Dealing with injury: adapting your training and the power of rest
If you find yourself frustrated at having to adapt or reduce your training because of an injury, you're not alone.
Many of you probably know that my journey to hybrid fitness started with running. I love running. It's one of my strengths when it comes to HYROX racing. But because of a positive bias on social media, fewer of you will know that I have had multiple setbacks over the past few years where I have been unable to run.
I've had issues with "shin splints" or medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS) for years. It's basically an overuse injury of the shin area common for runners and, in the past, I've made them worse by continuing to run and ramping up my mileage too quickly, leading to stress fractures, which are not so good.
I will be honest and admit that it is incredibly frustrating as an athlete, or as someone who loves to exercise, to be told to REST. I was stubborn. It took me a very long time (and multiple physiotherapists, orthopaedic doctors, an MRI scan, and countless people telling me the same thing) to understand the importance of REST. And so, more often than not, I would "manage" my shin pain by reducing my running until I deemed it less painful, more "manageable". Not the best decision, but I always justified it with "I'll rest after this race" or "it's not as bad as last time".
Insoles, cushioned shoes, running on treadmill to reduce impact, calf compression sleeves, increasing my running cadence and adjusting my running gait, ibuprofen, ice, stretching, foam rolling, rehab exercises and resistance training, massage gun, physio massage and needle, shockwave therapy - I've tried them all, and I still use a combination of these to help relieve symptoms. But when it's already bad, REST is the only way forward. I've finally accepted it.
In fact, I've found my groove by replacing running with indoor cycling. Although I am training towards HYROX (which doesn't include any cycling), it's a structured part of my training at the moment - in addition to strength-building - as part of recovery from shin pain. In the last six weeks, I ran less than 5km/week, and I will not run at all for another month. In the meantime, I train on the bike three times a week (every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings). I've found that for me, it's the best alternative to running to maintain a high VO2 max and high levels of cardio fitness, because:
I can "switch off" and get into the rhythm of pushing the pedals to the music
I like the quantifiable data - you can measure your pace, total distance and wattage, and compare your efforts
It builds muscular endurance - think doing mini leg presses, continuously
It's low impact to allow for recovery
Swimming, rowerg and skierg also work (and I do some erg training, too), but I enjoy the spin classes at my gym.
I'll give you an example - in September and October of 2023, my shin pain was so bad it hurt to walk or touch my inner shins. I was running a lot to prepare for HYROX Singapore in early October, and the week before the race, I had a couple of shockwave sessions and was taking ibuprofen every day. I stopped running after the race, replacing it with cycling and just a couple of runs. At HYROX Hong Kong in late November, I broke the APAC women doubles record with my partner Clare Cheung, with a time of 1h02. (Cycling works, guys!) It then took me another month to completely be free of shin pain.
I still have much to learn and I may never be rid permanently of my shin splints. I would be lying if I said that I haven't worried about losing my running speed, but I have slowly learnt to stop running and let them recover at an early stage, so that I can do what I enjoy pain-free earlier rather than later.
Injuries are discouraging, and it's annoying to change your routine, but the sooner you do it, the better. Best of luck to all of you out there battling with injuries!
