Cross Training While Injured

Audio Transcript

Coach Jeff Gaudette: Hello, fellow runners. Welcome back to today’s Extra Kick podcast episode.

I want to mention again that we are doing the Running Summit on August 17.

It starts August 17 and is a four-day event that’s going to help you treat, diagnose, and prevent every type of running injury that you may have currently, may have suffered before, or might potentially suffer in the long run.

It’s a completely free event, and we are inviting the top experts, doctors, and physical therapists in running, to talk about specific injuries, how to treat them and how to diagnose them.

On specific days, they will talk about what type of modalities work best in different situations, such as icing, heating, stretching and massage.

They will also talk about how to use strength training and gait modifications to help make sure that you stay injury-free, even as you increase your training load or train harder than you ever have before.

If you want to pick up your free ticket, all you have to do is head to runnersconnect.net/summit and you can check that out.

With that said, let’s go ahead and get to today’s question which comes from Jeff.

Jeff: Hi, I’m from Pennsylvania and I just have a question about maintaining fitness when you are not running.

I have a sports hernia. I was diagnosed about two weeks ago, and so I haven’t run for the last two weeks.

The doctor told me to rest for a month minimum to see how things start clearing up, and I was just wondering what kind of exercises I could do in the meantime, to help maintain my fitness. Thank you.

Coach Jeff: That is a great question, and Jeff I am very sorry to hear that you are suffering from an injury.

Sports hernias are difficult, and especially when you are facing the idea of a month off. You should listen to your doctor and therapist, and take the time off that you need.

Don’t try to push it; don’t try to come back too soon.

Taking the time that you need now is going to allow you to get completely healthy so that when you start running again, you are able to consistently build and not have set backs.

That’s my first general piece of advice. On to cross-training.

There are a bunch of different things that you can do for cross-training, and a lot is going to depend on the type of modalities you have available to you, and if there is anything that potentially aggravates your injury.

I’ll go through all of them and then talk about pros and cons, and then maybe what might work for you.

In terms of what’s available to you, we have swimming and aqua jogging. Those require that you have a pool.

Aqua jogging requires that you have a pool deep enough to run in, so you’re not hitting the bottom.

You can do elliptical, you can bike, or you can do the ElliptiGo which is one of my go-to favorite cross-training activities, and I’ll get into that a little bit more specifically.

In terms of picking a cross-training, once you have eliminated the ones that you don’t have access to, you can start looking at what you have access to, and then you have to see if it’s going to potentially impact the injury that you’re having.

With a sports hernia, it may be sitting on a bike is something that bothers that injury, whereas with an ElliptiGo and elliptical, because you are in that upright, more comfortable position, that’s going to help you out a little bit more.

Some runners may feel that whatever it is, an ElliptiGo or elliptical machine, may aggravate their injury, whereas swimming, aqua jogging, or biking might not.

Part of it’s a little bit of like asking your therapist or asking a doctor, or giving a little bit of a feel.

What I would say is, if you’re doing a cross-training activity, and you feel any pain or strain in the injured area at all, that is probably not an effective cross-training routine for you.

With that said, the benefits of aqua jogging are that it’s completely non-impact. You’re basically just running with your head above water but your body underwater, so there is really no impact there whatsoever.

You are producing a running motion, so it’s somewhat specific to running, and you can do a variety of different workouts.

The downsides are that you need a deep enough pool, and you need to know how to swim fairly well.

It can get unbelievably boring because you’re not moving much, so you’re just staring at the pool wall.

It’s decent if you’re going to do a 15 or a 20 minute workout, but if you want to simulate going an hour or doing a long run or something like that, I’ve done it and it’s boring.

It can aggravate injuries, like if you have anything with your hip or hip flexors, those types of things, because the water is adding resistance to your leg movements, and the resistance can sometimes aggravate those injuries.

Swimming is probably one of the least specific cross-training modalities you can do, and the nice thing is that it adds a little bit of variety.

It can be extremely difficult especially if you’re not good at swimming.

The downsides are that it’s not very running specific, the upside is that, more than likely, it’s not going to aggravate an injury, since you’re not doing anything that is remotely close to running, and there’s no impact.

There is the bike. The benefit of the bike is that most exercise gyms have them, it’s very easy to find, the same with the elliptical

The downside is it’s not very running specific. It can also put pressure on lower leg injuries, since you are essentially still pushing down and creating force with your legs as you turn them over.

If you have an Achilles’ injury, a calf injury, something like that, a plantar injury, there’s a chance that you’re actually stressing and aggravating the area, even if you might not feel it.

