Happy & Healthy

EVERYONE HAS HAD THIS FEELING ONCE…

After five hundred meters, sighing and sweating, having to stop. Shit. I'm dying.

We've all experienced it (back in gym class or last night during your round in Vondelpark). Pain in your side. Science hasn't quite figured out how that terribly annoying pain in your side arises. It's likely that various factors play a role, and often experienced athletes suffer less from it than beginners.

But what can we do to run our kilometers painlessly? I've put together a few tips for you.

– Adjust your breathing technique

We often tend to adjust our breathing to our speed. The number of steps we take is equal to our inhaling and exhaling. But what we can do better, dear girls, is inhale for three steps and exhale for two steps. You'll see that the stitches decrease and you'll also prevent injuries in your lower body.

– Don't eat or drink too much before or during a run

Leave sugar-free drinks for your run or dilute them with water. Your body is not used to a lot of glucose combined with exertion. Stay hydrated, but preferably with a splash of blue.

– Adjust your speed

Build up your running pace. Especially as a beginner, it's important not to want to run too fast too soon. Feel pain in your side coming on? Then lower your pace, but don’t drop the beat.

– Train your core

Strong abdominal muscles help when you're a running enthusiast. And especially our all-time favorite, the plank, helps us with that. I know: not fun, but what is just a really nice side effect is that with this exercise you train exactly the muscles that cause your stitches.

– Stretch

Still not getting rid of it? Take a few deep breaths in and out, raise your arms sideways up and stretch well. Repeat this while walking a few times and slowly build up your pace again.

And keep running, darlings, don't let it get to you. There will come a day when it runs painlessly. And until then, you can keep thinking of me.