How to Break the Injury Cycle

Finn Melanson [00:00:10]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Milanson, and this is the Run to the Top podcast, the podcast dedicated to making you a better runner. With each and every episode, we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches@runnersconnect.net, where you can find the best running information on the internet, as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. Are you currently stuck in an injury cycle you can't seem to break out of? You know, you train for a race, come down with an injury, and either need to bail on your plan or continue to train through, but not at 100%. And then you take time off to heal. You build back up as safely as you can. You feel good heading into your next training cycle, but then you end right back on the injury carousel. If so, this is the same problem Dean Schmidt has been dealing with the past two years. And on today's Training Plan Rescue, we're going to take a deep dive into Dean's plan to uncover why this is happening. Plus, Coach Jeff is going to give him a three step plan to break out of the injury rut and get back to healthy training. Specifically, Coach Jeff is going to go in depth on why Dean should avoid racing for the next six to eight months. The problem with intensity and how you can build your training and mileage properly and how to uncover the source of your nagging injuries. Get ready for some awesome training gems from Coach Jeff as he breaks down and rescues Dean's training plan. Let's get to it. Timeline Nutrition has developed a groundbreaking product called Mitopure that revitalizes your mitochondria, which create energy in nearly every cell in your body. Head to Timelinenutrition.com to learn more.

Jeff Gaudette [00:02:01]: Hey, everyone. This is Coach Jeff back with another edition of Training plan Rescue. I'm really excited about today's episode because I think the topic, lesson and suggestions are going to be relevant to a lot of you listening. In fact, this type of rescue is actually a common issue we see at our running retreats when we sit down and do our one on one coaching sessions with the athletes that attend. Today, we're going to be helping out Dean Schmidt, who has had a difficult time breaking out of the injury cycle. He's caught in that dreaded place where he heals up from an injury, builds back slowly and smartly, and then things seems to fall apart again once he's in the middle of a training cycle. Now, I've seen this a lot, so I think we can definitely help him. But let's hear from Dean to get more specifics on his issue.

Guest [00:02:48]: Hi, runners. Connect coaches. I'm really hoping you guys can help me on this one because I'm at the end of my rope and I'm not sure what to do. I feel like my racing days might be over and I am just so frustrated. Anyway, so what the problem is that I'm struggling to find any real consistency in my training. I've had a consistent calf problem for the last two years and I back off. I do the physical therapy, I start feeling 100% and I slowly ease back into the training. And what's more, I follow the run, walk and couch to five k just so that I don't overdo it. The problem is, once I start to get beyond the stage and actually training for a race, I get injured again. I usually get eight to ten weeks into the plan and boom, either my cough goes again or I get some other pain. Last time it was my it band. Now sometimes I can train through it and still race, although not as good as I hoped. And sometimes it gets bad enough that I need a few weeks off and then basically just has me running the race for fun. I'm at my wits end with what to do and I'm hoping you have some advice other than throw in the towel.

Jeff Gaudette [00:04:15]: Man, that's really tough to hear and I'm sorry you're going through that, Dean. Now I know how it feels and I know a lot of you listening probably do too. Luckily, I do have some suggestions that I think can help. But before I do, I did ask Dean some follow up questions about his training, especially once he started to train for races. I wanted to know more about a lot of the common issues that we'll see in his situation factors such as pace, workout, frequency and strength work. So here are his answers.

Guest [00:04:43]: As for what a typical week of my training looks like, well, usually I do a speed session on Tuesday, Thursday or Friday is a tempo session and then I'll do a long run on Sunday. Now my speed sessions are usually 400 to 800 meters, repeats with full recovery. There's a local club that meets on the track on Tuesday, so I jump in with what they're doing. And what's more, most of the guys are running the same local races as me, so the training lines up. Well, I've been following you guys for a while now, so I do keep my easy days as easy or as easy as I can. I've stopped wearing my garmin most easy days just to keep my mind off it. And as for strength work, I do three sessions per week, mainly hip and core work, plus some specific stuff for my calves. Now, I probably could be a little more consistent, but overall I think I do a pretty good job.

Jeff Gaudette [00:05:49]: This is some great information and I definitely see a lot of avenues we can get in depth about to help Dean and maybe you get down to the cause of all of these issues. I'll break them down one by one and I'll address each of these responses from Dean individually. Recommendation one stop racing the most important thing. I hope dean takes away from this is that he needs to go at least six to eight months, or maybe even ideally a year without racing. Seriously. I see this so often with runners I talk to who are in the injury cycle. You get healthy, you train for a race, training becomes too intense, and then this result in an injury. Then you either push through trying to get it to race day, which worsens the injury, or you take time off and miss the race anyway. The funny thing is, when I say it to you like this, it makes total sense. But just how many of you listening have been in a one or two year injury cycle and are still signing up for races? If this were a live audience, I think we'd have tons of hand raised. The problem with races is that even if we just have them on the calendar as something to do for fun or something to keep us motivated, they inevitably become something that dictates our training rather than letting our body dictate the training. I've done it myself, so I know the mentality. If I have something on the schedule, even if it's meaningless, I still want to show up and give my best effort. It's human nature. This results in me pushing myself. This is good when we're healthy and prepared. It's part of what makes running a beautiful sport the test against ourselves. But when you're in the injury cycle, this is bad. So take six, eight or twelve months off from racing and just focus on training. This allows you to listen to your body progress super slowly. Take precautionary days off or a down week and gives you more time to focus on injury prevention work. I recommend runners who need to do this use other goals focused on health outside of racing to keep them motivated. I'll talk more about this coming up, but let's say, for example, you find that flexibility is one of the reasons that you keep getting re injured. Make it a goal that in twelve weeks you'll have improved your flexibility to a certain point. Now you have a goal and an end date, but it's completely focused on improving your ability to train healthy, not training for a race. Trust me on this. If you don't take this first lesson to heart, it will be very, very difficult to break out of the injury cycle.

