Getting fit quick after injury

high intensity with low to moderate mileage. as little easy/jogging as possible. Hit the track hard, three workouts a week(one tempo run)

Run hills (provided that your injury did not involve your knees or achilles). Hill running works on many areas of fitness at once (endurance, strength, speed) and can actually be less taxing on your body, depending upon what kind of injury you are returning from. Try to run a good mix of short and long hills and really focus on engaging your gluteals.

Also, lift a little more (especially focusing hamstrings/quads and core). Lifting helps you regain some of the elastic recoil your muscles lose when you are injured. This will be especially important if you are trying to get ready for a 1500.

Focus on turnover during all of your runs. Try to get that "snappy" feeling back into your legs. Hill running and lifting will do this naturally, but it also helps to be aware of the feeling and consciously increase stride rate.

I hope this helps.

Short intervals and hills. Shannon Butler talked of getting into shape fast by doing 1 minute on/1 off on grass after a long lay-off.

Thanks for the responses. So I shouldn't be doing long runs? I was running about 60-70 miles a week before my injury, so should I keep it 40-50 now? I'm kind of cautious about doing hills because I was 2 weeks out of my hill phase when I got injured, and there are only very short, very steep hills in my within a 45 minute drive of me.

Here is the schedule that was on the link. My only worries about this are A) doing lots of fast stuff (not necessarily hard because most of it is really short) back to back without recovery days in between.

and B) Lack of a long run or any maintenance road runs.

So does that schedule look good? Should I be doing long runs? Should I still be doing maintenance runs on the road?

Day 1

3 minute distance run x 6 at 80 percent of 3 mins.

Day 2

100m runs 3 secs slower than best with pulse recovery of 120bpm

Day 3

10 minutes of running 400s at 3k pace with 45 secs rest.

Day 4

10 second runs with 20 second rests for 30 minutes.

Day 5

200m runs 6 secs slower than best with pulse recovery of 120bpm.

Day 6

10 minutes of running 800s at 3k pace with 90 secs rest.

Day 7

Rest

Go for a super long run.(for you) Say your longest run before the injury was 19 miles. Run a 20 miler and don't worry about pace. The next day, do a bunch of hills sprints and easy hill running. Then mozy back into whatever mileage you were running pre-injury.

That schedule has waaaaaaay too much intensity. A key part of developing fitness is allowing the body to recover after an intense workout. If you don't let yourself recover, you will not have the chance to adapt to the stress of your increased training and will probably just get hurt again. If you want to work out more often, you can do a workout or two on the elliptical or in the pool every week in addition to your running workouts. This will help you improve quickly while keeping your risk of injury pretty low. It also switches up the type of stress you are subjecting your body to, so you can recover better while still training more. I've trained pretty successfully off of 1 or 2 hard running workouts per week supplemented with up to 3 elliptical workouts (usually tempo stuff). If you are running 40-50 mpw, why not add 10-30 alternative training "miles"? Also, you can go for a lot longer on the elliptical/bike than you can running.

A note about the elliptical: you can make an elliptical feel a lot more like running if you put the incline all the way down to 1 and increase the resistance. Keep your stride rate high: between 180 and 220.

I could help you a lot more if I knew what type of injury you had and maybe your insight on what kind of training you've responded well to in the past. Here are some questions that may help us help you:

What injury are you coming back from?

What kind of mileage were you running when you set your PR's?

Do you get injured often?

Are you a heel runner or a toe runner? (this is useful in determining whether hill work will be more/less stressful to you)

Fitness-wise, what are your strengths and weaknesses (speed, endurance, pace changing, kicking, etc.)?

Sorry for all the questions, but it really will help to know these things :)

To give you the best advice, you need to keep training in a sensible manner. You had to take a 3 week break because of an injury. That meant that your body was trying to tell you something. Just like you are not going to drastically improve your fitness in the next few weeks, you did NOT LOSE a drastic amount of fitness in your 3 weeks of rest.

