As yes: injury. In any runner’s life, injuries are inevitable. Kind of like a metaphor for…oh wait I’ll shut up about how running is a metaphor for life (but it is and we know this).
I get asked a lot about what to do when you get injured, so I’ve written down a few of my most highly recommended moves. As always, there’s no quick fix here: the rules below all build on each other, because recovery is a process, not a single step!
Accept the injury.
Like, immediately! If you twist your ankle, don’t try to walk it off; if you feel your Achilles, probe the injury to learn more. Never, ever deny it; it’ll only set you back.
If it's bad, seek medical help; if it's not so bad, use rest, ice, compression, and elevation (RICE) and make sure you keep moving. But accept the injury and that you're going to travel the recovery road for a little while. Acceptance is our friend, friends!Yes, RICE, but also, analyze your injury.
Don’t just mindlessly follow the advice that you get from the Internet or from other runners. Consider your injury, and its recovery. Why did you get this injury? Is it related to another one you had previously? What type of cross training can you do to heal this injury and to prevent it in the future?
This takes experience and practice, but it's really useful for recovering fast and preventing injury in the future because you can get to the cause of your pain and start to recover at the foundational level.Having analyzed, you might need to accept that the foundational injury is not always where the pain is.
This is really counterintuitive, but a lot of times the pain that we feel and the location that that pain is in is not actually where the primary injury is located. A lot of times the pain expresses itself in a muscle or joint or tendon or ligament that is opposite or opposing the truly injured body part. This isn’t to say that the place where the pain is isn’t injured; it’s to say that the origin of the injury is in an opposing muscle group or ligament or joint.
This can be true when you have an injury that seems to come from nowhere…not like a twisted ankle, which is very obvious, but more like shin or IT band pain or plantar fasciitis. For these injuries, we frequently need to strengthen the muscles around and opposing the site of the pain. How to do this leads me to:
Cross train your way out.
Cross training and exercises from a physical therapist can help a lot with addressing the foundational injury and preventing it from recurring. I do this by devoting a pretty substantial portion of my training week to cross training and stretching, which I know it’s a popular answer in running circles, but really works.
When I have IT band pain, I know that it’s not really my IT band that’s injured. I don’t have a major IT band tear or strain; what I have is a weakness in the adductor, which starts at the inside of the knee and goes up to the hip, and iliopsoas muscles, which are these crazy muscles that hold your entire core together (do a google; the fact that these muscles exist makes you think that Evolution must be drunk). The way that I recover from this pain and prevent it in the future is to release the iliopsoas with massage and strengthen the adductor by doing Pilates and barre exercises.
To wrap up, injuries are serious and can sideline you for weeks if you don’t accept them or work to understand and address their underlying causes. If you devote some time to analysis and strengthening, you might be surprised how quickly you can get back into your normal training routine and see relief from even nagging, recurring injuries. It’s all part of the work of understanding your body, your practice, and deepening your relationship with yourself.
I’ll see you again next week on social and in this newsletter. And for today, remember: go run.