To improve as a runner, turn to professionals

Do you want to improve as a runner? Put yourself in the hands of professionals. To achieve sports goals, whether elite or popular, you must seek advice from someone who can really help you with judgment, seriousness and professionalism to improve as a runner in the section of training, preparation, nutrition, injury prevention and recovery... etc.

Internet and social reds have been a infinite amount of information available to anyone who is starting out in sports, information that can be very diverse: training, sports planning, nutrition advice, recommendations for injuries...

In many cases this information comes from serious sources, but has been provided in a generic manner, without taking into account the particular case of a specific person or patient. There is also information that comes from very unreliable sources and that should be ignored because in addition to not helping you improve as a runner, it can cause problems for you.

To improve as a runner you have to seek the right advice

We live in a time in which everyone has access to information at the click of a button and in which it is very fashionable to publish content on social reds about sports, nutrition, training... and, of course, physiotherapy.

Many professionals who have studied and achieved the corresponding degrees that accredit our knowledge and, therefore, the competence to offer quality services and advice to athletes, we witness with astonishment, disbelief, patience and, sometimes, indignation at the absurdity of finding, on a daily basis, on social reds people without qualifications or degrees pontificating on subjects about which they have little knowledge.

Some even profit from their advice, recommendations and advice based on knowledge that they do not prove (probably because they lack the required qualifications). Unfortunately, many of their clients are not aware of the risk they run by putting themselves in the hands of people who advise on training-preparation, injury recovery, nutrition or physiotherapy without training and without qualifications to prove their competence.

I am going to try to clarify which professionals can help you achieve your goals (and therefore improve as a runner) and which false professionals put your health at risk due to lack of preparation, lack of knowledge or desire for prominence.

In my opinion there are two basic rules to start dealing with this topic:

1. Practicing a sport does not make you a professional specialist in it.. For example, no matter how good you are at playing soccer, you are not a coach; No matter how good you are at CrossFit, you are not a CrossFit coach; and, logically, no matter how good you are at running and no matter how good a time you have in the marathon or 10K, you are not a sports coach. running/athletics.
2. The type articles… «7 definitive exercises to have iron legs» o «training to lose 50' in 10K» o "core training to be a better runner" that you find on the Internet or on social reds are not the ones that are going to be best for you (they may even harm you); They are articles written for other purposes (improve positioning, improve visibility, attract attention, gain followers...) but they are not really designed for you.

My advice is that you look for a true professional who is trained (and qualified, because that is a guarantee of having acquired knowledge), updated and, above all, who has experience in what you are looking for, be it training-preparation, nutrition or physiotherapy. If you really want to improve as a runner, don't put yourself in the hands of people

Without health there is no achievable goal

I frequently see people on social media offering information about physiotherapy or injury recovery (which is my professional specialty) without any criteria and, worst of all, without taking into account that giving inappropriate advice can lead to physical problems and even injuries. And injuries, I know from professional experience, destroy people's dreams and sporting aspirations. A phrase that I repeat ad nauseam with my patients and also when I teach classes is "without health there is no achievable goal".

With this article I intend to clarify the role of each of the professionals that you may encounter as a runner in your sporting activity (and to improve as a runner it is very important to be clear about this).

The first thing I want to make clear is that If you have an injury, you should go to a medical professional. to diagnose the injury; From there, I consider it very important to clarify the distribution of roles between physiotherapist, physical trainer and coach:

• Un physiotherapist trabaja so you can train.
• Un physical trainer trabaja so you can compete.
• Un coach trabaja so you can perform.

Are you a patient or client? An important difference

A very important aspect to keep in mind is to know if you are a patient or a client, what difference does it make? Well, very simple: if you are injured or need to prevent injuries In order to train, the professional you should turn to is a physiotherapist, because you are a patient. If you are healthy, you are a client and what you need is a degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences.

If you are a patient, you need a physiotherapist

The physiotherapist is the professional who is in charge of improving the injured structure while respecting the tissue healing process; In addition, it works on the sports rehabilitation of the injury or preventing it, based on physiotherapy tests that help ensure that you can train without pain or discomfort to give quality to the training of sports professionals, who are the physical trainers of yesteryear and who Now they are graduates in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences.

A physiotherapist accompanies the athlete when he is injured; and when he is not injured, the physiotherapist can help him prevent with exercises evaluated through functional physiotherapy tests, for example with the Valobando App (you can learn more about what it consists of in the article «The importance of the sports physiotherapist»), generating specific work for the athlete with a health objective, since they are health professionals.

A physiotherapist can make a physiotherapy diagnosis, which, together with a previous medical diagnosis, serves to design recovery work and also serves to avoid relapses.

