Jul 27, 2018
Dr. Emily Kraus specializes in sport related injuries in
athletes. Emily herself has run 6 marathons (with a PR of 2:53),
and ran the 2016 Boston Marathon, finishing as the 56th female
overall. Pelvic, hip, and sacral injuries in runners can stop
you from doing what you love for weeks or even months, and they are
becoming more common. What can we do to stop them from happening
and how can we make sure what we eat is helping us to stay healthy
not making us injury prone?
Emily is also an advocate for ensuring young athletes do not
succumb to high school burnout by having sport pushed to the
extremes, either by themselves, their coaches or their parents.
Emily has a strong passion for the promotion of a lifetime of
health and wellness and 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 focus is on
rehabilitation of sport related injuries especially in young
athletes. 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 of
life.
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 in May) by running with
friends in the morning or during mid-day breaks at the clinic.
- How important it is to find a supportive coach that can help
you reach your goals without overtraining and balance your training
around your lifestyle and responsibilities.
- How even as a physician in the field you are not immune to
making the mistakes of not taking the time to honor the need for
the body to heal and recover
- How hip and pelvic recovery post childbirth is influenced
by all the changes the body undertakes to make having the baby
possible in terms of ligament changes and recovery. We also cover
how the bones need to recover as well because of the strain having
a baby and breast feeding impact bone density. There is also not a
bunch of research on returning athletes to competitive fitness
levels postpartum.
- We discuss the importance of adequate nutrition in support of
both training and rebuilding 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 also 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 strengthening activities like strength and cross
training.
- With pelvic stress issues/fractures it often worsens with
running, and may start to develop with walking, or increases when
stopping. It may also feel like a deeper groin pain 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 avoid burning out. 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.
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 Matt Llano
Tina4Real Podcast
Running for Real Superstars Community
Nancy Clark Podcast episode
The Right Diet Can Help Prevent
Running Injuries
Emily's work website
Emily on Twitter
Emily on Strava
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
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