Overuse Injuries - What Causes Them and How to Avoid Them - Part 1

This is the time of year all athletes should be working on improving technique and becoming more fit and balanced. Sports injuries are the result of forces that become too much for bone or soft tissue to absorb and adapt too and therefore cause failure. All sports injuries are the result from an acute or sudden force that is too much for the tissue to overcome (e.g. a sprained ankle or broken bone) or from repetitive forces that overtime create so much stress that the tissues finally fail partially or completely.

These are most commonly known as overuse injuries or repetitive motion injuries. It is these types of injuries that most parents, coaches and athletes do not understand or know how to prevent. For this reason these are the types of injuries that we will focus our preventative techniques on.

Three categories or causes of overuse injuries:

1) Increased training load/volume
2) Inadequate warm-up (this actually results in an acute type of injury)
3) Biomechanical imbalances/improper technique

In Part one of this three part series we will discuss increased training load or volume as a cause for overuse injury.

Increased training load or volume occurs in early season when runners go from not doing much running or very little running outside. The switch to outside with the nicer weather often leads to a rapid increase in training volume. In addition, running outside requires that our legs do more work to turnover due to the friction of the road and the fact that it doesn't move under us like a treadmill belt.

What is the best way to go about preventing too rapid of a training load or volume? Be smart and follow the following guidelines. Make sure that activity increases occur in small increments of no more than 10 percent increase per week in total volume. If you have been running a total of 10 miles a week than you should not increase to more than 11 miles the following week. Using periodization for workouts with a 3 week build phase and then a fall back week in volume also helps prevent overuse injuries. Total volume of running, biking, or lifting is important, but one must also consider intensity.

So when doing speed work for example, first make sure that you are challenging yourself with an appropriate pace. If you are going out to do quarter mile intervals at 5k pace, make sure that you have raced a 5k recently so you know what pace you should be attempting to run at. Running at to slow a pace will not allow for fitness gains. Running at too rapid a pace for the intervals will result in inability to complete the workout and/or too much trainign stress and subsequent overuse injury risk. Once you have determined the appropriate intensity for your intervals you must also consider the volume (total time of each interval and or distance).

Again, make sure not to increase the number of intervals or the total time/distance of all the intervals by much more than 10% per week. Remember fitness gains occur during the rest period after we have caused muscle fatigue and breakdown. If you fail to give your body adequate rest and recovery time, including putting in the proper recovery fluids and nutrients you leave yourself at higher risk of an overuse injury.

In part 2 of this series we will discuss the warm-up.