According to Jack Daniels,PhD you can estimate where your current fitness is at by using the following formula:

5 Days: 100/100

6 Days: 99.7/99.8

7 Days: 99.4/99.7

10 Days: 98.5/99.2

14 Days: 97.3/98.6

21 Days: 95.2/97.6

28 Days: 93.1/96.5

35 Days: 91.0/95.5

The first number represents your current percentage of fitness if you did NO cross training. So for the 21 days you took off, you would be at 95.2% of the fitness you left off with. That is hardly any loss! But since you x-trained some, you are at 97.6%. It's not surprising that you felt like crap on your first run back. Just be patient and have faith in your body and fitness. It's mentally hard but you are not out of shape! Do not start out with too much intensity after recovering from an injury. Being able to race at 97.6% fitness (which will probably go back up to around 100% in the next month anyways) is a lot better than getting injuried again!

Another forumla you might want is one for weight lost or gained during time off from running:

(A) Your pre-setback weight in kilograms

(weight in lbs. X .454)

(B) Enter your pre-setback V-Dot

(C) Multiply A X B to get C.

(D) Divide C by your current weight in kilograms to get D,

which is your new weight-adusted Vdot.

Also, to give you an idea of how you should ease back into your training, Daniels suggests the following based upon what category setback you are dealing with (you would be a category II -- 6-28 days off):

Week 1: Run 50% of your weekly mileage that you averaged before the inury

Week 2: Run 75% of mileage

Because you are worried about being in "racing shape," if you want to incorporate some workouts I would suggest doing so after you complete at least 1 week of easy running. To incorporate speed you can do some 25-40 second pick ups in your runs. This will help you get your legs back under you. I don't suggest sprinting for 40 seconds all out. Just eas3 into what feels like your mile race pace and then slow back down to easy pace. In the second week I would try to adust to a harder effort by starting off with a shorter tempo run. These are great for building fitness and will also give you a good indicator of how your body feels at close to race pace.

I would suggest being German Fernandez.

Thanks for the great replies.

In response to Ickybana:

My first three years in High School was an interval freak and my max mileage was probably 40. My senior year, and this past year (I'm a freshman in college), I've upped my mileage (as high as 100mpw in the summer or winter) and my times have dropped and my overall fitness level has improved tremendously.

I'm not 100% sure of the injury I'm coming back from because I haven't gotten the results of my MRI back yet but John L Parker describes my symptoms perfectly in this article:

http://www.thestick.net/Articles/Calf_%20Heart_%20Attack.htm

Basically compartment syndrome

I was averaging 60-70 mpw when I got injured, but the 7 days before my injury was only 58. My first track workout was that week and I wanted to make sure I had enough recovery so that I wouldn't get injured; didn't work out too well

My last major injury was my sophomore year of HS- runner's knee.

I'm more of a heel runner.

Before I had upped my mileage, my major weakness was endurance; as the distance increase my PR's were relatively slower. Now they're pretty much even across the board. Now my major weakness is kicking- if it comes down to the last 200 in a 1500 or last 600 in a 5k I will get outkicked. I did about 3 weeks of hillwork 2 weeks before I got injured because I thought this would help my speed. Like I said, these were pretty steep, short hills (~100-150 meters?).

Thanks for reading through all this, I really appreciate it

You are in luck, because I have dealt extensively with calf/shin issues! Since you are a heel runner, I take back what I said about recommending hills - especially since we are dealing with a calf injury. I would also recommend against the plan you posted previously, with this new knowledge about your injury. People who tend to heel strike often run into trouble with shorter, faster repeats because these workouts force you up onto your toes and overwork your calves. You don't want to re-injure your calves with too much sprinting, so it may be beneficial to look at other methods of recruiting fast-twitch muscle fibers. Lifting will definitely help with your leg-speed and kick, and it will be much less risky than doing all of those reps :)

The elliptical may be an especially useful tool for you. I know it sucks a lot, but you'll only have to do it for a month and it can really improve your fitness with virtually no injury risk. Cycling is also an option, but is not as similar to running.

Keep your long run, as it sounds like distance isn't really the problem for you. Try to keep things flat for awhile (even gradual ups and downs can really aggravate a calf injury.) You could even mix cross training and running to get all of the aerobic benefit without the extra pounding (say, run for an hour and then elliptical for an hour right afterward.)

