Coming back from a niggle without losing the block

Three days ago I reported a sore lower back on my own plan. Two runs came out, the strength session changed, the long run stayed in as a walk. By the weekend it had settled. The week cost me about 20 km. Doing nothing about it would have cost the month.

That is the whole method, and it is the opposite of what most runners over 40 do, which is to run on it for a fortnight and then stop completely.

The pain rules I use

For tendon and muscle niggles, the pain-monitoring approach used in tendon rehabilitation is the most useful guide I know: mild pain during activity is acceptable if it settles by the next morning; pain that is rising during the run, changing your stride, or worse the next day means the load was too much. Sharp pain, swelling, pain on normal walking, numbness or anything that started with a specific injury is not a niggle and gets seen properly before it gets trained on.

What stays in

• Walking, and fast walking if the niggle allows it. Time on feet is fitness too.
• Cycling or the cross-trainer at easy heart rate to keep the aerobic engine ticking.
• Every strength exercise that does not load the sore tissue. A calf niggle does not stop you deadlifting.
• Sleep and food. This is the week people eat less because they are training less, and heal slower for it.

Coming back

The return is the same shape every time: short easy runs on alternate days, pain checked the morning after each one, distance before speed, flat before hills. The long run comes back at the 30-day guardrail, which after a fortnight off means shorter than you want. Two clean weeks and the block resumes where it is, not where the calendar says it should be.

What I watch

• The morning-after pain score against the previous run, reported in the plan.
• Stride symmetry on the watch where it is recorded, because a runner protecting something changes their cadence and ground contact before they admit to it.
• Easy-run heart rate on the return runs, which tells me how much fitness the fortnight cost.
• Whether the athlete is reporting on the day it starts, or after the long run makes it undeniable.

Reporting a niggle from your plan takes about a minute and changes the week that day; how that works is on the private coaching page. The long-run ceiling that governs the return is in the progression note.

Evidence level: the pain-monitoring model comes from Silbernagel and colleagues' 2007 randomised trial in Achilles tendinopathy, where continuing to run inside the pain rules did no harm; it is applied here by analogy to other soft-tissue niggles. The four levels are how my athletes' reports are handled, set by fixed rules, not a diagnosis. Nothing here is medical advice: pain that is sharp, swollen, worsening or came from a specific injury needs a clinician, not a plan change.