When you are injury free you can wakeup on a morning and think – yes I might just go for that 15k run before lunch I’ve never even heard of shin splints…or I’m going to do some really heavy squatting at the gym my back is stronger than a steel ox. It’s like when you’re a kid and you can eat ten poptarts with no detrimental waistband consequences. Then one day injury occurs and your world can fall apart. We might have felt a niggle or a twinge and trained through it…sound familiar? How easy is it to get half way into your training session and think – actually I have a strange sensation in my left calf better stop before I hurt myself. It’s like telling a fat kid in a sweet shop to have a cabbage instead. Not gonna happen. Once we’ve started we literally can’t stop ourselves. Avid gym-goers share this poor lack of judgement which in the long run could save them weeks of ‘recovery time’ and hundreds of pounds on physiotherapy bills.
Poor Decisions
I was once an injury virgin. Then one day I fucked everything up. I went to one of those sports shops and allowed myself to be coaxed into buying an expensive pair of trainers. I was accosted by ‘Kev’ – a young greasy shop assistant whofor some reason had been overlooked by McDonalds and snapped up by the sports footwear establishment. Anyway he filmed me running on a treadmill –perve – and pointed out my ‘knock knees’.
I lapped it up thinking this is brilliant I will be the next Paula Radcliffe (without the stopping for a piss) in these bad boys. That very evening I went training feeling shit hot in my new footwear. I remember it was fartlek and at the end of my 3rd or 4th lamppost sprint my shins were ridiculously tight as if they had expanded to twice the size.
Did I stop – did I fuck. I didn’t give it another thought.
My First Injury
The next day I went on my morning 5k run. 2 minutes in and I had to stop my shin bones felt like they were about to snap in half and the muscles down my shin were burning, so tight that my feet could barely move up and down… I was running like a retarded duck. Now you know the feeling when you get dumped. We’ve all been dumped even if we were 10 and it was that ginger kid who decided he liked marbles more than you.
Anyway it’s fucking awful your heart sinks your chest tightens you can’t breath – well that pain but 10 times worse is how I felt. I laugh now but seriously – The Jeremy Kyle Show flashed before my eyes. Gone were my fitness dreams of entering marathons and iron man competitions – now I was destined to forever sit on the sofa nursing my spastic legs eating KFC with 10 kids on the dole and probably married to trainer shop Kev.
Dramatic yes- but that is how ridiculously devastated I was and any fitness fanatic will empathise.
Physio’s Dream:
Over the few years I saw a number of physiotherapists…Some were shit…some were good ….but I ended up with a list as long as my arm of imbalances and issues and overcompensations that were contributing to my fucked up running. During this time I had to adapt to training in the gym – no more running. I completed my REPS qualifications and diploma in sports massage therapy. I began to understand my body – the muscles and the balance between exercise and overtraining. I found a physiotherapist I liked who talked sense and gave a damn good rub down. Overtime I went out running again. If something hurt I stopped…or slowed down. If my legs tightened I had a couple of days off.
Injury Prevention
Nothing beats a bit of common sense–if you buy new trainers fucking wear them in first and don’t go sprinting your arse off. At the end of the day it’s your body and you need to look after it. If you are going to put it through gruelling workouts and high impact activities I 100% recommend Sports Massage once a week if you can. It will allow you to monitor your body and help prevent injury as well as enhancing your performance. Don’t be a cocky shit we all break from time to time so it’s good to be prepared just in case.
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