The best 4 tips when coming back to running from injury, with Mike Trees

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Most people don’t agree on a lot of things in this world. But if you’re a runner or endurance athlete we can all agree that Injuries suck.

Whether it’s chronic (aka the pain has slowly been around and you’ve been ignoring it and keep training)

Or… acute (aka you twisting your ankle or falling down hard)

They suck.

But what do you do when you inevitably get injured?

First things first when you get injured: You can’t compare yourself to the uninjured version.

Don’t compare times, fitness level, body fat percentage, etc. That is poison and does nothing for you.

Learn to put a stake in the ground and scream KAIZEN (which is japenese for constant improvement)

What You Will Learn

How A little bit a lot of the time helps you in the long term
why Nutrition is more important than ever
How to measure your progress
How To stop playing the victim card and accept what’s happened
More on Kaizen
and more!

Episode Highlights and Timestamps

[02:30] How did Mike Trees get injured

[04:18] How Mike feels about it all

[08:34] Work on rehab a little but often

[12:14] Food and water are necessary!

[14:28] Measure your progress – even the small bits

[17:46] Kaizen defined (constant improvement!)

[19:33] Talk to specialists and professionals for their advice

Notable Quotables

NRG COACHING (MIKE TREES) – SPONSOR

This episode is brought to you by NRG – Coaching which is Mike Trees’ coaching service. Mike coaches beginners to pros and all levels in between.

No one is too fast and no one too slow. They just want a desire to learn and improve.

They focus on 1,500m to marathon running and triathlon training.

NRG Coaching is constantly overbooked, so Instagram and this new podcast venture, gives Mike and the rest of his NRG coaching team a way to reach out to more people.

Contact mike and his team NRG-COACHING.com for more info

THREE THING THURSDAY NEWSLETTER – SPONSOR

Like what you’re hearing? Want to train and live consistently to do dope shit with your health and fitness? Sign for our newsletter “Three Thing Thursday”. We’ll put three perfectly created and curated things in your inbox. This will be regular motivation ranging from tips, tricks, tools, tactics, and skills. And…. they all revolve around being a better human in endurance sport and wellness.

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Original Music Used Here

Full Transcript Below (or download pdf here)

[00:00:00] Daren: Most people don’t agree on a lot of things in this world. You got one side that wants this and another side that wants that. But if you’re a runner or endurance athlete, we can all agree that injuries suck. Whether it’s chronic, AKA, the pain has slowly been around and you’ve been ignoring it.

[00:00:17] Daren: And you keep training through or acute AKA, you twist your ankle or you fall down hard. They all suck, but what do you do when you inevitably get injured?

[00:00:26] Daren: Find out the best three tips when coming back from a running injury on this episode of Trees and DLake.

[00:00:38] Daren: What is up welcome to trees and D Lake a podcast series by Mike Trees and yours truly Darren DLA creates.

[00:00:45] Daren: In this series. Our goal is to educate and entertain smart. A bit more on that from my trees

[00:00:50] Mike: And the aim of this podcast is to give in a lighthearted, amusing and entertaining way, hints and tips to help you all run better and enjoy your sporting life more.

[00:01:01] Mike: So let’s see how we can go with that.

[00:01:04] Daren: Mike’s being pretty modest. He has over 50 years of running and doing triathlons under his belt. And if you’re wondering about me, I’ve been in the endurance sport game for about 25 years now done a sub three hour marathon and completed an Ironman triathlon in 10 hours.

[00:01:20] Daren: We appreciate all the help and support that we can get. So if you can please share out this episode to someone that you know, that would like this, oh, quick language warning. In some rare instances, we might use some bad words. So apologies in advance for that. First, when you get injured, you cannot compare yourself to the uninjured version of you.

[00:01:39] Daren: Don’t compare times fitness level, body, fat percentage, et cetera, that is poison and does nothing for you. Learn to put a stake in the ground and scream Kaizen, which is Japanese for constant improvement. And I’m sure I hacked that up and set it wrong. It’s K a I Z. And what you’ll learn in this episode, how a little bit, a lot of the time helps you in the long run.

[00:02:00] Daren: I E consistency. Why nutrition is more important than ever. Your progress, how to stop playing the victim card and accept what’s happened more on Kaizen. K a I Z N and more. Let’s jump into the combo with my crease and me.

[00:02:20] Daren: alright, Mike, this is a new format. We’re going to be a quicker and it’s going to be faster more to the point, but we have to set this one up. You got injured. Please tell me the story because it’s quite epic.

[00:02:34] Mike: Okay. It’s going to make it very quick. Quick story. I went to a tropical island, Japanese island for training camp, getting ready for Ironman on the first day cycling, it just started to rain.

