4:03 miler making a comeback: How to avoid injury?

Just be as progressive as possible. Start off with increase in volume with workouts that are a little difficult but not to hard and then slowly add more intensity so your body can adapt much better. I would also suggest aqua jogging for some of your mileage.

Your hamstring problem might be due to your slow cadence putting extra strain, although it got you to 4:03, just give it a thought

Galloping Gazelle wrote:

Your hamstring problem might be due to your slow cadence putting extra strain, although it got you to 4:03, just give it a thought

I agree, it might be due to over striding and pulling your body with foot contact instead of just pushing off.

Thanks for the feedback thus far, but I need to re-explain:My cadence is 200-215 at 5:00 pace or faster. My reference to a slow cadence was saying that I felt like hill repeats were not increasing my speed endurance or top-end speed, but I'm not sure if that's true.The point of maximal loading on your hamstring is during eccentric contraction which occurs right before your foot hits the ground, not when you are pushing off. That's why I never got injured while doing hill repeats (it's slow speed and mostly push-off), but when I started doing work at faster than 28s per 200m the injury came back.

tryna roonalot wrote:

Galloping Gazelle wrote:

Your hamstring problem might be due to your slow cadence putting extra strain, although it got you to 4:03, just give it a thought

I agree, it might be due to over striding and pulling your body with foot contact instead of just pushing off.

hamstringrunnerguy wrote:

Thanks for the feedback thus far, but I need to re-explain:

My cadence is 200-215 at 5:00 pace or faster. My reference to a slow cadence was saying that I felt like hill repeats were not increasing my speed endurance or top-end speed, but I'm not sure if that's true.

The point of maximal loading on your hamstring is during eccentric contraction which occurs right before your foot hits the ground, not when you are pushing off. That's why I never got injured while doing hill repeats (it's slow speed and mostly push-off), but when I started doing work at faster than 28s per 200m the injury came back.

tryna roonalot wrote:

I agree, it might be due to over striding and pulling your body with foot contact instead of just pushing off.

Then your hamstrings are not strong enough to handle the force. A good hamstring exercise is to get a yoga ball and lay on the ground and left your butt up while keeping your upper back on the ground

Could be an issue with aggressively adding speedwork when you're not ready- not enough detail about your training to come to any serious conclusion. Why not get a coach?

training some form of speed year round fixed my injury woes. Maybe start out with some 50m repeats @800 effort and 100m repeats @mile effort, and slowly progress from there.

Take a month to adapt to the speed, then raise the intensity a little. That way, you slowly adapt to the physical demands of speed without overdoing it.

if I were you I'd start a serious lifting program focused on your hips. Sounds to me like you are compensating for some weakness/imbalance in your hips.

So I would do some research on strenghtening your flexors, glutes, quads, etc. While you are strengthening up, try not to run at full tilt or however you tend to hurt yourself.

...and do some research on the piriformis - when it is tight it can affect your hamstring. Easily treatable, that one.

Thanks for the advice. I think this was my main problem - doing too much too soon for speedwork.I never thought about the piriformis, thanks for the tip.

bonkers wrote:

training some form of speed year round fixed my injury woes. Maybe start out with some 50m repeats @800 effort and 100m repeats @mile effort, and slowly progress from there.

Take a month to adapt to the speed, then raise the intensity a little. That way, you slowly adapt to the physical demands of speed without overdoing it.