lower leg pain, what is it?

Expert Discussion Recovery and Regeneration
1

I’m sure there are those out there that can help. I am experiencing alot of lower leg pain after workouts. My recovery period is two days rest minimum (i.e. if I run on Sunday, I can’t run again until Wednsday at the earliest).

A typical workout would be:

Warm up 800m
4 striding 100m
series of warm up drills, maybe 6 types
8 200m at 90% with 2 min rest in between

I am 39 years old.

Is my lower leg trauma and a three day recovery period normal? or should I be able to do the above mentioned workout with a 48 hour recovery? I just want to get a feel for what’s “normal”.

2

A couple of questions, what kind of surface are you running on? Is that the only work out you do? I assume it isn’t, maybe you give examples of other workouts you do. What kind of training background led up to the current work out you mentioned? Have you been training for years or just getting back into training?

3

It sounds like shin splints. If so, rest and recovery is key. Check previous posts for help on resolving the problem.

4

running on synthetic track.

I’ve been doing this about 2 years. Before that nothing. But only in the recent months has the training intensity increased substantially.

I guess what I’m asking is to what degree is lower leg soreness “normal”? Are top sprinters able to train every day?, every other day, and if so, do they experience lower leg soreness?

I’m trying to work up to training Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. But right now I can only do Sunday Wednsday.

Here is an example of this week’s workouts:

Sunday:
Warm up 800m
4 striding 100m
series of warm up drills, maybe 6 types
8 200m at 90% with 2 min rest in between

Wednsday:
800m jog , 4 striding 100s, and some drills for the warm up.
4 sets of 5 x 55m with 30 seconds rest. 4 minute rest in between sets.

Sunday:
800m jog , 4 striding 100s, and some drills for the warm up.
8 x 150m and some starts.

5

By how much have you increased the intensity? Are all those workouts on the track in spikes or a combo of spikes and flats depending on the day?

Cheers
Chris

6

I have had a lot of problems with this myself. Most of it is related to trigger points in the soleus. Biomechanically, I think this might be caused by spasm in the foot arch muscles and/or in the hips, which is causing the calves to work overtime. As has been pointed out, it might also be due to a sudden increase in training load.

In addition to the advice already given, I would recommend using the Footballer, which is a tool I have had a lot of recent success with

http://www.tpmassageball.com/TP%20MASSAGE%20BALL%20INFORMATION%20PAGE.htm