[00:02:47] Mike: I probably got 10 miles an hour, 15 kilometers an hour around the bend and I fell over. I think that the low speed was the worst thing. I always went straight down and even voted. It was maybe of a rock. I cracked my hip and bone, my FEMA, so broken in two places and the leg shortened by quite a lot. Rushed me off to a and E in traction for a week before they could lengthen it.

[00:03:08] Mike: Then they put a 30 centimeter titanium bolt right down the middle of my femur and that 10 centimeter belt in my hip. Take meals together. And I was in hospital for a month, basically in bed every day. Go down to the hospital last week and here I am now ready to try and get fit. Got my crutches here.

[00:03:27] Mike: And you can see my little Zimmer frame in the background getting my coffees and drinks around the house. I’m on mobile. And they’re ready to do some work.

[00:03:35] Daren: I’ve been following this since close to day one day two, and I’m so sorry that this happened, but at the same time, I know someone like you is probably the best person for this to happen to because you are quite possibly one of the most optimistic people I have ever met.

[00:03:50] Daren: And you really just take this in stride and you have a lot of other family life things that actually are totally in chaos. Across the world twice in all these things are happening. So just before we get into it, how do you feel about all this? Like how

[00:04:07] Mike: I’ve been banned from flying to England?

[00:04:09] Mike: Cause a deep vein thrombosis. So I can’t now do that leg, some leaving that to my wife and daughter, which I mean, they’re happy to go, but I’m a little sad. I can’t follow them. So I’m going to stay here for six weeks, do rehab. And as soon as they get the sign off from the doctors, I’ll be flying down to New Zealand are hopefully the may the 15th to start a new life now.

[00:04:27] Mike: Oh, amazing. Slow things down a little bit. I really relying on my daughter and my wife at home. Literally everything. Can you make me a cup of tea? Can you do this, darling? Can you do that? Can you help me put this stuff down? So it’s going to be a fun couple of weeks when they’re in England and I have to be independent.

[00:04:43] Mike: Yeah, it’s all good. It distracts you from becoming what’s the word drawn within yourself and getting depressed and moping around. So some of you are lots of things going on and lots of activities look forward to it.

[00:04:57] Daren: Again, if anyone is going to get injured, you’re the I’m glad, I’m sorry that you didn’t get injured.

[00:05:02] Daren: Sorry. I’m sorry that you did get injured, but at the same time, you’re just a great role model and poster person, poster child for all of this to happen, because I’m going to probably get injured in the future, whether it’s by running or whether by fall or whatever. And a lot of people are,

[00:05:16] Mike: so this is my biggest injury.

[00:05:19] Mike: And yeah the key takeaway is that I’ve learned over the years and I wasn’t always this is can’t compare yourself to where you were. I fell off the bike before the bike I was fit and I was hoping to win iron man for my age group to smash it out of the park and say, here I am.

[00:05:36] Mike: Lying on the table in the a and E my wife was on video call the doctor’s talking, and it’s yeah, that’s not gonna happen. And I said can I go back to Tokyo and have an operation? Nope. That’s not going to happen. You could die in the airplane flying back. There’s a lot of that. We have to put you in traction.

[00:05:53] Mike: You stay in here, mate. And bit by bit. It dawned on me that, yeah you’ll get back. You’ll make your recovery how much the knee will bend, what you can do. That’s up to you in the rehab. Yeah, come to terms with it. It’s a pretty much there. And then it’s okay. Just let me know what it is, what I’ve got to deal with.

[00:06:10] Mike: And I just adjusted the brain set and it’s not easy. I’ve become pretty adapted doing that now. And so I just did while we were out and the goal was sudden. To get fit to get at a hospital two months was the expected thing. They said, look, people are in here with these operations. They’re in here for two months.

[00:06:27] Mike: It takes them that long to become independent and walk. I got that in a month, so that’s typical me. It’s let’s see how quickly we can do this. It’s just, that’s my mentality.

[00:06:37] Daren: That’s a perfect segue into the top three things. That you need to sort out and you need to do after getting injured warmup

[00:06:46] Mike: complete.

[00:06:48] Mike: The first point is don’t compare yourself to where you can only live in the present yesterday. I was fit tomorrow. I’ll be 50 gain how fit? I don’t know, but today unless fit, but this. And I work on getting fitter and interestingly my, my knee won’t bend much at the moment. I can’t ride a bike.

