Understanding Why You Keep Getting Injured and How to Prevent It

I had a client who is a runner dealing with a plantar fascial injury. She had run marathons before but had been sidelined for almost a year trying to rehab this injury.

We went through your typical movement assessment, and I didn't notice any major deficiencies in her strength or mobility that could have caused the injury. I asked her about her running program, and she said that she would normally run three times per week.

Again, nothing unorthodox here. But, upon further investigation, she told me that every time she put her running shoes on, her goal was to do better than last time. To either run farther, or faster, or both.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Running this way, she slowly started to build up aches and pains, and no matter how much she stretched, got massages, or did any other rehab-type work, it kept getting worse. All culminating in her ankle injury.

Lifting to the limits

I had another client who was a powerlifter. Building strength and lifting more after a sciatica diagnosis was the main goal. We had solved this issue and were focusing now on getting stronger and preventing any type of pain like that from returning.

As she continuously lifted more on her squats and deadlifts, she noticed her old hip pain was acting up. Again, upon further investigation, there were no deficiencies in her range of motion or movement patterns. But what she was doing was training close to failure often.

She would send me videos of her lifts titled "200lb deadlift attempt", and it would be her trying the weight but ultimately failing. It turns out, this was happening more than she was showing me, with failed lifts happening almost every week.

No matter how much stretching she did for her hip, her pain was not improving.

Recipe for injury

In both of these situations, it's a case of simply doing too much. One person was running too fast, accumulating too many miles, and the other was training at or close to failure too often.

Both are recipes for pain and injury.

This type of situation tends to plague "Type A", ambitious, and notoriously driven people who strive for linear progression. Every time they work out, the goal is to do more; run further, or lift more.

The human body doesn't work like this. The more experienced you get at adapting to a particular modality, the longer it takes to progress. That's why beginners progress so quickly, but for an advanced exerciser, it can take months or even years to take the next step. Patience is key here.

So when you're constantly pushing your limits, your body pushes back. And no matter how much "rehab" you do, if you're always pushing your capacity, you will get hurt.

I once talked with a gym bro who was flabbergasted that he had gotten a shoulder injury while bench pressing because he did so much isolated rotator cuff work. How could it possibly happen when he was doing his proper "prehab" work? Because he simply did too much on his bench press.

How to prevent injury

For the runner, we focused on slowing down and giving her body a chance to recover while still getting in her runs. We started with one short run at a tolerable pace that didn't cause her pain. Then we built up to two runs, then each run became longer, and the rest was history. The result was that she was able to build up her endurance again and is now regularly running three times per week again for around 60 minutes at a time.

For the lifter, we focused on staying further away from failure, and always leaving 2-4 reps in the tank (which is plenty of challenge to still build strength). We strategically chose a load on the bar that was manageable for her to control with no chance that she would fail the lift. Now she feels fresher, her hip pain is gone, and when she does test her strength, she's more than capable of lifting to her potential.

"No pain, no gain" is a damaging phrase as far as I'm concerned. You need a challenge, yes, but pushing to your maximum all the time is a recipe for disaster. If you play the long game, by giving yourself quality rest in addition to hard work, you have a recipe for longevity and consistent progress.

There's a reason you can't sprint for as long as you can hold a steady marathon pace when running. Testing your strength is fine, but it should be done sparingly and with enough recovery planned.

To your good health,

Coach Stephen

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