When injury strikes...

[rubyslippers]

So... it always seems to go that I'll be getting really into my workouts and running, feeling a real difference in my fitness, and then I get injured and can't train. It's infuriating. Last time it was my knee, and I had to stop running for ages, but I used the cycle machine at the gym to maintain some fitness. I've pulled my Achilles now, it doesn't feel too bad, but it's hard to tell. I have no gym membership now, and I'm worried about keeping up my fitness, especially since I have a ten km race coming up in September.

Any ideas? How do you keep fitness up (and deal with the frustration of not being able to work out) when you're injured?

[stroutman81]

What do you do for injury prevention? Are you cognizant of imbalances/asymmetries of your body? Do you do any sort of prehab such as self myofascial release (foam rolling for instance)?

What about recovery? Do you plan for recovery. Many people make the mistake of solely focusing on applying stress to the body to force positive change, yet they overlook the need for the other side of the coin... recovery.

[rubyslippers]

Thanks for replying...

In terms of preparation, I'm careful to warm up and cool down. I'm aware of weak areas of my body and do strength training to build those and the supporting muscles, as recommended by my physio. I'm also careful to wear good supportive footwear etc. I'm not sure what foam rolling is, but I tend not to use any sort of strapping etc, I've never found it helps - and I've tried a few.

The actual injury this time is just from going over on my ankle. I intend to rest (ie. avoid impact) for as long as its giving me trouble, take anti-inflammatorys and then take it gently when I start running again. I know the time off is necessary to avoid worsening the injury, I just hate it when I have the energy to run and can't use it, and worry about my fitness decreasing.

Any recommendations?

[stroutman81]

You're going to lose fitness unfortunately if you don't have the means of doing anything to maintain it while you're down and out. Unfortunately for you, our cardiovascular system detrains much quicker than our muscular/strength systems when training is removed.

Your primary concern for the time being though, should be healing. I'd suggest seeing a doc if you're overly concerned about a) what the injury is, b) possible solutions beyond simple rest, and c) how long it's going to take to mend.

Secondly, foam rolling is simply a form of myofascial release.

The gist of foam rolling is basically for flexility and muscle elasticity. Flexibility and muscle elasticity are influenced by two proprioceptive units; the GTO (golgi tendon organ) and muscle spindles. These are reflexive units.

The GTO is located between muscles and tendons. Essentially this unit let's your brain know how much tension is accumulated during contraction in the muscle. If too much tension is amassed, the GTO will activate and inhibit muscular contraction to protect the muscle from perceived injury.

Spindles on the other hand reside within muscle, running parallel to your muscle fibers. They essentially operate as a protective mechanism against excessive stretch of muscle. When a muscle is suddenly stretched beyond its normal resting length, the muscle spindle fibers can cause reflex contraction of the muscle.

So what's the big deal?

By activating and stretching these units, you can drastically enhance the flexibility of the muscle. Personally, I felt incredibly better after integrating a SMR component into my program.

Foam rolling just happens to be a great way to get this job of activating and stretching done. It's basically a deep tissue massage. Using one is one of the most effective, all-around self-maintenance tools you'll find for releasing tension while improving mobility.

I have a number of free resources I could email or PM you if you'd like to further your knowledge on myofascial release. I'd post them here but from what I remembe this forum is pretty strict with links to outside sites, unfortunately.

[rubyslippers]

Thanks! Please do PM them, anything free that might help is worth a try!

[stroutman81]

I guess I can't PM you for some reason. Maybe I'm too new here or something. Man is this forum strict, lol.

You can email me at stevebody-improvements.com and I'll get back to you.

[stroutman81]

Holy , haha. This forum won't even let me throw up an email to you.

steve(at symbol)body-improvements.com

[Little]

An FYI - nobody can be PMed or PM until after 33 posts. Try a visitor's page.
Also, no promotion of any kind, through links or otherwise, is allowed on WH threads. Doesn't matter if it's free either. When you get into private conversations it's (obviously) different. We are very strict here. It's so that we can foster the kind of environment we like to have here. What good would an advice forum be for discussion if everything was linked out?
I like for the rules to be clear Feel free to write on my visitor's page (link below) if you have any questions.

[stroutman81]

Fair enough.

I think if you look at my post history you'd see I'm not here to link out all my information. I spend a good bit of time responding to people with very detailed posts. From what I can see there is a lot of very inaccurate advice being handed out in the health related forums and a couple of my posts would be very much enhanced by adding some free, linked resources that can't be expressed in words such as calculators in the like.

I get what you're doing... trying to bolster conversation here on the forum and not make other people money via spam links. I simply disagree with the extreme means of how it's handled. I thought that's what moderators are for; to monitor and regulate abuses.

Just b/c some spammers exist and some people might abuse the ability to link, that doesn't mean all outgoing links are harmful to the health/traffic of this forum and the wellbeing of the members here.

In some cases, it's quite the contrary, frankly.

But your house, your rules. I'm just here to help where I can and hopefully it's not frowned upon here when someone voices their opinion as I did here.

I just wanted be clear that:

a) I'm certainly not someone trying to link out all my information, far from it.

b) I don't agree, but will try my best to abide going forward.

My apologies and thanks for your information.