"When" to return from a setback (minor injury)

Opinions will vary. I personally think that when enough pain occurs causing one to limit exercise, that's a sign that one needs to do something different. It could be form, strength, or flexibility related, and each one would require a different intervention. If you're doing exercises anyway, I found Dicharry's Anatomy for Runners to be a good resource.

When I've had an injury that was such that I needed to stop running, the hardest part was just making the decision. Most of the time I could still use the stationary bike, which helped me mentally, but sometimes I just needed to swim for a couple/few weeks. Then, when it seemed like it was okay to try to run again, I just had to be ready to test things slowly and be patient.

Noonie said:

First of all, is this the right approach (i.e., only trying to run after 100%)? I gotta think so but figured I would ask...

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Well, there's overuse injuries, and acute injuries. For the former, I think a gradual comeback before your 100% is OK. Just go out for a minimal run, rest a day, and then assess. If nothing has gotten worse, go out again for a bit longer, rest another day, and reassess again. Repeat until you come up to some resistance/pain, then back down again until you're OK again, stay there a bit, and then push back up again. That's how I did it anyway, with both TOFP (weeks to 100%) and ITBS (months to 100%) last year. I would also often stop in the middle of a run at the least sign of strain and stretch and massage the problem area.

I also had an acute injury last year, an MCL sprain. I think I waited until it was 80-90%, but even so, it took me a long while before the soreness was completely gone, like 8-9 months. Maybe I would've been better off waiting until I was 100%, but after getting to the point where it didn't bother me while I was running, just a little sore post-run, I felt a more 'active recovery' approach helped.

In short, I don't think there's one answer. You just gotta experiment and develop an awareness for the injury's particulars. Also read up on some older injury-themed threads, and ignore most mainstream medical advise!

For me, the best way to prevent injuries to begin with is to religiously stretch, massage and roll, whether I feel like I need it or not. I've been injury-free for about eight months now with this hyper-cautious approach, and am achieving new mileage milestones, so don't be discouraged if it takes you a while to figure your ankle issue out.

Active recovery still may be the way to go. First, make sure you're massaging/rolling/stretching several times a day, everywhere, whether or not you feel tight. I've found tight hamstrings, for example, can effect my neck as well as my foot tendons, so don't just treat the spot that aches. Second, if 25 minutes was too much, try 10 or 15 minutes next time, since you were OK there. If that's OK, then stay there for a week or two, then add five minutes or something. You have to do it by feel, but the principle's the same, no matter what the distance: take a step or two back, if that's OK, stay there, then take a step up again when everything has felt good at that level for a while. That's my understanding of active recovery anyway. Sometimes absolute rest can lead to "under-use injuries." You may also want to do some strength training, like calf raises, or leg curls, or maybe skip rope, or do some plyo stuff like steps or skips, and see if that helps.

Not saying active recovery will work for your issue, but this is how I've overcome some of mine.

Are you using some type of compression? that really has helped me in the past.
I don't use compression when running though.

Noonie said:

I'm foremost a cyclist, so 3-4 days a week I'm riding and stretching afterwards. I use the stick often. I also took up inline skating (do that with my daughter, and on my own in place of running). With each of these activities my leg is fine (during, after). Only when I run do I get this issues.

I've not tried compression.

I know I'm preaching to the quire, but running is just so complicated when compared to many other fitness activities. I've been cycling for 10 years and only had a minor injury year one. Since then I can vary my volume, intensity, whether I stretch or not, etc., etc., and no issues. But I'm intrigued with trail running as I like the experience. Hiking is ok but not the same for me.

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Completely agree, running and its attendant repetitive stress is a different animal. I traveled by bicycle for two years without any problems except in the beginning when an improperly adjusted seat caused some knee soreness.

I became very frustrated when I began to take running seriously but found it wasn't going to be so carefree, and began to get runner's injuries. But I learned how to overcome them through better preparation and maintenance, and I'm sure you will too. Good luck!