If you are not injured, you are a 'client' and need a degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences

The graduate in Physical Education or currently the Degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences is the professional who is in charge of preparing the runner who is healthy (not injured) to compete. If you are not injured, you are not a patient, but a client with a competition goal in mind.

The graduate in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences is the professional who is in charge of, once your physical qualities have been evaluated, preparing you so that you can compete to the maximum and improve as a runner; he is in charge «to look for your best version», which is an expression that is very fashionable now. To improve as a runner, it is essential to have the advice of an expert in physical preparation to be able to get the best out of your physical qualities.

Furthermore, a graduate in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences who is specialized in high performance in endurance sports is the one who can best guide you in planning training to achieve a specific goal.

Now, can a physical trainer readapt an injury? And a second question: can you train a patient with an injury?

The answer to the first question is a resounding NO because it has not been trained for it; Doing so would be a clear example of work intrusion, in addition to putting the 'patient's' health at risk, because a runner who requires rehabilitation due to an injury is a patient and not a client (which is why I previously made the distinction between patient and client).

The answer to the second question is more complicated, but I will try to clarify it: a patient (a runner with an injury) must be supervised by a physiotherapist in the stretcher and readaptation phase to the sport, but is not exempt from working on the physical qualities that your sport requires and that is the part in which the Physical Activity and Sports Sciences technician intervenes, but always under the supervision and tutelage of a physiotherapist.

The physiotherapist and the degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences go hand in hand in the training and recovery process of an athlete. It is a professional tandem that can really help anyone interested in that goal improve as a runner.

Once the runner has recovered from the injury, the person in charge of directing the training process is the graduate in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, but the physiotherapist is obliged to generate the correct situation to that the athlete does not get injured and can train to the maximum with his coach.

At this point I would like to talk about other professional profiles (for some of them it would be more appropriate to talk about 'pseudo professionals'), especially because in recent years they have proliferated on social reds giving all kinds of advice to runners (preparation, nutrition, training, injury prevention, injury treatment, health advice...) and, honestly, I think that many of them cannot help you improve as a runner.

1. Massage therapist. Person who has studied a course on how to give massages, but cannot treat pathologies because they have a very poor knowledge of anatomy. You have ‘customers’; You can go to it simply to release muscle tension, but not if you have an injury or pathology.
2. Chiropractor. The chiropractic It is based on practices and beliefs that are considered pseudoscience. They are dangerous because with little training in anatomy they manipulate vertebral joints and that can pose risks to people's health.
3. Monitor. There are two kinds:

• Room Monitor or Personal Trainer. Normally it is a Higher Technician in Physical and Sports Activities (TAFAD), a Vocational Training qualification that is included within the branch of Sports; They train for two years, but logically they do not have the knowledge of a degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences. It is a hybrid between the professional who wants to get the most out of you and get you in shape. There are also 3-month courses, it is a course with little training and low quality.
• Monitor of disciplines such as Pilates, yoga, boxing, swimming, paddle tennis, tennis, etc., they are professionals in activities specialized in a method or sport.

4. Druid, shaman, brujo, neighbor with powers, friend who reads hands… They are people who help spiritually and really only help those who believe in superstitions.
5. Acupuncturist. Person who inserts needles to perform acupuncture treatments; Not to be confused with physiotherapists or doctors trained in traditional Chinese medicine.
6. Expert in nothing and everything. This is a dangerous profile: his sporting experience is all his knowledge and he believes that this qualifies him to coach others. Unfortunately, I have had several examples in my clinic of runners injured by following the advice of that friend. "who has been running for many years and has won several popular races", which is why he considers that he can serve as a coach for anyone.
7. Youtuber, content creator, influencer… This is a profile that has grown on social reds and that, in my opinion, has every right in the world to generate content as long as it does not delve into professional fields that have to do with health, and for me health It is nutrition, training, physical preparation, injury recovery, physiotherapy...

In conclusion, I believe that health must be taken very seriously. In general, most true professionals are respectful of their areas of action. Specialization is essential to provide health guarantees to athletes. A physiotherapist cannot delve into the terrain, for example, of a podiatrist, in the same way that a traumatologist cannot act as a nutritionist or a physical trainer cannot determine how recovery from an injury should be done.

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David Valenzuela Diaz

Physiotherapist at BOX55

David Valenzuela Díaz has a degree in physiotherapy from the Cardenal Herrera CEU University and a Master's degree in assessment, physiotherapy and sports rehabilitation from the University of Valencia. He is CEO of BOX55 Fisioterapia y Academia SL, of BOX55 Academy and of Valobando SL Functional Biomechanical Analysis.
David Valenzuela, CEO of BOX55

Other entries by David Valenzuela Díaz

• The importance of the sports physiotherapist
• Injuries to the running, Prevention is better than cure
• Hamstring tear, injury to fear