Today, on the Doc On The Run podcast, we’re talking about how injured runners cannot find a solution when refusing to even look at the problem.
Today, in the Injured Runner’s Aid Station, which is one of these live calls that I do with groups of people and individuals who have specific questions about what’s going on as they’ve recovered from their running injury, and they’re ramping up and they’re trying to get back to training without getting re-injured.
One of the things that’s really important is that you really have to think about what it takes to ramp up without getting injured, and that requires tracking and paying attention to everything. So if you haven’t gotten it yet, if you haven’t started tracking your pain using a pain journal, you should definitely do that. We’ll have a link in the show notes where you can get a copy of it. I know you can get it when you sign up for the 12 Steps presentation, but you really have to track your discomfort and pay close attention to what you feel in that injured area, if you really want to get back to training as quickly as possible.
Now, that’s what we were talking about today in this live session, in the aid station. And I’m going to let you listen in on a recording from that actual live session where I was explaining this to someone who had an Achilles tendon injury, and was ramping up, and was paying close attention. So let’s listen into that recording from that session, explaining these keys to ramping up and running without getting reinjured, while using the advantages that you already have with your runner’s mindset. Let’s check it out.
That’s why I think it’s so important, and I’m always talking about the pain journal, because I mean, you obviously have this sense of it. Even today, when you’re describing what you’re talking about, you’re describing that it wasn’t, “Oh, I had some soreness in my leg.” You know it’s not just your leg and it’s not even just your whole calf muscle, it’s actually the soleus portion of your calf muscle that’s really doing it and you realize that it was resolving very quickly afterwards.
So you label that fatigue, not really recurrent injury with inflammation building up and all that kind of stuff and when you’re tracking those things and you’re able to realize, how quick do they resolve, how significant they are, you’re able to decide whether or not it’s really something or nothing. That’s really the big key with really ramping up, is really continuing to push the limits, continuing to do a little bit more, continuing to get a little bit stronger, and then just paying very close attention to the things that derail people.
But people always get derailed because they’re basically ignoring what is a returning soreness that lingers. It lingers and then the next day, it doesn’t hurt as bad. So they think, “Oh, that’s no big deal. I’ll just go run again.” and it lingers a little bit longer, but it’s to them still insignificant. Well, if you do that long enough, if you ignore this little lingering weirdness, some sort of tension that just doesn’t seem to resolve, well, that’s how somebody ends up with Achilles tendinosis and then you’ve got a real problem.
Suddenly, you realize, “Okay, this thing’s lumpy, it’s weird, it’s really swollen, it’s really painful and now I can’t do anything.” But that doesn’t happen overnight, it happens by using the valuable runner’s mindset of being able to ignore discomfort and push a little harder and a little further, in spite of the discomfort, but it’s a discomfort that you have to pay attention to.
So part of that process is really realizing that these focal things, in one spot, that crop up and then disappear, are inconsequential. But the ones that crop up and continue to linger have to be paid attention to and cannot be ignored and you have to do something to address it, either shifting the way that you move or the way that you apply stresses to it in some way.
That’s the important piece, meanwhile, it’s like trying to figure out, “Okay, is there something I need to do? Do I have to do stretches? Do I have to strengthen something else to make this thing behave? What do you have to do?” But there’s always a solution, but you can’t look for a solution if you refuse to look for the problem. And you’ve obviously become very attuned to looking for those little problems as they start to occur, as opposed to wait until it’s a disaster.
Now, mean, if you enjoyed this episode, please like it, please share it. Please share it with one of your friends who’s been injured and who might be struggling, and who really needs to get some help and then, if you have specific questions, you can join me in the Injured Runner’s Aid Station as well.
If you haven’t checked it out, go check out the 12 Steps presentation, where I actually walk you through the process that I use with injured runners who are overcoming overtraining injuries. You can get it for free at docontherun.com/12steps. So go check it out and I’ll see you in the training.
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