In cycling you think, well, if I can ride 50 miles, I should be able to ride 100. And you can. But with running, you can't think that way. It's all got to be done gradually. If you can run 15 minutes no problem, keep running 15 minutes at a time for a while until you start to run faster, then you know you've adapted, and can increase the distance by a bit. When that distance gets easier, increase a bit again. It's hard to be so patient, but it pays off. I can now do 10-12 miles comfortably. A year ago, 5-6 miles was my limit.

i've got to ask if you're applying enough pressure when you use the stick? i've seen and heard of people who just roll. that doesn't do much unless you hold it on the knots until they release. i've also found many newbies, including this one, run on their toes and don't let their heel come down. if so make sure your heel comes down. this can relieve a lot of calf pain.

In defense of running, I'm going to suggest that running is the most natural and instinctive thing that one can do. Babies when put on the ground will automatically learn to crawl, walk, and run. It's adults who have forgetten how to run. People need to learn how to swim and how to use a bicycle. Running is instinctual. However, relearning instinct is hard.

Sid said:

In defense of running, I'm going to suggest that running is the most natural and instinctive thing that one can do. Babies when put on the ground will automatically learn to crawl, walk, and run. It's adults who have forgetten how to run. People need to learn how to swim and how to use a bicycle. Running is instinctual. However, relearning instinct is hard.

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Actually I recall instances of feral children who never learn how to walk properly, let alone run, and are unable to learn how to speak a complete grammar after they pass the critical period for initiating language learning, between 1-3 years old, even after being given intensive instruction. There is very little that humans do that doesn't involve a cultural/learned component.

And even in properly socialized children, few will run for any length unless they have to. Running continuously as we 'runners' do and running around as children do are two different things, it seems to me. I remember going out for jhs track in ninth grade. I had been playing three sports at the time--(American) football, basketball, and baseball--for many years, so I was in decent shape and somewhat athletic. Running a mile didn't feel natural or instinctual at all--it was hard work at first! Despite being a natural movement, something we've evolved to do, unlike swimming or cycling, I think distance running may still be cultural, something that has to be learned, whether by imitation and/or socialization, as in a Kenyan village, or through reading books and participating in online forums. I know in my case it never would've occurred to me to run recreationally if hadn't seen or heard about others doing it.

So, if it's true that distance running is a cultural practice, several millions year old, something we've evolved to do, but still a learned behavior, then I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect to have to pass through a period of adaptation, gradually building up to it. As in most things, of course, children, adolescents, and young adults adapt faster, but they still must adapt.

Bare Lee said:

Actually I recall instances of feral children

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One can hardly take abused and neglected children as the norm. Instinctual doesn't mean removal from all social context, just as one wouldn't expect a cub to develop normally if the lioness died.

I agree that social context is important, and I wonder if the 9th grade is already too old. I've been jogging with my new 6mo Borzoi dog to get her acclimated to the leash. To my surpise, she breaks out into a canter, and I'm working to keep up! The older Borzoi, almost 6yrs, is still trotting along. As far as I can tell, she never learned the faster gait (while on leash), so she's lagging behind.

So, I'm left wondering if living in a culture where one does not have to run to catch their food, leaves one less able to run well.

Edit: Apparently, one shouldn't run with dogs younger than 1yo, as their bones and joint are still developing.

Sid said:

One can hardly take abused and neglected children as the norm. Instinctual doesn't mean removal from all social context, just as one wouldn't expect a cub to develop normally if the lioness died.

I agree that social context is important, and I wonder if the 9th grade is already too old. I've been jogging with my new 6mo Borzoi dog to get her acclimated to the leash. To my surpise, she breaks out into a canter, and I'm working to keep up! The older Borzoi, almost 6yrs, is still trotting along. As far as I can tell, she never learned the faster gait (while on leash), so she's lagging behind.

So, I'm left wondering if living in a culture where one does not have to run to catch their food, leaves one less able to run well.

