When running on a track, should you switch directions sometimes to avoid overuse from going one way all the time?

Question

Deena Kastor · Answer

Through the length of my track and field, career and continuing on with the mammoth Track Club. All of our athletes run their workouts in a counterclockwise direction or track wise. And we do do part of our cool down in the opposite direction. Just to unwind neuromuscular lie, hope that helps

Dave McGovern · Answer

I do think it's a good idea to alternate directions for preventing overuse injuries, if you can get away with it, sometimes you can, sometimes the track is being used by other people and they might all be going in, you know, in laying one counterclockwise. So you can't just head and laid one going in the opposite direction. Off for obvious reasons, some tracks enforce this. I'm some tracks will have you go clockwise one day and counterclockwise the next and that's great. But if you're on a track on a particular workout and you want to alternate directions and can't what you could do is do your warm oats in cooldowns clockwise in the outer lanes and then do your intervals counterclockwise as usual. That's it.

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"When running on a track, should you switch directions sometimes to avoid overuse from going one way all the time?"