Injury Prevention Tips*
Iron Deficiency and Overtraining
Awareness has slowly, steadily been growing since ~2000 of the role iron (ferritin) plays in distance running. Still, it is very poorly understood and an often overlooked cause of a variety of problems, even by coaches that are well aware of its importance. As such, I have made available two resources below.
The "Iron / Ferritin Levels" document is compilation of sources, combined into a concise, straight forward presentation of the key facts in monitoring and supplementing iron levels. It has been shared with coaches of teams ranging all the way from middle school to Pac-10.
The "overtraining" document is something I worked on several years ago, linking overtraining and iron depletion, then set aside. It has the potential to be fairly ground breaking, IMO, but I never quite decided where to go with it and researching it any further looked to be quite daunting. Hopefully, the questions raised will get the gears turning for someone else.
If you share these documents with others, please leave the header and credits intact.
*Please note: All exercise, training, health, and nutritional information on this page and throughout Run-Down should be treated as educational in nature. Unless explicitly stated as otherwise, all advice contained within Run-Down's pages is non-medical opinion. Please consult a doctor before embarking on any exercise or training regimen. Run-Down and Dan Kaplan do not assume responsibility for any physical harm that may be caused as a result of advice given on these pages.
