Nick Symmonds Update: 100% Healthy, Back Training and Lifting
by: LetsRun.com
September 2, 2014
Last Friday we noticed it was the one year anniversary of World Championship 800m silver medallist Nick Symmonds‘ Zurich Diamond League victory and posted a thread on our message board saying as much.
Nick Symmonds
Nick Symmonds’ Brooks Beast coach Danny Mackey saw the thread and wrote in with an update on Nick. Nick has been injured in 2014 and missed the entire outdoor season. Mackey’s email speaks for itself:
“I caught your thread about the Zurich 800 and figured it would be relevant to shoot you an update on Nick’s progress:
This winter Nick had some tendonitis in his knee that was lingering. It started the week of that 4 x 800 relay in Boston, if it was not a relay he would not have raced to be honest, but with the other Beasts there he did not want to let them down so he raced on it. Then knee and entire hip were really tight by the time USA’s and World’s came around. It was to the point where he couldn’t train without a ton of pain so we had to back it down. Thankfully, even though it took longer than we wanted, it was a simple fix of some body work and basic flexibility type drills to get him going again.
Now Nick is 100% and about 7 weeks back into running and lifting. Today he actually had his first “measured” type of workout. He did 6 x 1k on soft surface very controlled and he’s getting stronger.
As for this year, we might pick a low-key off-distance type race to put something on the calendar this Fall and have a focus, but everything will be simply building back for next outdoor track season.
Let me know if you have any questions.”
We wrote Danny back and asked if the 5th Avenue Mile might be an option for Nick, but Danny said that was too big a race and too soon, that a road race or cross country race was more likely. He wrote, “We are actually thinking of some road race options or a cross country race (that’s all there is in the Fall anyway), then probably a short distance time trail. The whole intention is to have a goal mentally for Nick, for us to continue to build on our coach-athlete relationship and to build back his “foundation” for next outdoor season. Too many times I’ve seen athletes come off an injury and only train for many months for it to backfire because the stimulus is too stagnant or they lost the mental routine of competing. ”
Thanks to Danny for the update, and hopefully we see Nick competing again soon.