures and fatigue fractures. Under-fueling can come in terms of the amount the athlete is eating, the timing of the nutrition intake, and the quality or mix of the foods eaten.
- How calcium, vitamin D, and iron intake, even without anemia, can impact bone health and how important it is that your physician checks your levels if you are feeling low energy or are suffering frequent bone issues.• When you are recovering from any injury, it is not uncommon to experience pain in other areas as the body adapts to returning to activity. It may also mean you need to engage in other activities like strength and cross training.
- A pelvic stress issue/fracture often worsens with running, and may start to develop when walking, or increase when stopping. It may also feel like a deeper groin or back pain. If it increases with all weight bearing, it is time to have it looked into. Some pain may also arise from glute or other strength imbalances and a good form coach can help.
- We also discuss high school burnout and the need for young athletes to play multiple sports and build in off seasons and alternatives to avoid overuse injuries and burnout. It is important that young athletes not exceed their age in terms of hours per week of participation in their sport of choice. The goal is to make them a lifetime athlete, not a flash in the pan.
Listen to the Running for Real Podcast here:
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Inspirational Quotes:
Growing bones and muscles need to be able to develop in a balanced fashion, which means alternating sports played and time off from training.
Resources:
Last week’s episode with Jared Ward
Running for Real Superstars Community
The Right Diet Can Help Prevent Running Injuries
Female Athlete Triad Coalition website
Information on energy availability
sports specialization in young athletes
Email Emily: kraus.emily@gmail.com
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Thank you to Bodyhealth and Aaptiv for sponsoring this episode of Running for Real.
Now I am back to training, guess what was the first thing I did to start making sure I recover quicker (as coming back to fitness really beats your body up!), yep, you guessed it, BodyHealth Perfect Amino! Get 10% off at Bodyhealth.com using coupon code TINA10
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Thanks to Aaptiv for supporting the podcast. New members get 30% off annual membership at http://www.aaptiv.com/running4real
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Thank you to Emily. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the show.
