General Tips on Reducing Injury Risk
Just practical observations – no biomechanics or research in this one
This is something I first wrote for a Green Racing Project athlete during some on-your-own training time away. I’ve added a bit for this post to make it Part 4 of 4 of the injury series. I have some “exercise spotlight” posts coming up next for some new videos I did in the spring, and we’ll get back to the velocity-based training series too. I welcome your questions, comments, and requests for topics as always.
#1. Be mindful of fatigue overlap
Most injuries occur from a “pile-up” effect, rather than from one singular decision or event. This “straw that broke the camel’s back” incident typically occurs from compounding effects of some combination of sport training, strength training, recreational physical activity or activities of daily life, non-training stress, and lack of adequate recovery (food, water, sleep, enjoyment).
In my experience coaching college athletes, the GRP, and masters athletes alike, most “I tweaked something” reports begin with an unusual manual labor event, a new form of physical recreation taken just a little too far, or a lot of time spent sitting due to studies, work, or travel. Manual labor and off-training activity tends be a “triple-threat” of new movements, increased volume and/or intensity, and often decreased recovery via insufficient food, water, or sleep to make up for the novelty and increase. Increased sitting time tends to come with increased non-training stress, such as while cramming for a test, jamming on a work deadline, or dealing with traffic or air travel.
Avoid the pile-up by increasing the recovery and/or modifying the training load.
#2. First time doing something, or first time in a while? Take it easy and/or adjust training load.
New activities result in different stress on different parts of the body. It might all feel the same to the athlete at the broad level of strength and fitness, but we need to think at the micro-level here with how the tendons, ligaments, and other muscular and skeletal structures experience and heal from the new stress. We often cannot feel or exactly predict this during training, so the initial training needs to be easier than we think it “should.”
Consider each new strength training exercise, form of sport or cross-training, or significant adjustment to technique (or rigging) as a micro return-to-train phase. Even if you don’t do something like the 50/30 or 50/30/20/10 progression, at least take the first session or week with the new thing a little easier before pushing it to the same intensity as a familiar mode of training.
The best-case scenario is gradually bringing up the new form of training while “backfilling” our total training volume with familiar forms of training. For example, do a shorter or easier session with the new rigging or different technique, then get the remaining physiological training in via familiar cross-training. If you are changing from barbell conventional deadlift to hex bar deadlift, do an easy 5x5 for technique on the first session with the new deadlift, and then hit the familiar assistance work for the legs, hips, and back.
When we can’t reduce the new mode, adjust training load elsewhere to avoid fatigue overlap. I tend to sharply reduce strength training during training camps for this reason. I know athletes are typically experiencing a change in mode, an increase in workload, a change in routine from the new location, and often performance pressure. If we can’t reduce those risk factors, the next-best option is to reduce stress from the more controllable strength training.
#3. Manage frequency, volume, intensity, and specificity
Good sport and strength training programs manage these main four programming variables inherently or intentionally. We can consider these via the broad definitions below for any form of activity in sport, strength training, or recreation and daily life:
Frequency: How many times in a given period we do an activity or any training (per day, per week, per month, etc.)
Volume: How much total work we do in a given activity or across all training (reps, minutes, meters, etc.)
Intensity: How close to max effort we do a given activity or across all training (RPE, percent-1RM, heart-rate, pace, etc.)
Specificity: How close our training is to a given task (exercise selection, mode of training, duration of exertion, etc.)
We can generally only be high in two categories at a time. If we go high in three or all four categories, it needs to be for a very short amount of time or burnout or injury is likely to occur. Going high in all four is essentially how we overreach before tapering. Overreaching for too long without a taper to correct for the fatigue becomes overtraining. The categories interact, so we need to be mindful of overlap here too. For example, frequency and volume tend to go together, as more sessions in a given period also tends to increase total work in that same period.
#4. Slow progress is often better than leaps and bounds
There’s undeniable allure in the reach goal or big PR. Unfortunately, the reach goal often involves reach training, or training at level beyond what the athlete is prepared for, and this increases injury risk. Even when achieved, the natural question after a big PR is, what’s next? Does the reach training become the new normal training to hold this level of performance? Is that sustainable without overtraining and regressing or experiencing injury? Do we increase the reach training even further for another big PR at the next test?
Chipping away a few pounds, a couple reps, or a few seconds or splits is often the better way to go for long-term progress. Celebrate the little PR. In most cases, there’s another test or opportunity to perform. Not always, but the exceptions are usually clear. In training and performance, try to establish a baseline, then exceed that baseline by a little bit, then a little bit again, and a little bit again. Gradually raising the standard will ultimately lead to a bigger peak than trying to hit a big peak every time, plus reduce risk of an injury derailing all training.
A key point in our “athlete health initiative” has been that it takes a long time and a lot of training to achieve one’s ultimate potential in rowing. Physical and mental health are prerequisites to be able to at least survive, if not thrive from training session upon session, week upon week, month upon month, season upon season, year upon year, and even Olympic cycle upon Olympic cycle.