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I think we're saying the same thing here Sid! But perhaps we're emphasizing different sides of the argument--conditioning/physiology versus technique/form--giving a false appearance of having differing views.

In reference to Noonie and my experience, I was initially just trying to say that going through a period of adapting the body to the rigors of running's repetitive stresses, which are fairly unique among athletic activities, should be expected, even though our bodies have evolved for persistence hunting, as per Lieberman's thesis.

I think you've made a second important point about there being a critical period for just about everything. Those of us who take up distance running (whether 3 miles or 30 miles) as adults will probably never have the form of someone who started as a child or teenager. I think I was trying to elaborate on this, but in my haste confused it with my other point. I should've taken more time to make myself clear, but I was already getting ready to leave my office.

In sum,
1] Conditioning: Even though we've evolved to run long, we still must allow our bodies time to adapt to the stresses this involves, whether as a child or an adult. It's just that adults can expect this period of adaptation to take longer.

2] Form: even though we've evolved to run long, we still must learn to run long as we mature or we risk never learning how to run really well. This may explain why just taking off one's shoes and adopting a more natural gait doesn't fix every adult's problems. But any previous athletic experience will probably help; if you've been running around doing other stuff, especially sports that involve sprinting, then you may already have decent running form.

As for the feral children, I was thinking just as much about the children who miraculously survive in the wild as the ones who get locked up in a closet. In either case, the evidence is strong that standing up and walking are not the purely instinctual behaviors for humans that they are, for example, for newborn deer. Imitation plays a big part. Imitation however, is an instinctual behavior for humans, the foundation upon which so much of our cultural/group behavior is built. It's only recently that anthropologists and biologists have come to appreciate the degree to which the central nervous system and human culture have co-evolved, for millions of years, and are mutually dependent. There is no 'language instinct' for example, just genetic predisposition to learning language given (1) the right social stimulus at (2) the appropriate stage of development and (3) a propensity for imitation. Likewise, this predisposition would never have developed over time into the incredibly complex artifact that is human grammar if it weren't continually reinforced and selected for by cultural behavior.

Apologies for the thread hijack Noonie!

Bare Lee said:

I think we're saying the same thing here Sid!

Apologies for the thread hijack Noonie!

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Yes, and yes.
In child development, there appear to be certain windows where learning is more intuitive, such as for language and music. This doesn't mean that adults can't make a pretty good go of learning things, but it seems to take a lot more work for most.

Sid said:

Yes, and yes.
In child development, there appear to be certain windows where learning is more intuitive, such as for language and music. This doesn't mean that adults can't make a pretty good go of learning things, but it seems to take a lot more work for most.

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Depends on the activity; in some the window or 'critical period' is absolute, in others, it's relative. For first-language learning, a complete grammar is impossible after a certain age. They've tried it with feral children, I think a famous case from the late 60s, and many grammatical concepts were just impossible for the girl to learn at 11 or 12 (I don't recall the facts exactly). For second-language learning, very few of us can become 100% fluent, in both grammar and pronunciation, after 15-18 years of age, but a lot of us can still learn a second language with reasonable proficiency well into our adult years. For music, its more relative, but I don't know of any concert-level pianist who's taken up the instrument as an adult, although there are of course plenty of hobbyist guitarists who first started playing music in college or something and can do a fine rendition of 'blowing in the wind.' Likewise in sports, it's almost impossible to become a pro athlete if you've never played sports as a child. Just doesn't happen. The body and mind adapt best while they're developing, and it's more efficient ontogenically. Still, like you say, we can still make a pretty good go of a lot of activities as adults. This is one of humanity's huge evolutionary advantages--we continue to learn as adults and thus can adapt to changing environmental and social conditions within a single lifetime.

I think what both of us are saying jibes well with Jason's estimate that perhaps 25% of the runners he's coached can get by without any form cues. They're probably people who have a background in sports that involve running.

maybe then there is weakness higher up the chain and you're feeling it in your calves. such is the fun of life. figuring things out. good luck.