Forever Injured...

subscriber

I seem to be forever injured. I cant seem to sustain any regular high intensity or high volume workouts on a regular basis without my body breaking down. At the moment my training plan looks something like 1 long and 1 speed session of each discipline for every 10 day block of training and also 1 session of stretching and strength work included in that.

I am just back from three weeks of rest with lower back problems, and have tackled roughly 5-6 training sessions in the last 11 days, and I am again already plagued by two all to familiar injuries. (strained glute muscle and shin splints on my right leg) Two injuries I have long struggled with. I am off to the physio on monday prob to hear some more bad news, and prob needing another fortnight of rest.

Admittedly when I do my strength and stretching workout, I am not the most knowledgeable about technique and variation of different types of exercises and tend to stick to the same 4-5 things every time.

What do you do on a regular basis to avoid injury? Is there any good strength and conditioning plan anyone could recommend to me?? Thanks

tunney

Start into things easily, don't over do it. Your body can obviously cope with less than yo thing.

I personally avoid physios as they never fix the problem IMHO, just prescribe stretching and strengthening (while required in some cases for the long term treatment never really address the accute problems). Someone who is hands on is the way to go.

Briando

Keep an injury diary. Try and understand what brings on an injury and pay very close attention everyday and write down how your body is that day.

Once you discover a pattern you can start to address it. People who are desk/car bound for many hours a day can have a lot of muscle imbalance and activation issues.

Best of luck getting on top of it.

subscriber

tunney wrote: »

Start into things easily, don't over do it. Your body can obviously cope with less than yo thing.

I personally avoid physios as they never fix the problem IMHO, just prescribe stretching and strengthening (while required in some cases for the long term treatment never really address the accute problems). Someone who is hands on is the way to go.

massage therapist?? Outside of this, I don`t know of any other sport injury professionals that use hands on treatment??... and that being said, do massage therapist `s really know how to sort out complicated muscular / nerve problems??

subscriber

Briando wrote: »

Keep an injury diary. Try and understand what brings on an injury and pay very close attention everyday and write down how your body is that day.

Once you discover a pattern you can start to address it. People who are desk/car bound for many hours a day can have a lot of muscle imbalance and activation issues.

Best of luck getting on top of it.

I keep an Microsoft excel sheet of all my training and injury but cant identify where I go wrong.. maybe, its just the quantity of sessions, which is really frustrating because the fitness is there to do the sessions but my body does not seem able to handle it. . . then when I cut back the training I get bored / demotivated / start to eat unhealthy, ect..

Oryx

Too many hard sessions, inadequate recovery, excessive workload, poor session planning. It could be lots of things.

Care to share your plan and get opinions?

zico10

It could also be the case that your gym sessions are causing the problems. If you are lifting heavy weights with poor technique over and over again, it's certainly something worth thinking about.

subscriber

Oryx wrote: »

Too many hard sessions, inadequate recovery, excessive workload, poor session planning. It could be lots of things.

Care to share your plan and get opinions?

Any advice on consistency, training mistakes, recovery time ect.. would be appreciated... Bearing in mind, my job requires me to do shift work which will explain why some weeks are action packed and others look plain empty...

Oryx

subscriber wrote: »

Any advice on consistency, training mistakes, recovery time ect.. would be appreciated... Bearing in mind, my job requires me to do shift work which will explain why some weeks are action packed and others look plain empty...

Your run sessions have no rhyme or reason. You go from short back to back sessions where you nurse an injury, then a gap, one 50 min, tready intervals then a half marathon then two 10k races. On legs that had shin splints a few weeks earlier. All your running seems to be done too fast with no recovery or base work. In terms of running anyway, I see no plan here at all really you seem to just get up and do what you feel like.

Your bike was okay just not enough of it till out of nowhere you whack in a 100k on the road. And doing a run speed session the day after is just plain stupid.

It seems to me you're under the impression that in order for a session to be worthwhile it has to be hard. You don't do enough aerobic work and you don't think about when you do things and why.

subscriber

Roughly speaking how many sessions per 10 day block should i be aiming for, how many of which should be aerobic and how many anerobic?. I think my trouble as well is that i try to be fit for two distances at one time(middle distance and short) this causes my training to appear chatoic with crazy long sessions and short speed sessions all mixed into one training block.

Should training be solely based on an upcoming race, how do i know how to train if i have no upcoming race?? Next up for me is great limerick run half marathon may 5th. I will then have 6 weeks of sprint and oly distance races before starting preparing for humbert..

Oryx

subscriber wrote: »

Roughly speaking how many sessions per 10 day block should i be aiming for, how many of which should be aerobic and how many anerobic?. I think my trouble as well is that i try to be fit for two distances at one time(middle distance and short) this causes my training to appear chatoic with crazy long sessions and short speed sessions all mixed into one training block.

Should training be solely based on an upcoming race, how do i know how to train if i have no upcoming race?? Next up for me is great limerick run half marathon may 5th. I will then have 6 weeks of sprint and oly distance races before starting preparing for humbert..

The key thing is that your chaotic training is not working. And sprints are all about top end speed middle distance is endurance at a pace. I don't think you can or should target both.

The bulk of your work should be easy or moderate. Like 90% or more. Particularly in your case where you need more endurance. Your speed work should be planned for when you will tolerate it best, not when you are carrying fatigue or off the back of a similar session. All tough sessions will not make you fitter, just break you, which is what you are seeing.

It helps to rotate through disciplines too.

EC1000

subscriber wrote: »

Should training be solely based on an upcoming race, how do i know how to train if i have no upcoming race?? Next up for me is great limerick run half marathon may 5th. I will then have 6 weeks of sprint and oly distance races before starting preparing for humbert..

If Humbert is your A race, you should be training specifically for that already IMHO. By all means do loads of events but you can't train specifically for all of them. Pick the one or two you care about and focus your training that way.

mrbungle

Get some professional advice. Get a coach. Get sorted. Stay injury free.

catweazle

subscriber wrote: »

I will then have 6 weeks of sprint and oly distance races before starting preparing for humbert..

It is The Humbert 2014 you have signed up for

Thats only in July you should be focusing on that and using one or two shorter races for enjoyment and to see how you are going. But only one or two - the cost of recovery and resting up for a few days beforehand isn't worth it