Return to running after an injury

You had one of those overuse injuries from running and that is keeping you from your running. Believe me injuries are not so uncommon among runners, and you are not alone.

My friend Soma has gone through multiple rounds of Plantar fasciitis and that has kept her out of running for months and one time she had to take a three-year break. So, what happened? One of the major reasons for recurrence was she tried to catch up on her lost time too fast. She wanted to get back to pre-injury fitness level and she tried running a half marathon two weeks after she felt little better from the injury. She went from zero to half marathon in two weeks not only aggravated her plantar fasciitis but caused a stress fracture as well in the ankle that put her out of running for three years. She has developed a fear of running now and she is finding it exceedingly difficult to get back to it. Now the question is what she should do differently this time that she can get t back to a place where she can enjoy running again.

If this story is something you can relate to then here are some tips that will help you get back to running after an injury

Gradual start – Once you have taken a break from running you start at the beginner level. The difference would be you will be able to jump to next level much faster as our muscles have memory. So, beginner level means you start with walk run program with just one minute run and 4 minutes walk and not more than 5 repetitions of these.

Test and up the intensity – you need to give a score to your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being lowest pain level. If with your beginner level the pain score stays constant for 2 days, you can increase your repetitions to 10. You can continue this for another 2 days if pain score stays same. If no change in pain score, then you can up your run minute to two mins and walk to 3 minutes and repeat the above two steps. Continue this till you no walking minutes. Then you repeat the same steps with 1 minute of faster speed and 4 minutes of slower run. Every workout evaluating your pain score before deciding to change the intensity with repetitions or speed or minutes of running.

Strength Training – This is another extremely important aspect to include in your training. When you went off running your muscles lost some strength. Doing a focused strength training will build new muscles and will increase overall fitness level. Again, take it slow and I know slow is frustrating but that is the way to ensure staying injury free.

Cross training – This is my last tip. Remember, you were injured in the first place because of overuse. If we only do running as our cardio exercise, we tend to use just one group of muscles over and over and ignore other group of muscles. So cross training like biking, swimming, elliptical etc will be wonderful way to achieve our cardio workout while redistributing the effort across all muscle groups

Running long distance is not easy. And if you are struggling with running-related injuries you cannot seem to fix, it is even harder. But if you refuse to give up, you will find a way to make it across a new finish line.