An injury is physical, and you have to deal with its physical aspects. Here’s how to recover ASAP, avoid reinjury, and come back as healthy as possible.
It’s important to know why your injury occurred in the first place. Look through your training log or consider the shape of your shoes. Were you running too much? Too fast? Neglecting to cross-train? Reshape your training plan to avoid a repeat injury. If you just treat the symptoms, and not the cause, you’ll be more likely to keep getting the same injury again and again.
If you aren’t sure how to treat your injury yourself, or if it’s beyond the self-treatment stage, seek out a sports medicine or sports injury–oriented specialist or therapist. Make an appointment; ask questions and take notes. See “Physical Recovery” for more information on specialists.
You can maintain most, if not all, of your fitness when you are injured. If you can run a little, do so carefully, and take up the slack with cross-training. Otherwise, approximate your training load as closely as you can with cross-training.
You have to be careful here, because you don’t want to make your injury worse. There are many ways you can build strength and flexibility while you are injured—and doing so will not only hasten your comeback, but also lessen your chances of incurring the same injury.
If you normally run 45 minutes a day, do some activity vigorous enough to keep your heart rate for 45 minutes a day. This is critical for hanging on to your sanity, not to mention your aerobic fitness. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as it doesn’t aggravate the existing injury. Several studies suggest that if you do aerobic alternatives properly and with high enough intensity, they can maintain and even increase your fitness level during your time off.
Don’t lapse into a couch potato lifestyle, lying around, eating poorly, and gaining weight. It will make your recovery tougher, and you’ll be miserable when you do return to running. Even if you’re not ready to take on aerobic or strength training, you should be mobile enough to get up and go out for a walk. Since you’ve been a little more sedentary than usual, the best place to start is with a trip to your local market for some healthy snacks and food to counterbalance your lack of activity. Making yourself homemade meals with high protein, low-fat ingredients such as chicken and fish can help transform your body in ways exercise can’t. Substituting fresh fruits and vegetables for those salty snacks will also go a long way to keeping you healthy.
Overall, you should look at this downtime as an educational experience. When you are fully recovered and running again you will have a better understanding of your body and be well equipped to recognize and avoid those same injury pitfalls.