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Why do I keep getting injured every year?
I’ve heard this literally 1000s of times from runners…
“every time I train for a race my knee gives out” or
“every year it’s something” or
“I’m just injury prone”
It’s so common for runners to get Injured every 6-12 months in the lead up to a race as their training load increases.
Training Load
Your Training Load is the combination of the volume and intensity of your running. When you do a training plan for a race they will usually increase the volume and intensity of your training – thus increasing the training load.
This is a good thing. Your body will respond to that stimulus by becoming fitter and stronger.
But, if the increase in training load happens too quickly, you’ll get injured.
At that point, runners will start trying to fix the pain. They’ll buy a strap, get new shoes or change their running technique. They might go to the Physical Therapist and do taping, massage, stretches, acupuncture and other such things. They might even go to the doctor and get steroid injections to reduce the pain.
All of these things have one thing in common – they are focused on reducing the pain to help the runner get through the race.
And that might actually work – they may reduce the pain enough to allow the runner to complete the race (although they won’t do as well as they could have). But, they might not work and the runner might have to pull out of the race.
In either scenario, after the race the same thing always happens … the training load drops, the pain goes away, and the problem is resolved … right?
Well, unfortunately not.
The Perennially Injured Runner
6-12 months later, the runner will start training for another race. When training load increases again, they will get injured again.
Now we have what I call “The Perennially Injured Runner” because their injuries come back every year.
The issue here is that the real problem was never addressed.
They treated the symptoms of the pain with massage, stretching, bracing, injections etc. but never got to the root cause. In this case, the root cause is that the runner lacks the capacity to tolerate the training load when it increases.
Said another way, as the training volume and intensity increases in the lead up to the race the overall training load exceeds the training capacity of the runner.
The real problem is that a couple of times a year there is a mismatch between the training load and the training capacity.
Training Capacity
The way to fix this is to raise your training capacity in the 12 months before your race (not 3 months before). If you want to do a faster or longer race next year, you are already behind schedule!
Raising your training capacity is simple, not easy. You need to gradually do more running volume and intensity. You also need to build up the volume and intensity of your strength training – and stop wasting your time on stretching and core exercises!
You have two options here, DIY or Coaching…
DIY
Like I said, this is simple, not easy. But if you want to take the DIY approach, just get the race training plan you were planning to use in the 3 months prior to the race and do it now over the next 6 months.
When the training load peaks, just stay there for the next 6-12 months.
Coaching
When we do this with our runners we take a more sophisticated approach using periodization. This allows us to do it safely and in a way that fits in with their lifestyle – so it’s sustainable and they can do it long term.
If you want our help with that, just click here to book a free call. We’ll have a chat about it and see what we can do.
Push Back
Now, you might be thinking –
“I don’t have time for that! … When I train for my races I do twice as much training as usual, I can’t do that year-round”
Yeh, that’s why you keep getting injured! 😅
Every year there is a couple of months where your training load spikes up well beyond your training capacity. Then you get injured. The training load drops back down so the pain goes away.
Then you repeat every year because you’re a Perennially Injured Runner.
Long-Term
What usually happens in this scenario is that runners will just run less and less as the years pass. Gradually reducing the training load so they don’t get hurt. But their training capacity also gets lower and lower, so they keep getting hurt – I call this “the danger of safety”.
Eventually, that runner has such low training capacity, that they can barely run at all. That’s when they quit. That’s why so few runners keep running into their 70s, 80s and 90s.
Just look around at your next race. The majority of runners are middle-aged and only a few are in their twilight years
What you don’t realize is that, statistically, you are likely to be one of those runners that quits. We all like to think we’ll be on the podium for the 80-90 age group in our local half marathon in like 2060 or whatever … but chances are, we won’t be.
If we want to keep running into our 90s, we have to earn it. And that means taking our training seriously. Year-round.
That’s why I’m so proud of the runners in our community who are still training hard in their 70s, 80s and 90s. They have earned the good health and vitality they enjoy through decades of commitment.
And if you’re reading this and you’re in your twilight years and you’re still going strong … I salute you!
If you want to raise your capacity but you’re not exactly sure how to do it, we’d love to help you. Just click below to book a free call with us and we’ll see if we can help.