WHY AM I ALWAYS INJURED?
As an athlete (and an injured one for the sake of this article) we’re often looking for that one thing that we can identify as the causing factor of our injuries. Because surely if we fix that then we’ll be ready to go again. Sounds simple, but unfortunately most of us know it’s rarely this straight forward.
Of course if you’ve had an impact injury whilst playing a team sport or had a fall and broken your arm then that’s different and what we call an acute injury. However the majority of injuries that us as endurance athletes will experience in our careers are as a result of chronic reactions; long term imbalances, excessive training loads or external stressors that have put your body out of balance.
Often it’s many different factors that accumulate to tip you over the edge and cause that injury. But when you don't know what the warning signs are to look out for, it can be frustrating because suddenly these injuries can come out of nowhere.
When we sit down with an injured client we actually want to know about the months leading up to the injury, not just that week, that day, but the 12 weeks/months, sometimes even longer leading up to the injury and the warning signs start to become clearer.
Training Load
One of the first things that we can identify when a client shows us an example training week is injuries that come as a result of excessive mileage or excessive volume.
So we look at whether the individual has a structured program? Are they working from a program that is progressing them appropriately, giving them enough recovery time within the week with clear rest days? Do they have an off season? Or deload weeks?
Often it’s clear that the individual has little - to no rest. They have raced and trained all year round and there's no real obvious sign of backing off. Their weekly timetable is absolutely jam packed with a session, training every single day.
Remember deloading is as important as loading and without a structured program, your body can't recover and adapt. Whether it's strength training or your endurance training, it all needs to be periodized and structured throughout the year.
Cumulative Stress (Work + Life +Training)
Not everyone falls into the category above, and sometimes someone can actually be training very well. Their program looks good. Their strength program looks good. But their lifestyle outside of training is making the cumulative stress on the individual an overriding force. These often don’t present as stressful things either but rather extra ‘activities’ with friends, which don't feel physically challenging, but in essence are adding to the overall load on the body and the tissues. Weekend hiking trips, a casual family run or a weekly social tennis meet-up.
Of course, the last thing we want to do is stop you from doing the things that bring you enjoyment, however at certain times where you’re serious about preparing for a big event or you’re trying to get over an injury for good then you need to consider the added impact these things may be having. Adjusting the activity or postponing until your training schedule allows could be a good option.
Equally don’t underestimate the impact that work stress, relationships or house moves might have on you physically. Without the right attention, it doesn’t take much for tiredness to escalate into fatigue and hormonal imbalances and your susceptibility to injury to increase.
Not addressing past injuries
When initially speaking with clients many underestimate the impact that ‘breaking their ankle 10 years ago’ or ‘rolling their ankle three or four times over the past year’ has on their current condition. What’s more is that often these injuries weren’t addressed or rehabbed properly at the time. Even if you did address things at the time, did you maintain this work? Or have you disregarded it and simply continued to add more and more volume.
More often than not these issues need to be at the forefront of our physical work so that they don’t slip back into being weaknesses or imbalances.
Focusing on the wrong thing
Once you've had a number of recurrent injuries, it’s common for clients to feel like pain is ‘jumping around a bit’ and we fall into the trap of getting treatment for many different issues in different places, over a short period of time.
Sometimes it's not necessarily that there are new injuries, we can get caught up in chasing the pain and pinpointing individual muscles and joints to treat when actually what that person may benefit from much more is that global strength, that global mobility, addressing the whole body approach. And that’s where your S&C program comes in.
Not having a good enough base
Most of us understand the importance of building up a base level of conditioning, strong foundations that can then be built upon, not only aerobic, but strength, power and speed as well.
If you’ve had some time out from sport out of choice, never done any S&C before or have suffered with injury you have to respect the fact that you may have a certain degree of de-conditioning that needs to be logically and progressively rebuilt.
The level of strength that you have will be the ‘underpinning’ of all your sporting performances, all your speed or endurance efforts will come from how strong and conditioned your body is.
With our MDT coaching approach here at SFE we make sure you get in front of the right people at the right time. Our Physiotherapy and S&C team work closely together to establish a structured and logical pathway from injury back to performance.
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