Simple ways of adding variety and injury resistance to an endurance athlete's training program

Endurance athletes should add in some variety to their training by including the following;

1) Hill Sprints

2) Jumps and skipping

3) Interval training on a slide board for lateral work

Sprinting and jumping help to open up joints in the chest, shoulder, hip and ankles as it promotes greater extension and rotation of the joints. This will help lubricate the joints and improve range of motion. In sprinting and jumping you get more hip involvement as you are required to go into greater hip extension and flexion which will work to fire your gluts and psoas which are primary hip extensors and flexors. In jogging, your hips rarely go into extension and flexion and this results in a greater development of the secondary hip extensors and flexors namely the hamstrings and quads respectively.

Working on the gluts and hamstrings in the sprint and jump will go a long way in preventing synergistic dominance of the secondary muscle groups which will usually result in cumulative injuries (TFL pain, hamstring pulls, groin strains, IT band syndrome etc) if not properly looked after.

As in sprinting, jumps and skipping forces you to be in the chin tuck, chest out and neutral spine position. In jogging, you can still maintain the head forward slouched position similar to your deskjob posture. Getting out of the deskjob posture is vital in promoting spinal health.

Lateral work is a good change from your usual linear jogs as it puts more demand on the glut medius which is an important hip and knee stabilizer. At the same time, you get a good cardio workout which is what you are after anyway