A strategy that has worked for me when I am trying to get in shape really fast (like right now, actually) is to focus my training efforts on what I feel is my strongest point. This may sound counterintuitive, but your strongest area of fitness is the area that will generally respond the fastest to your training. You say that endurance used to be your weakness, but now your finishing kick is what gets you. Based on this information, it seems that you are more of a strength runner (can really hammer a pace, but not for the longer distances and pace changes may be difficult for you). If this is true, I would focus your training efforts on intervals of 2-5 minutes with fairly short recoveries. It may be beneficial to do these on grass. Even though you'll be racing on a track, working out on grass will be just fine. It may even make you stronger! It is also a good idea to just run for time at first and not worry too much about your actual pace. You don't want to get discouraged over a slow interval time, so just focus on running hard. Do your tempo runs on the elliptical or in the pool and maybe one more interval workout on the elliptical late in the week if you are not too beat up.

A sample training plan could be:

Day 1: w/u 2-3 miles 6 - 8x3:00 (on grass) w/1:00-1:30 recovery, c/d 2-3 miles. Add in elliptical if you are trying to bump up your volume.

Day 2: Easy 4-9 miles (a large range, I know, but it all depends on how you feel after the intervals.) If you want, you can do an elliptical workout in the PM on this day, maybe 20:00 tempo or a ladder workout.

Day 3: 6-10 miles + elliptical if you feel so inclined.

Day 4: AM: w/u 2-3 miles, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 5:00, 3:00, 2:00, 1:00 ladder w/ 1:30 rest between everything (this means you'll be running the 1:00 ones pretty hard.) 2-3 mile c/d. PM: 30-60 minutes elliptical

Day 5: AM: 4-10 miles easy (if you are sore, you can do the equivalent time on the elliptical.) PM: elliptical workout: 10x 1:00 hard/1:00 medium. This is a good little fartlek workout that I use when I am very tired and just need to get something in.

Day 6: Long run of 10-16 depending on how long your long runs were before you got hurt. If you want extra aerobic work, add some elliptical on to the end of this run. If you are feeling sore or beat up, replace this run or part of it with cross training.

Day 7: Rest or cross train.

Notes: add strides, weights and core work wherever you feel they fit in.

It is okay to do workouts on consecutive days, as long as one of the workouts is cross-trained. Don't feel like you have to work out hard every day of the week. It may seem like this will get you in shape faster, but it will just wear you down. Take your recovery days as seriously as you take your hard days, and you are looking pretty good.

Also, something that may help with the calf tightness is self-administered ART (active-release-therapy, I think). Basically, you use a tennis ball or baseball to put pressure on muscular trigger points and this helps release the adhesions and knots in the muscles. Start by lying on your floor, face up. Put the tennis ball under the meatiest part of your calf, right in the middle. Roll it around until you find a tender spot. When you find a tender spot, cross your other leg over the leg being worked on and use it to push your calf into the ball. Just hold this position for awhile, in the same spot. Your calf may start to cramp, but be strong through this - it is part of the releasing process. Eventually, the pain will subside and you will feel an "untwisting" sensation in your calf muscle. When this happens, you can move to the next knot. If you would rather use your fingers to apply pressure to the knots, that is okay too. I just prefer the tennis ball because these treatments can take a long time and my hands get tired :) Do these treatments after you've done your run for the day and try not to be too active on your legs for at least a few hours after you do this massage on yourself. You may be very, very sore from this at first, but usually the soreness dissipates after about 12 hours. It may linger around for a whole day, but really it should feel better overnight.

Wow, okay, now that I have written you a book, I think I'll go to bed! Please let me know what you think about these suggestions and if they could work for you. Also, if you have any more calf-injury related questions, I am your go-to person :)

Here's to big comebacks in a short amount of time :)

I'm actually coming back from that identical calf injury as well. Already tried to come back once and ended up re-injuring my calf by running too much too soon, so had to take another week or so off and now i'm taking a bit slower approach to coming back. Hoping to just keep running a little more and more but continuing with the cross training. Don't think i'm ready for that many miles running as is suggested in this routine but will definitely be working up to it, looks like a good amount of work which is what i'll need.Thanks