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Jeff Gaudette [00:11:35]: Recommendation Two reduce the Intensity perhaps the second most common issue I see is too much intensity in the schedules of runners stuck in the injury cycle. For me, I count intensity as total volume of workouts or time spent running faster or frequency of harder workouts. Certainly, running volume, et cetera, plays a role in injuries. But the research I've seen and my own coaching experience has shown me that the intensity is a far greater predictor of injury than volume. The reasons are that first, speedworks require significantly more explosive power generation from your muscles. The more explosive we try to fire our muscles, the more stress we place on them. Second, our aerobic systems develop faster than our muscles, tendons and ligaments. Meaning you can push yourself harder and faster during your workouts from a breathing perspective, but your muscles, tendons and ligaments haven't yet adapted to those speeds. Thus you quickly end up pushing yourself harder than what your muscles are ready for, especially if you're coming back from an injury. Now, with that explained, let's go back to what Dean said about his training when he gets ready for a race.

Guest [00:12:43]: As for what a typical week of my training looks like, well, usually I do a speed session on Tuesday. Thursday or Friday is a tempo session and then I'll do a long run on Sunday. Now, my speed sessions are usually 400 to 800 meters repeats with full recovery. There's a local club that meets on the track on Tuesday, so I jump in with what they're doing. And what's more, most of the guys are running the same local races as me, so the training lines up.

Jeff Gaudette [00:13:16]: Well, this is definitely a pretty normal week of training for someone who isn't injured all the time. But in Dean's case, I think the intensity is a little too much. First, I'd reduce the number of quality sessions to just two, a threshold session and a long run. I'd mix the speed work out entirely. Again, this is why not training for a race is so critical. Eliminating speed work is definitely not going to help you for a race coming up, but it is going to go a long way towards keeping you healthy. I don't think you need to take a rest day in this place. I just simply add another easy day to the schedule. Now, when it comes down to how to progress as training, I spoke about this quite a bit in the last training plan rescue I did, so I encourage you to listen to that as well. You can find it@runnersconnect.net five 90, but to summarize briefly, use a three week up, one week down progression where you increase your mileage by two to 5 miles or three to 8 week. If you're feeling good, then after every third week, do a cutback week to a mileage level that you were when you started. After an eight week cycle, maintain for one or two weeks and then if you feel good, you can do another three up, one week down cycle. Of course, if you feel tired or have any niggles, don't increase the mileage and consider taking a step or two back again. Because you're not racing, you're in no hurry to increase your mileage. This is a slow, progressive ramp, and it gives your body plenty of time to adapt. Recommendation three find the underlying cause of your issues. Now, Dean did mention that he's doing strength work, and I'm really happy to hear that. However, from how it sounded, I think he needs to get a little bit more specific, and I recommend this to anyone struggling with an injury. The first thing we need to do is find out if there are any structural limitations or weaknesses or any biomechanical flaws that are contributing to the injury. As an example, we know from research that tightness in the hamstrings can cause calf injuries because the tightness in the hamstring forces you to recruit the calfs to generate the power needed to run faster. There are also many other areas that are tight or weak that could be contributing to the calf issue. So the first thing I would do is simply do a simple assessment to see where you might be susceptible to injuries. I'll put a free download in the show Notes for this episode, which can be found@runnersconnect.net. Five nine eight it's a free video. It'll give you five quick stretches and tests that you can do to see where you may be lacking strength or flexibility and what injuries this may be leading to. This is a good start, and you can always go a step further and visit a movement specialist if you have one in your area. The same should be done by looking at your running form. You should analyze your form to see if there's anything in your biomechanics that's restricting your movement or causing undue stress on the calf. There are lots of places you can do this online, and we also have a course you can check out, which I'll link to in the show notes, which I mentioned before@runnersconnect.net. Five nine eight once you figure out what the potential underlying causes are for your injury, then you can get to work attacking these specific issues with a specific strength and flexibility plan. You can use fixing each issue as your goal rather than having a race on the calendar. In the case of the calf issue, for example, you could say, in eight weeks time, I want to improve hampering's flexibility from 75 degrees to 90 degrees. Once you hit this goal, you can move on to the next, increasing big toe flexibility or increasing the load you can do for eccentric calf exercises. For example, in no time you'll be able to snipe away every potential physical limitation causing your injury. With all of these recommendations combined, after six to eight months you'll be running solid mileage, you'll have a more bulletproof body, and you'll be ready to think about racing again, but healthy this time. So if you've been stuck in the injury cycle. I really hope this helps you out. Like I said, we've encountered lots of runners who get stuck in this, and following these recommendations usually gets them out of the rut and back to running and racing healthy. So thanks for listening, everybody. I'm Coach Jeff Godette. Happy to have you on with our training plan rescue, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye.

Finn Melanson [00:17:36]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Malanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch, Finn, and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, and premier access to contests and giveaways, then subscribe to our newsletter by going to RunnersConnect. Net podcast. Until next time, happy trading.