CHRONIC & OVERUSE INJURIES

When someone sprains ankle, it is apparent that it is an injury and needs treatment. But when someone has ongoing niggles it’s not always clear what do do.

Chronic injuries can happen through 1 or more of the following 2 mechanisms:

➡️low-magnitude stress applied for a long duration, like, someone who only drives everywhere starts daily walks for 2 hours or someone unprepared runs a marathon.

➡️moderate-magnitude stress applied to the tissue many times, like someone who usually runs 2x a week 5k, starts running 3x a week 10km.

📈The load which can cause an injury is vastly different among individuals and depends on their level of fitness. The main thing what to look at is the sudden CHANGE in the load.

⏱Chronic injuries can occur as well after an acute injury which is not rehabilitated enough. Doing too much, too soon.

⚠️Commonly there are signs before overuse injuries, although not as apparent as with acute injuries. Let’s say, you felt your knee, back, shoulder when or after exercising. Then it became a bit niggly, but just for a very short moment. Then it lingered a bit longer. Chronic injuries creep in and it’s not always easy to tell when one started putting up with too much pain.

👂It’s not about becoming hypersensitive but rather about listening to your body and modifying physical activity in order to avoid the injury becoming chronic.

Few things to think about:

🚀 Did you increase the load suddenly? Duration, intensity, frequency or all at once maybe?

📉 Back off the load to previous level or at least don’t increase it.

👩‍⚕️If pain persists after you have reduced the load, see a physio.

⚽️🏸🎿Try crosstraining – swap one training a week to something different.

🏋️‍♀️Rethink whether you do enough of strength training. Every athlete, no matter the level, benefits from strength training and it doesn’t mean only lifting weights.

💆‍♂️Consider seeing a massage therapist as deep tissue massage can improve circulation in the chronically inflammed tissue and desensitize the hyperreactive nervous receptors.

📃See more about PHYSICAL STRESS THEORY.