In the case of a sports hernia, it could be something where your hip flexors and lower back or whatever that may be, in that general area, could be bothered by sitting on the seat, so watch out for that.

Again, like aqua jogging, it is decent for 15-20 minute workouts. Doing an hour on the bike is extremely boring. I’ve done it and those are the downsides.

My favorite cross-training tool now is the ElliptiGo. If you haven’t heard of it, the ElliptiGo is an awesome machine. In essence, it is an elliptical machine on wheels.

You have all the benefits of the elliptical, low impact, probably good for most injuries, and it’s specific to running since you’re doing the running motion.

It has all those benefits of the elliptical but it’s on wheels so you take it outside.

What that does is eliminate probably the hardest thing about cross-training, which is the boredom.

Like I mentioned with aqua jogging, swimming, and the bike, being in a stationary position at the gym is difficult.

Sometimes the hardest part of an injury is that we don’t get those endorphins of being outside, just moving and being able to see things around you, which is part of the beauty of running.

Especially a long one like a sports hernia where you’re going to be out for a month, maybe more.

The ElliptiGo is pretty cool, you can take it outside which eliminates that whole mental strain of an injury, and I find that to be extremely beneficial.

It’s a lot of fun, especially as you first start getting used to it, it’s fun to use, it’s enjoyable, but you’re also getting in a great workout. It kind of combines the best of those worlds for you.

If you have access to one, I recommend checking it out.

I think that’s going to be your best benefit and I would say to most runners that the ElliptiGo is probably going to be your best bet in terms of cross-training.

This is because it’s specific to running, and it eliminates that difficulty of cross-training of being bored, being in the gym, being depressed, saying, “I wish I was outside” especially with the weather as nice.

I remember when I was in college, being injured and it was the springtime. It was May, 70 degrees every day, and I was injured and in the pool.

I remember the pool doors would open, and I’m aqua jogging in the pool, and I was just so depressed because I was like, “I just want to be outside today.”

That type of mentality seeps into everything else. The rest of the day I’m kind of moping around because I didn’t get to go outside, I didn’t get to feel the wind in my hair, as goofy as it sounds.

I wish the ElliptiGo was around when I was training hard and got injured at times, because it would have eliminated that portion, and allowed me to go out and do those things.

It’s spelled E-L-L-I-P-T-I-G-O. It’s ellptigo.com if you want to check it out, check where they are, and potentially get one.

The nice thing about ElliptiGo in general is it looks at cross-training as a training tool and not just an injury recovery tool.

I think a lot of runners think of cross-training as something we only do when we get hurt.

Part of that is because it’s stinks. Unless you enjoy being on a stationary bike, you’re not going to want to do it.

So, the cool thing about the ElliptiGo is that it allows cross-training to become a more integral part of your training rather than just something that you do when you get injured.

I encourage you to check it out it’s definitely one of my favorite cross-training activities.

There’s a lot of research that shows how beneficial it is and how much it can help you maintain fitness.

Back to cross-training in general, I like to structure my cross-training during the week, much like I would running.

What you’re looking at, depending on how many days a week you run, probably three to four days somewhat easy in the sense of staying in that aerobic zone, maybe a half an hour to 60, 90 minutes of continuous low intensity easy-run type effort.

You’re not doing anything super hard, just an easy effort, getting in the aerobic building there that you can do.

Then two to three days a week, simulating the types of workouts that you might do while running.

The easiest ones to do, and I find the ones that work the best, are interval stuff. Two minutes on, two minutes off, something like that.

Doing a bunch of times, switch things up, go one minute, two minute, three minute, four minute, five minute, back down. You can do those types of workouts on all the modalities that I mentioned.

I’d usually do those one or two times a week. It’s just like running, you can overdo the cross-training in the sense of just working your body a little bit too hard.

Try to keep to those parameters where it’s okay to do four to five sessions a week, where you’re going easy, putting in the aerobic building that you’re going to do.

And the thing to remember is that if you do it right, you can maintain fitness.

I’ve done it and I know lead athletes that have done it, that have come back from injuries after cross-training hard.

I think Joan Benoit’s is probably the best-known example. When she won the Olympic trials for the marathon, she was injured and had knee surgery, and was only able to do hand cycles.

She did that and pounded away at it, and she was able to come back within a couple of months, and qualified for the Olympics in the marathon, then obviously went on to win the first women’s marathon ever in the Olympics.

Hopefully that gives you some motivation as well.

I hope that covered some of the cross-training options that you have, and gave you some ideas about workouts that you could do, and helped to answer your question.

I want to thank you so much for listening to today’s session. I hope you join us again for tomorrow’s question and thanks so much for listening.