You’d be forgiven in thinking that sprint triathlon training is significantly less gruelling on your limbs than intermediate or long course training. But if your strength conditioning isn’t up to scratch, or you fail to spot problems that could lead to future chronic conditions, sprint training could prove much more punishing than you might have first thought.

If you find that your legs or feet are particularly uncomfortable after a triathlon running session, you may be suffering with overpronation. Pronation describes the rotating nature of the foot as it makes contact with the ground. Normally, the foot turns inwards slightly as it is placed on the ground, rotating as necessary to adapt to the level or inclination of the surface.

However, with overpronation, the foot arch flattens too much and effectively collapses the foot, causing the soft tissues in the foot to overstretch and joints to adjust, misalign and become loose and flexible. Obviously, this can lead to further problems such as muscle fatigue, chronic pain and even permanent injury in the lower leg.

If you’re currently undertaking sprint triathlon training, overpronation may not become as pronounced or evident as quickly as if you were training for longer distances. Therefore, it’s really important to be able to spot overpronation early on during your triathlon running training, so that you can make the necessary shoe adjustments and do the correct stretches to reduce the risk of injury.

Quick Guide to Spotting Overpronation

1. Stand up, with your feet comfortably set apart, around a shoulder’s width. If your ankles lean inwards, you may have overpronation.

2. Likewise, if your kneecaps turn inward, you may have overpronation. If you overpronate your hips may also externally rotate too.

3. Overpronation can cause excessive wearing on the medial (inside) of running shoes, towards the toe area, or around the heel. Check your shoes to see if this is the case.

4. If you overpronate, you may find that your knees and lower legs are easily fatigued, particularly your knees. It may slowly ease if you stop training. You may also find that the ball of your foot, your heel and your arches also hurt.

5. Bunions, corns and callouses, a well as hammer toes (shortening of the tendons in your feet) are sometimes a sympton of overpronation.

To correct overpronation, you can buy specialist inner soles that effectively support your arches to avoid the excessive rotation during your triathlon running. Professional running shoe retailers should have the equipment in place to diagnose the problem, and offer the best fitting support in your shoe.