Hi. I've had a longstanding glute injury and been receiving lots of treatment over 4 years. Started in right glute/hip, healed with PT, then shifted to left glute/hamstring. I've had extensive PT and now receiving prolotherapy injections, which have helped but not cured pain. Basically when I started with left glute, all lower body activity caused pain. Now I can do all kinds of strenuous exercise other than running without pain (e.g., 2.5 hours of biking, an hour of hard elliptical, etc). I can also walk long distances without pain. Every time I start to run, I get very mild pain after about 5 minutes, which gets increasingly worse through maybe 2-4 mile test runs on asphalt.
So I realized that I have never had to come back from a long term injury and maybe not doing this right. Just last week, I started a new routine that includes biking 30 minutes to a dirt road, then walking 15 minutes, then doing one minute of walking, one minute of running, for another 25 or 30 minutes. Then biking another 45 minutes home. This seemed easier to tolerate than starting with 2-4 miles. My hope is that I can do this until I can accomplish without pain, then increase. (Note: doc says that injections designed to bring inflammation to the area to help healing--I can work out with mild pain as long as no sharp pain and pain goes away within 2 hours, which it does).
So my question is whether, when you are returning from an injury, you should run every day, or every other day. And also: should you try to increase a little each week, or each day, and about how much? Should I just use pain as a guide and stick with this until no pain then move up? I'm just looking for a general guide on return to run after injury training and thoughts on how much is too much, etc.
I've stayed in good physical condition and have run throughout the 4 years of injury to a greater or lesser degree but mostly not running for the last 6 months. I'm still in good shape and running doesn't bother me in any other way than this pain.
Also with the elliptical + biking--I had this same type of milder pain when I first started with those, but I just went easier until I was able to go harder without pain. Same thing with walking (used to hurt to walk long distances but with some walking that went away). So I'm hoping to get that same sort of experience with return to running.