Returning After Long Time Off Due to Injury

How much were you running before injury? Any past injury history?

Was running about 60mpw, and had just run 17:51. No real injury history other than missing like 3 days to an Achilles flare up

I am in a very similar spot as you, but different injury location and had a period of total rest. What is working for me right now is to do mostly elliptical.

I will run some amount of time controlled and on a track/treadmill (so I can stop at the first sign of injury pain). Then I will finish the workout on the elliptical. After a couple days of feeling OK I will add 5 minutes to the running. If I start to feel any sign of the injury, I drop 5 minutes.

It is a long slow process, but it is the only thing I feel comfortable doing - especially because the pain keeps coming back.

Good luck.

What was your training like before? A typical week? Maybe try a different mix this time?

LM wrote:

Background:Basically haven't run more than 5 miles in a week for a year and a half due to a long standing groin/hip issue. It has very gradually gotten better over time, but I was never able to diagnose exactly what it was...and may still be something that needs surgery. However, it has settled down to the point where I feel healthy again.

Are you 100% healthy? If you still have pain, you should look into doing some kind of strength exercises for you groin/hip. You might not have inflammation anymore but you might have scar tissue and/or muscular imbalances.

Let me know when you find out. I've been out about a year and a half with a hamstring injury. Thought I was on the road to recovery at the beginning of January but after a couple decent faster paced runs I'm back to square one.

I had a tendency to do too much base, so a typical week was something like (obv numbers varied but generally had like a tempo. and maybe some sprint work)Mon - PM 6 easyTue - 2M up, 4M tempo, 2M downWed - 4M AM, 8M PMThu - 8M easy, maybe strides and/or flying 60 sprintsFri - 7M easySat - AM 3M easy, PM 6M easySun - 13M, possibly progression type run finishing strongIn retrospect that was bad from a training standpoint as I went from 175 and out of shape (24 min+) to 150lb/18:21 in about 8 months, then just kinda did base for a year before getting injured. Got stale and didn't progress much.

I am pain free for daily activities, and when I have run occasionally I haven't noticed anything either...but if the injury, or imbalances that may have resulted in said injury still exist, symptoms might still return in a few months.

Over the past month I've been doing what I can for the hip, some of the exercises recommended by NOP trainer guy, as well as general hip strengthening.

I wish I knew more about scar tissue, but sadly I don't. And to be honest, exactly what caused the problem was never isolated. Initially it seemed like a groin strain, but between trying to come back too fast and a nasty slip on ice I further aggravated it. Had an MRI about 8 months ago and they found slight inflammation at the pubis, as well as slight impingement (both of which the orthopedist thought were not the cause). A labral tear was not found, though it was not an MRI arthogram.

Impingement was one of my big worries, as that doesn't really self resolve. But the fact that FADIR/FABER (approx. 85% of impingement cases have reproducable symptoms) can be did not reproduce the pain, and the fact that over time it improved may speak against this. Not necessarily though.

It was never diagnosed officially, because as a broke college student I don't have money to go out hunting doctor opinions or trying a bunch of physical therapy.

As far as that goes, all I can do is hope this doesn't come back, as I return to training. Elliptical, cycling, stairmaster, etc. absolutely do not both the injury as I have trained pretty much hour+ a day with hard sessions throughout past year and a half.

That really sucks :(

Injuries in general are awful, and the undiagnosable ones are really frustrating. It definitely took me 6+ months to accept that I was going to have to wait this one out, maybe until I have money for medical care/surgery. At least with a stress fracture you know you wait 8 weeks and then you can get back at it.

I'll certainly let you know. I may even update this as I try to try to make my way back, but then again that's a bit spammy on the boards.

In general what I am thinking right now is a very gradual return over the next 4 months to about 40 mpw. So basically a gradual addition of 10 miles per week, maintaining volume on the elliptical doing so.

Not sure if I should do anything other than easy runs, such as tempo and/or stride/sprint type stuff...though if I do either it wouldn't be until a month+ in.

Thoughts?

Seems okay to me...maybe a bit conservative. Hard to know tho

Dunno about the sprinting...

bump

Time for a little update.

Been doing a little bit of running, about 10-20 mpw. Still thinking something like 5-10 miles per month increase.

No workouts, other than perhaps a race now and again until until I get back to at least several months pain free.

Still pain free so far. Just going to have to keep my fingers crossed on that one. Ran a 5k today in 18:51, and pretty happy with that, as I basically have't run for a year and a half, and am 10 lbs over what I was pre injury, and probably 20+ lbs over ideal weight. Currently 5'8" and 160

Seems like I haven't lost any fitness, and if anything I had gained fitness. My best guess is that I'm still new enough to training (had been running for about a year and a half before injury) that 5-8 hours a week of elliptical/biking for 18 months was sufficient to build enough fitness to offset the loss of running specific fitness/weight gain.

Very, very glad I trained consistently while injured. God knows where I might be if I hadn't and been out this long.