Running Injuries Should Be Speed Bumps, Not Roadblocks

Subscribe to The Adaptive Zone Podcast…

Running injuries should be speed bumps, not roadblocks.

Running injury rates are alarmingly high. Far higher than in most recreational sports.

Most studies estimate that injury rates among runners are about 50% each year. So if you look around next time you go to the running club, half of the people there will get injured this year.

Said another way, most runners can expect to get injured every second year.

Despite an enormous amount of research over the last 20 years. As well as the emergence of running-specific health professionals and social media influencers. As well as advances in training technology, shoes, nutrition, and various recovery/injury prevention modalities, injury rates have not changed.

And honestly, I don’t really expect them to.

Weak Humans

Today’s runner does not look or act like a Tarahumara. We don’t spend our whole lives running and hunting. We don’t spend our whole day on our feet and go to bed under the stars with a belly full of whole foods foraged from the surrounding environment.

We spend most of our lives sitting at desks, on sofas or in cars. We spend our evenings in artificially lit, air-conditioned houses watching giant LCD screens or using phones designed to light up our nervous system.

Physically at least. We just have easier lives. This weakens our body and makes us more vulnerable to injury. We’re still stressed though, maybe even more so than we used to be. Our sleep is worse and our diet could usually be better.

Running is an extremely repetitive sport, which makes repetitive stress injuries very likely. And the fact is that if you run more miles, you will probably race faster. So us runners are incentivized to run as much as our bodies can tolerate. At the same time, our modern lives weaken our bodies and leave us vulnerable to injury.

These are massive social, cultural and anthropological factors and they are not going to be countered by adding a new core routine or getting some massage gun.

Injury rates among runners will remain high. It is a consequence of the nature of the sport juxtapositioned with the physical weakening of the modern human.

So What’s The Point?

So, you might be wondering. What’s the point in me? I’m a Physiotherapist turned Running Coach who has dedicated his professional life to rehabilitating and preventing running injuries. If it’s so hopeless, why do I bother?

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered this myself at times. Do you ever wonder how much difference you’re really making at work? Are you really being effective and positively influencing the people you serve? In a complicated world and we are often a small cog in a big wheel, and sometimes…we do wonder.

Something has kept me going on this mission to help injured runners this last decade though. Recently, I seem to have found the words to explain it.

You see, it’s not really about the running injuries themselves. Running injuries are neutral. They are just a thing that happens. It’s the effects of those injuries that are negative. It’s the impact that they can have on our lives.

While I don’t really think we’ll ever significantly reduce running injury rates. I one hundred percent believe that we can reduce the impact of those injuries.

Impact

One runner who develops knee pain might have to modify their training for a few weeks. Another might not be able to run much all season. Another may end up having a knee replacement. Another may end up quitting running, getting fat and weak and having a miserable retirement.

These are the effects of injuries. This is the impact they have on runners. It’s the difference between speed bumps and roadblocks.

Speed bumps make us slow down. Roadblocks make us stop.

We want to make running injuries mild setbacks, these are speed bumps. We don’t want them to change the trajectory of our life and our health, those are roadblocks.

This is what we help our clients with and why I’m so passionate about my work. Marcela is a perfect example.

Recovery Program

Marcela originally contacted me as she had a long-standing back issue that hurt when she ran. She’d fallen in love with running later in life and got into 50k trail races and marathons. She was worried about damaging her back with all the running and wanted some help to reduce the pain and make sure she would be able to keep running for the rest of her life.

So, she enrolled in our Recovery Program. The primary goal of the Recovery Program is to get past the pain and back to full training. So we focus all of our efforts on resolving the pain.

We do this by addressing the 3 Critical Components of pain-free running:

• Build the Muscles
• Strengthen the Structures
• Refine the Biomechanics

We re-designed Marcela’s training around those components and held her hand every step of the way. By the end of the Recovery Program, Marcela was running pain-free and finished a 50k race feeling stronger than ever.

