Today on the Doc On The Tun podcast, we’re talking about how you already know the path to recovery.
I was recently watching the Wizard of Oz with my kids.
There’s this one scene, where Glenda tells Dorothy that she already had has all the ability to get home. That all she has to do is click her heels together and say, “There’s no place like home” and she’ll be transported there.
Dorothy had that power all along.
When I see runners who have had running injuries, they’ve been injured. They’ve been on this long journey of seeming like running through the haunted forest and trying to dodge the wicked witch and trying to get over this running injury.
All injured runners really do already have the power to get better.
And most of the time, when I do a consultation with a runner, when I talk to somebody on a telemedicine visit over a webcam, all I really do is talk to them about what they’re doing and what they’re not doing.
That sounds silly, but it’s really easy when you’re training, you don’t have this obstacle in front of you. All you have to do is look your training plan and apply yourself. You have to get up, you have to put on your running shoes, you have to go out the door, you have to do what you’re supposed to do. What your coach tells you to do. Then all you have to do is realize that the pain and suffering you have when you’re doing long runs, it’s mental. So you quiet that noise in your brain and you just push on and just accomplish the workouts and check them off one by one.
It’s very easy. But the truth is when you get injured, it all becomes very confusing. And we start to question ourselves, we start to make bad decisions. We start to eat the wrong food. We don’t hydrate. We don’t eat as frequently. We don’t sleep as well. And when I talk to runners, I really just ask them, okay, what were you doing before? Tell me your routine. When you were actually in training, when you were in a big build phase and following a treatment plan, what was your daily routine like? What did you eat? How much did you drink? How much water did you drink? How much did you sleep? All of that stuff.
And then I say, okay, what are you doing right now? What did you eat for the last three days? What did you eat for the last week? How often did you eat? How much water do you drink? How much are you really focusing on sleep? Are you prioritizing sleep? Do you have a plan for sleep?
And then I really just say, look, don’t you understand this? You were doing everything that you could to maximize your workouts. What were you doing in training to maximize your workouts, to make sure that you actually recovered and healed and became stronger after each one of those workouts? Why are you not doing that stuff now? What you were doing in recovery has to maximize your healing the same way that you are maximizing the recovery after your workouts, when you were getting stronger and more fit and faster. That’s really all there is to it.
That path is right in front of you. That path is one that you already know, but if you’re injured and you feel like you’re not getting better, it’s because you have deviated off the path.
You’ve taken a wrong turn. You’re letting the noise in your brain, convince you that this is a waiting game. Healing is not a waiting game, any more than training is a waiting game. You cannot sign up for a race and believe that you’re going to be stronger on race day, if you don’t do something. And if you’re not doing something right now in your recovery, you are not maximizing your healing.
So think about the path that you had in your recovery plan. When you were maximizing your workouts, when you were really training, when you were working hard, when you were following a plan.
You have to create a plan now. And that’s why I wrote the Runners Rapid Recovery Journal. It’s just a thing that actually gives you a way to really, and truly look at what you were doing in training and apply it to your healing. That’s really all there is to it. So remember you already know the path to recovery. Just figure out what you were doing in training and start doing that today.
That’s really the key!
Right now the Runner’s Rapid Recovery Journal is on sale and you can get it at discount. You can get an instant download version today. You can find a link in the show notes at the bottom of this episode at docontherun.com under the podcast tab.
Go check it out!
After years of lecturing to doctors at medical conferences and helping injured runners start to recover when they stagnate, the one thing I have learned more than anything else is that the runners who get back to running faster are those who take what they have learned in training and apply it to their healing to create an active recovery plan.
Get the Runner’s Rapid Recovery Journal…
Pain is the best tool to help an injured runner decide when run. You don’t have to figure out what to write down. We made a simple Pain Journal PDF for you.
To print out your copy of the pain journal, Download here:
If you have a question that you would like answered as a future addition of the Doc On The Run Podcast, send it to me PodcastQuestion@docontherun.com. And then make sure you join me for the next edition of the Doc On The Run Podcast!