#436 Ask better questions at the doctor for an overtraining injury - DOC

#436 Ask better questions at the doctor for an overtraining injury

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we’re talking about how to ask better questions at the doctor, for an over-training injury.

 

Today’s episode actually comes from a recent live Q&A and this is where I actually field questions from people who are enrolled in the courses, and those who have signed up for group coaching sessions, who just want to make sure that they’re staying on track and getting back to recovery as quickly as possible. And in the beginning of this session, I was just giving a presentation, talking about the things that you really have to do to ask better questions. So let’s get right into it.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for coming on to the live Q&A today. So we’ve got several people still logging on, but I’m here to answer any of your questions this morning and hopefully, we can get you whatever you need to know. So if you’re muted, you can go ahead and unmute yourself if you would like. You can also use the chat box to type in your questions, if that’s helpful, either way is completely fine.

So most of the people that call me, the one question I have is whether or not they can run. I actually got a message on YouTube video comments yesterday, where somebody basically told me he had an injury. He was put in a fracture walking boot. Well, actually was in a cast and just got into a fracture walking boot and wanted to know if he can run.

Well, I can’t answer that kind of question. What I can tell you is that most of these people would do a lot better if they would just try to figure out how to do something better than just run when they’re wearing a cast. And that’s something like, really refocused to get moving in the right direction, trying to do something like sending a PR. I actually had my fastest Ironman ever, right after I had a peroneal tendon injury, where I thought I split the tendon. I had a bruise covering the whole side of my foot, right before an Ironman race.

I treated it very aggressively for very short period of time. But then not only did that race, actually had my fastest Ironman, my whole life. So I did it, I talked to lots of patients I work with who have done it, who get a stress fracture four weeks out, wind up having their fastest marathon ever, their fastest Ironman ever, but you have to do something different.

The thing to think about as you formulate your questions today is really, why are you here on this call today? I mean, what is it? Are you worried about something specific? Are you confused about some part of what you’re doing in one of the courses? What is it that’s really keeping you from getting there?

If you’re on the call, you probably know who I am, but I go to medical conferences and teach physicians about running injuries. I’ve written a couple of books on running injuries. I was an Ironman all world athlete. And all I really do is think about running biomechanics and how to get people better. So the other thing I’ll tell you, that everybody I talked to, everybody that books a consultation call, or even a package of calls, where I call them, speak with them every month.

I mean, the thing is you got to remember, it’s just like training. So if you’re injured and you’re sitting around, you’re losing all your fitness, you got to do something about that. You got to track everything. You got to know where you are and you got to know how you can reevaluate. In fact, yesterday I did a live Q&A. And so somebody with a stress fracture, who had a great question, but it was, she wasn’t really doing what was necessary I think, to really stay on top of her activities in a way that could help her figure out whether or not she really needed to do something differently or not.

That’s really the big key. You have to be able to make adjustments if you want to move faster than the average person. And if you’re a runner, obviously you do not want to go with those normal timelines. So just like training, like I said, you’ve got to do something, you have to take action and you have to really figure out what it is that’s going to be most helpful.

The Runner’s Rapid Recovery Journal is one of those things that actually can be very helpful to getting you moving in that direction, and it’s really simple. It’s not that complicated and you don’t necessarily need to get it, to get this back on track. But you have to set a goal, you got to make a plan. And then after you make your plan, you have to make sure that what you’re doing is really paying attention to what’s going on with the tissue and make sure that you are actually very systematically matching the strength of the tissue with the appropriate levels of activity so that you can keep getting better, faster. That’s really crucial.

When I work with people on calls, when somebody schedules a thing where they call me, effectively, several times a week for a month or six weeks or whatever, this is really what I do. And this is what I teach to physicians at conferences is that, you’ve got to make sure, first of all, that you actually can change this. It’s not me. It’s not your doctor. It’s not anybody who can make sure you’re moving in the right direction faster, and anyone can do this.

But it’s just like training, you have to have a specific goal. You have to make sure that you know what the problem is. You have to make sure that you are actually doing something over and over daily, the same way you would in training. I mean, you monitor your heart rate, your perceived exertion, all of these things, and that’s what really gets you moving in the right direction.

And then when you need advise, when you have an issue during training, you would check in with your coach. The same thing applies here. That’s what really makes things move faster than anything else. Okay. So for all you guys on the call, you can go ahead, ask me your questions. Like I said, if you want to type it in the chat box, you can do that. Otherwise, you can just ask them, you can unmute and ask your questions and see if we can answer some questions.

 

Go to https://www.docontherun.com/fasttrack/ and grab your seat now. I’ll see you in the training.