Performance Program

At that point, Marcela moved into our Performance Program. Now that the pain was resolved and she was back to full training, Marcela wanted to take it to the next level. Her next goal was to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Now our focus shifted from pain to performance. We dialled in Marcela’s training zones and incorporated working max focus lifts into her strength training. We pushed the volume of her training and tracked her paces to get her ready to run a sub-3:50 Marathon.

This is the difficult part. The objective of performance coaching is to improve performance. The harder you push the body – the more stimulus to adapt – the faster you race. The trouble is, if you push too hard something will break.

It’s like a Formula 1 driver speeding around the track at the Monaco Grand Prix. They have an accelerator and a brake. If they only had an accelerator pedal, they wouldn’t make it round one lap. They need to constantly tap the brakes to keep them on track.

Unfortunately, in an effort to increase Marcela’s fitness and improve her performance, we pushed her too hard. Too much accelerator and not enough brake.

13 weeks before the Vancouver Marathon, she developed knee pain and was unable to run on it for a week.

Setback

Obviously, this was a major blow for Marcela. But she responded in exactly the way I would have hoped. She leaned into her coaching team for support. We adjusted her training program to make resolving the pain the priority again. In a sense, she was temporarily moving back into the recovery program.

The goal now, at least in the short term, was to resolve the pain and return to full training. So her training plan was designed with that express purpose. This meant that improving performance was no longer the goal of her training. The volume and intensity were sacrificed because the biggest barrier to performing in the marathon (at that time) was the knee pain.

Going back to run:walks made Marcela very anxious. She only had a few months before the marathon. She should be building up her long runs. But her knee wasn’t ready for that and Marcela understood the plan.

Her knee calmed down and then began to adapt to the training. Within 3 weeks, she could run continuously for 30 minutes. 5 weeks after the knee pain first appeared, Marcela was running 1:45 long runs pain-free.

8 weeks later, Marcela ran 3:53 in the Vancouver Marathon. 3 minutes shy of the Boston Qualifying cut-off, but a new Personal Record for her. The best part was the experience though. She had a wonderful day and finished the race feeling strong with a beaming smile on her face as always.

Her knee didn’t hurt at all.

Speed Bumps vs Roadblocks

For many other runners, that knee pain would have been a roadblock. But Marcela had been diligently working on the 3 Critical Components for 6 months at that point. Building her Muscles, Strengthening her Structures and Refining her Technique.

When the pain came on she leaned into her coaching team and we were able to modify her plan and guide her through the recovery. Marcela’s training had to be modified for a few weeks but she kept running and was able to do her race…she even got a PR.

That’s a speed bump.

Another runner might have had to pull out of that race. Miss months of training and end up getting injections and surgery. Maybe they’d even end up quitting running forever.

That’s a roadblock.

My Roadblocks

In my first 5 years of running, I hit roadblocks every year. I pulled out of 4 marathons due to injury. I was so frustrated I almost quit running for good. Imagine that, rather than dedicating my entire professional career to helping injured runners, I quit running.

I never get to run a marathon. I never get to cross that finish line in Montreal knowing that it took me five years but I didn’t quit.

I never get to spend hundreds of hours pushing my son, Lachlan, in a stroller. Stopping at the park to play half way through a 3-hour run and see him fall asleep listening to the Wiggles on the way home.

If you can’t tell, these are some of my most precious memories and I can’t imagine not having running in my life.

Nowadays, I still get injured. Just like you guys. They just aren’t as big a deal now. I have to modify my training for a few weeks but I keep running and within a couple of months I’m back on track.

My injuries are speed bumps, not roadblocks.

That’s because I constantly work on my 3 Critical Components.

Build the Muscles, Strengthen the Structures, and Refine the Technique.

Make sure you do the work to prepare your body for the injuries that will inevitably come up. Focusing on these fundamental components will help you ensure that your next injury is just a speed bump, not a roadblock.

If you’ve hit a roadblock, and need some help to get past it and back to full training. We’d love to help you. Just click the button below to book a free call…