Should I Rest or Run on My Injury?
If you’re training for a race and get injured you’re definitely wondering if you have to rest or if you can keep running. Most doctors will give you an automatic “rest” “don’t run”... and this advice can make you want to avoid the doctor until after your race.
Well, the good news is you don’t always have to rest. Keep reading to learn how to decide if you should rest or run. If you want to know results based on your specific needs take the quiz now.
In this article:
Questions to ask yourself
Does the pain happen at the beginning, middle, end, or long after a run?
Does the pain get better as I keep moving?
Does the pain get worse as I keep moving?
Does the pain keep me up at night?
Does the pain go away with rest?
Let’s go through these.
When does the pain happen?
The timing of the pain will tell you what your body needs. Maybe it needs more warm up, something to get everything going. Or maybe you’re stopping too abruptly and you need to do some cool down. Maybe you’re stiffening up during a run and need to move your joints and muscles through a bigger range of motion.
Does the pain get better as you move around?
Pain that gets better during a run is completely normal and manageable. Pain at the beginning of a run can be from muscles that aren’t ready to run, if you’ve done too much the days leading up to this run or maybe you slept funny.
Does the pain get worse as you move around?
Pain that gets worse during a run is a warning to you. Pain that keeps getting worse needs to be addressed. It may be that it needs some extra TLC and doesn’t need a complete rest, but you should stop what you’re doing if it’s getting worse.
Does the pain keep you up at night?
Pain that keeps you up at night is another warning. Your body is telling you there is a lot of irritation and inflammation. Inflammation levels get worse at night as your cortisol levels fluctuate with your sleep-wake cycle.
Does the pain go away with rest?
Pain that goes away when you stop what you’re doing and/or you rest and also doen’t keep you up at night is a manageable pain.
Should I rest my injury?
Pain that keeps you up at night needs rest and medical attention. If you have so much pain that you can’t get comfortable and you can’t sleep because of the pain: stop running and go see your healthcare provider.
Temporarily rest & Re-evaluate
Pain that gets worse as you keep going needs to be addressed. If you’re running and the pain isn’t getting better or it’s getting worse as you keep going: stop what you’re doing.
Take a few days to rest.
If the rest helps and you feel better and feel like you can run again do a test run.
A test run should be the exact distance that you know your injury can tolerate without flaring up. This is important to know this distance because you don’t want to poke the bear, so-to-speak.
You can do this a few ways by basing it off how far you can walk pain free or doing the Living Room Test. If you aren’t ready to do a test run yet: cross train. Do a cross training activity that doesn’t hurt, yet works your body as if you were running.
Run & Cooldown/Stretch
Pain that happens toward the end of the run or after you’re done running means you stopped too abruptly. Your body didn’t have a chance to go from running to nothing. You can keep running, and incorporate a cooldown walk and proper static stretching. A proper cooldown and stretching routine should take about 20-30 minutes.
Run & Warm-Up
Pain that happens at the beginning of a run and gets better as you keep going means you went from doing nothing to running full force too quickly.
This could be your muscles are cramping, they feel like lead and are super heavy or your joints are stiff and tight. Incorporate a solid warm up to get your muscles and joints ready to run.
A solid warm up should take 10 minutes or more. It depends on your fitness level and a warm-up will always be complete once your heart rate is 20+ beats higher than your resting heart rate and you feel like you’re getting warmed and flush.
It’s important to know whether you should rest or if you can keep running. I don’t think 100% of the time you need to rest and that’s why I go through these scenarios and more with my clients. Of course there are times that you absolutely need to rest, like with a broken bone, tore muscle or tendon and stress fractures. So if you have those things per your healthcare provider you need to rest for the proper amount of time so those things can heal. But, also check with your healthcare provider or rehab professional to see what cross training you can do in the meantime to keep up your fitness.
Anyway, like I said I don’t believe everyone needs to rest, there are instances that you could keep running. To know which one you should do take the quiz here.