All about injuries, part 1
The cruel paradox of running is that it’s an activity that we are evolutionarily designed to do, yet it has a very high rate of injury. About 50% of runners get injured yearly! Once you’ve fallen in love with the sense of freedom and empowerment that comes from running, it can be a real disappointment and psychological blow to be sidelined by injury.
I happen to be in the middle of an injury right now - a muscle tear has kept me from running for five weeks. This is the longest I haven’t run since 2017, which obviously has impacted my lifestyle and psyche quite a bit. But every injury leads to reflection and lessons learned, and I hope to share some knowledge here.
In this three-part series, I’ll discuss:
1. The main cause of injury/injury prevention
2. The steps to take once you’re injured
3. The psychology of injury
This post will be on #1:The main cause of injury/injury prevention.
The main cause of injury
Running injury can be caused by any number of factors: ill-fitting/worn-out shoes, a misstep, poor form/biomechanics, etc. It’s true that preventative efforts like strength training, mobility work, and dynamic warm-ups are effective to a certain extent and should be incorporated into any running practice.
However, the biggest culprit of injury is overloading. Physical training by definition is the process of applying stress on our bodies. Our muscles, bone, and cartilage are broken down on a microscopic level during a training session, and are built back stronger during the resting period that follows. Whether it’s run training or weightlifting, it’s this cycle of breaking down and rebuilding stronger that’s being applied.
Overloading occurs when stressors are applied at a greater rate than the body can recover. The body is breaking down faster than it can rebuild, sometimes without you even noticing, until one day your brain sends you pain signals, forcing you to a grinding halt. Overloading can be caused when mileage and/or intensity are ramped up too quickly, or when running on unfamiliar terrain, which recruits muscles in a different way. Or, interestingly, the stress might not be running related - it may be from general life factors (poor sleep/nutrition, emotional strain from work/relationship woes, etc). The uptick in “general life stress,” even if your running load is static, could put your body over the threshold of stress it can handle, leading to injury. Your mind and body are one unit.
How to prevent overload
Working with a running coach is a great way to prevent overload. A coach will be able to assign workouts that progress at increments that work for your body. They will also be an objective person who will tell you “This is dumb; don’t do it” when you try to go complete a workout despite your body sending you signals to take it easy. It can be surprisingly hard to be rational and listen to your body - sometimes running is like a drug. You need to run to be happy, to turn your bad day around, to stay on track in order to hit your goal time at your next race. How many times have I injured myself while saying, “Oh there’s a little pain there, but I really want to finish off this training block since I’ve done so much already - I just have to get through this one last run this week” and precisely injure myself in that last run, to be sidelined for days or weeks? (At least once a year, is my answer.) A coach will be the voice of reason telling you, “No.”
Keep in mind, however, that training is a fine line between pushing against your limit and beyond it, especially if your goals are appropriately aggressive, and you may still get injured while working with a coach. Think about pro athletes - they all work with coaches, yet are not at all immune from injury.
For beginners, overload comes down to doing too much, too soon. Once you get past the initial struggle, you might find yourself improving rapidly. Compound that with the rush of endorphins or experiencing flow state, and you might start to feel invincible! Until one day a pain appears out of nowhere. It’s easy to underestimate how high-impact running is. Consider the fact that every time you run a step, the force applied to your body is 3~5 times that of your body weight. Over the course of a 5 mile run, you might take 7000-8000 steps. That’s a lot of force.
Runners who are regularly cranking out high-mileage weeks have likely been going at it for many years; it takes consistent effort over a long period to build that kind of core resiliency and strength. The good news is, once you’ve built it up, it’s hard for it to go away! Consider every healthy run an investment in your future.
Regardless of whether you will work with a running coach or not, here are two concrete steps you can start taking today to prevent overload (well, one step, if you have a male body):
1.Keep a training log
A training log in which you note - at the very least - the distance, time, and intensity of each run, as well as subjective feedback (how your body felt) will help you keep track of how much load your body can handle over the course of days, weeks, and years. You will start to notice how many runs/week and rate of increased load feel most productive for you. Additionally, if you get injured, you can backtrack and take a look at what factors may have led to the injury so you can learn from the experience. Trust me, you will not remember the details if you don’t have a record of it.
Your training log could simply be a notebook or a spreadsheet. It could also be an app that is automatically synced with your fitness watch. Strava is such an app which also acts as social media - you can follow your friends and cheer each other on. The apps that use data from a watch will incorporate biometrics like heart rate and populate useful graphs. Regardless, it’s still important to add a verbal description to each run with the workout content and your subjective feedback.
2. Keep track of your menstrual cycle
There is a lack of research on how the menstrual cycle affects female athletes, but I think most females would agree that our bodies ebb and flow throughout the menstrual cycle. We can each populate data for our own bodies and use that knowledge to our power. First of all, track your cycle. Then, notice when in relation to menstruation you feel strongest or weakest, and see if there is a pattern across cycles. For example, I am usually abnormally tired 5 days before menstruation, during the luteal phase, and this is when I am most prone to injury or illness. A smart plan personalized for me would dial back on training during those days.
Summary
Training is a fine balance between breaking down and rebuilding. Injury is most often caused by overload, which is when the body is being broken down faster than it can rebuild. Working with a coach, keeping a training log, as well as keeping a menstrual cycle log, can help prevent overload.
Next, Part 2: The steps to take once you’re injured
Interested in working with me? Check out my coaching services and book a discovery call today.