Part 2: Track your training.

Consistent training is crucial to developing injury resistance and advancing performance. When evaluating a running client, I want to know if and how they are tracking their training, what variables they are observing, and if there is a plan. Why? injuries often lag training errors by a few days to a couple of weeks. Recognizing patterns in the training history and learning to correct past training errors is an injury risk reduction strategy.

In order to establish consistent training, a runner should be tracking their training and recovery and adapting their plan accordingly. At the most basic level, runners should be tracking time (minutes) engaged in running and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) on a 0-10 scale. Making notes on other physical activities such as cross training or strength and conditioning should be included to provide a general sense of workload. It is also important to document changes to daily routines, new pains, fatigue level, emotional stressors, disrupted sleep patterns, and any substantial dietary adjustments. New pains and fatigue may be correlated with changes in training workload or additional stressors. This information may cause a runner to adapt the training schedule for the day or week or rethink how they recover.

I use a simple training load formula derived from research on field sport athletes to track my own training and athletes I consult for. This is not a perfect measurement, but it is a way to quantify activity specific training exposure. Over time, tracking this helps establish an athlete’s optimal training window or sweet spot to achieve consistency in training and reduce overreaching or undertraining.

For each run, I multiply RPE (0-10) by minutes to get a daily workload value:

RPE x minutes = daily running workload

I add up all the daily running workload units for the week to calculate a weekly “acute workload.” 

Acute workload = SUM (daily workload, days 1-7)

This “acute workload” is compared to the average workload of the previous 4 (or 6) weeks, which is called the “chronic workload.” I will use 4 weeks to calculate chronic workload in this example.

Chronic workload = SUM (acute workloads weeks 1-4) / 4

Acute:Chronic workload ratio = current acute workload / chronic workload

The research on field sport athletes suggests the optimal acute:chronic workload ratio should fall between 0.85-1.30 to control injury risk. This is plausible, not proven in runners, but it has been useful for my purposes. Let’s dig deeper into this proposed optimal training window of 0.85-1.30 A:C workload.

I look at the 0.85-1.30 A:C workload boundaries as yellow flags or warning signs. The upper limit of 1.30 is similar to injury risk observations in novice runners, which is that injury risk significantly increases in those advancing running volume (mileage) by more than 30%. Understand that volume and workload are not perfectly interchangeable variables as intensity is not accounted for, but I think the comparison is reasonable. At the lower limit of 0.85, acutely dropping one’s workload has potential for detraining effects. Resuming previous higher workloads could be problematic. In my experience, I look for more than just one week of detraining as gains in fitness start to be lost after approximately 10 days.

There is no guarantee one will be with or without injury above or below this optimal training window. In my experience, though, injured runner’s often yo-yo back and forth between low and high workloads, where uninjured runners tend to be more consistent in their training. 

There are a growing number of technological tools available to make tracking training load easier. These proprietary algorithms are more complex than the one mentioned above. Wearable technology has greatly enhanced our ability to comprehend workload, and it will continue to advance. Apps such as Garmin Connect or Strava offer insight into workload and optimizing training. 

Consistent training adds up over weeks, months, and years to develop improved injury resistance and performance. My observation is that improved injury resistance and performance growth go hand in hand on a long timeline (months to years). However at the acute peak (days to weeks) of performance, you must watch for the mismatch in cardiovascular performance and musculoskeletal tissue capacity. Being patient and methodical will reward you. Enjoy the process as much as the results.