Why Resting Your Running Injury Isn’t Fixing It

Yeah, sure.

And so to address the age factor, we know that as you get older, things slow down and it truly depends on what type of injury we are dealing with.

So if we look at something like an acute muscle strain, so if you've just, you know, pulled a hamstring and truly the muscle, not the tendon where the muscle attaches at the knee and the hip, an acute muscle strain is not something that should be inhibited by age.

You know, muscle strains are, recover well with good blood supply.

Blood supply is not inhibited by age.

Muscles can be loaded.

You can load beyond 50.

So something like that, age should not have an impact on it.

But if we're looking at our more common injuries that we do see in endurance athletes, our tendinopathies in particular.

So previously, people might be familiar with tendinitis, like Achilles tendinitis, tendinitis, which are now called tendinopathy.

So same as in the foot, like a plantar fasciopathy, similar type of common injury, Achilles tendinopathies, hamstring tendinopathies.

I see them all the time.

Those injuries do bear an age factor because of the type of tissue that a tendon is.

a tendon is made up of collagen fibers and over time these collagen fibers naturally degenerate it's just something we have to accept however that's not to say we can't turn a tendon around so a tendinopathy yes it's more likely something to pop up because of age because it's It's on the back foot a little bit with the kind of quality and tensile strength in the collagen fibers.

But with the appropriate rehabilitation, you can most definitely still get some new collagen fibers to be laid down for them to stand upright again after they've gone all a little bit skew, which happens.

So there's an age factor, but it's not to say that we just then accept it and it can't be resolved beyond that if we're looking at the common injuries.

And are there kind of recovery things, you know, does things like sleep and nutrition, work demands, do these also like play into this as we get older?

Absolutely.

I think those are a no brainer at any age, really, but become more impactful with age.

So particularly sleep, everything we do as a human being is contingent on sleep.

If you sleep well, you eat well.

If you sleep well, you train well.

If you sleep well, you recover well.

So sleep is absolutely a number one priority.

And if you can get that squared away, the other things tend to fall in place a heck of a lot better.