In any active sport, injuries are part of the training process. However, if for professionals, injuries are inevitable due to colossal overloads of the body. Then for amateurs, the risk of injury can be virtually eliminated if you perform a series of actions during and before running.
Beware of tight muscles
Often you have to deal with the fact that novice runners do not pay attention to the state of their body. First of all, it concerns the muscles.

The biggest risk of injury while running occurs if a person starts running with the muscles of the legs already clamped. It can be both calf muscles and thigh muscles.

Therefore, always make sure that at rest the muscles are not stiff. To do this, you can simply feel the muscle, and it will immediately become clear whether it is stiff or not compared to others.
If you understand that the muscle is “wooden”, then do a number of procedures to relax it:

– Contrast shower for legs. This helps to relax the muscles.

– Foot massage. You do not need to have the skills of a massage therapist to simply stretch a tight muscle.
Warming ointments. It is especially useful when there is not much time left before the run, and the muscle is still clamped.

Of course, this does not mean that you cannot run with tight muscles. But the risk of injury in this case increases to a maximum.

Practice proper foot placement

It is very important to place your foot correctly when running. Improper foot placement can cause foot dislocation, knee injury, Achilles tendon damage, and even a concussion. For more information on how to put your foot when running, read the article: How to put your foot when running.

Warm up
I’ll make a reservation right away that light slow running does not require a thorough warm-up, since it is essentially a warm-up itself. And if you run cross-country, say, 10 km at a slow pace, then the first 2 km is a warm-up of the legs and warming up the body. Therefore, at a pace longer than 7 minutes per kilometer, it makes no sense to warm up.
But if you run faster, then warming up and warming up the muscles is mandatory, since unstretched muscles are most susceptible to injury. Warm up может быть полноценной, а можно ограничиться только растяжкой ног. It’s up to you to decide, but warming up is a must if you run faster than 7 minutes per kilometer.
Avoid uneven road sections
Running on rocky soil or a road pitted with tractors threatens twists and falls. Unfortunately, when running on such sections of the road, it is impossible to find the ideal running technique to eliminate the risk of injury. Therefore, either avoid such areas, or run through them at your own peril and risk.
Proper footwear
The factor of running shoes is very important. Incorrectly selected shoes can itself serve as the appearance of injuries. Calluses, broken nails, as well as the lack of cushioning in the sole, which threatens injuries to the periosteum and knees, indicate that running shoes should be selected carefully.
If we talk about the main features of running shoes, then for an amateur there are 2 main determinants that you need to pay attention to when choosing:
Sole cushioning. When choosing sneakers, make sure that the sole is not thin, and that there is a small notch in the middle of the sneaker, which creates additional cushioning. Therefore, it is strongly not recommended to run in sneakers or shoes that were not originally intended for running, such as shoes or sandals.
Ease. Of course, few people go to the store with scales, and the weight is extremely rarely written on sneakers, but you can still determine by the sensations whether the sneakers are light or not. Ideal for an amateur – the weight of one sneaker is 200 – 220 grams. Lighter options are either too expensive or of poor quality.
It is also recommended to buy sneakers with laces, as they are easier to adjust to your foot.
In general, we can say that amateurs can run without injuries. But for this we must not forget about any of the points described above. Unfortunately, in practice it often turns out that this is not always possible. Either the foot placement is wrong, or you have to run over stones, and sometimes it’s simply not possible to buy normal running shoes. That is why injuries occur.