[00:07:06] Mike: I can’t do much with it. My wife is great. She’s an acupuncturist. She does physio on me. She does massage and she’s really helping me. And she was like joking and saying what happens if he doesn’t then what would you do? And I said I probably invent a new category for runners with a need that don’t bend and I still race and put myself down as the winner as the fastest person within either doesn’t bend a bit flippant, but.

[00:07:32] Mike: If it doesn’t bend any well, I’m confident that I will get full movement back in my knee. And it’s just a matter of time how I’ll do that. I don’t know yet. I’m talking to lots of people and trying to work out ways of doing it, but I’m confident I will get that movement back. It’s just a matter of working out how, and if it doesn’t want it, doesn’t we just have to live with that and work with what we’ve got.

[00:07:51] Mike: So going back to the first thing he has it, my first real point. Don’t compare with where you were, just look at where you are now and where you want to get to. And then you’re pretty optimistic if you can look forward to where are you going to?

[00:08:05] Daren: All right. That was point 0.0. I think that might’ve been that might’ve, they might’ve been like the end of the third point.

[00:08:11] Daren: It just based on my notes here, let’s go down. Let’s go to the other one, which is, you said work on rehab a little and. Yeah.

[00:08:19] Mike: So I’m pretty ambulant this in hospital every hour I got up, I moved the knee and it can move much. I start actually, I started with no movement at all. And then I remember measuring it.

[00:08:30] Mike: I got to 8% movement. And now I’m up to roundabout 70% then done the knee. I probably need 120% bend on the knee to ride a bike and to do my butt kicks, which everyone knows I love doing. I need unrelated percent, obviously 180 degrees to defect that heel up to the bum. So we’re going to 70 degrees up to hundred 80.

[00:08:48] Mike: There’s a long way to go. So I’m working on that rehab. I get acupuncture. I do lots of exercises moving my knee one way then the other way trying to massage the muscles and just accept this part of the journey. All day long, just little bits of small movements to, to get the blood flowing back into the leg again.

[00:09:09] Mike: And so the rehab is super, super important. And actually today I’m going to go down to the pool and attempt is to get into the pool and do a little bit of Aqua jogging with a float and just move that leg, get some cardio going because once you get the cardio going, then you can get the Capella redevelopment, the mitochondria development back, and I’m convinced that increased blood flow.

[00:09:30] Mike: We’ll take your increase. Your nutritional needs it’ll help everything so that it will speed up the rehab. So I’m looking at this pool session today, not as a training session for race or anything, but just as a rehab session to get my legs stronger and get me fit. Okay. That’s

[00:09:45] Daren: a great point on getting the blood moving and that’s a big thing with.

[00:09:49] Daren: With injuries around your foot, where there’s low blood supply Achilles toe plantar, fasciitis, and all that. Like getting the blood moving through that is key. And it’s like counter to a lot of people a lot of the science, the Western science was ice, everything not let it swell.

[00:10:10] Daren: And now it’s get the blood flowing through a swelling a decent amount of swellings. Okay. Obviously if it’s too much so that that having the. Apply to what you’re doing. That makes sense too. And the fact that you’re an exercise scientist is also really good going into this and you’re not, it’s quite funny in the hospital because the doctor is an ex rugby player.

[00:10:29] Mike: Good, good guy in the physio, the physio that it was good. And they were saying you seem to know what you’re doing. How about we leave the rehab to you in the hospital? So they were pretty cool running, discussing what I was going to do with obviously a guys me say I wouldn’t do too much of that because the surgeon was saying I wouldn’t do too much.

[00:10:45] Mike: Out to the socket again it’s just being screwed in that takes a while to bed in. And so they were pretty good, but it was a consensus of opinion between me, the physio and the surgeons to how much we have, I was able to do.

[00:11:01] Daren: This episode is brought to you by energy coaching, which is Mike tree’s, coaching service, Mike and his team of coaches work with beginners to pros and all levels in between. No one is too fast and no one is too slow. They just want a desire to learn and improve. They focus on 1500 meter races to marathon running and triathlon training energy coaching is constantly overbooked.

[00:11:20] Daren: So Instagram and this new podcast, venture trees. It gives Mike and the rest of his energy coaching team, a way to reach out to more people and help them contact Mike and his team@thelettersinourg-coaching.com or go to the link in the show notes

[00:11:43] Daren: and back to the show. So we got blood moving through you’re doing the rehab to get the blood moving, or you’re about to go into. Into the pool so someone listening as much moving that you can do in a safe way and. To get the movement and you need energy. So food and water, as you said, is your medicine.

[00:12:02] Daren: Tell me more about that.

[00:12:03] Mike: So in hospital, I must say the food was nutrition nutritious. That’s the word? And we, I had an actual nutritionalist who came round and discussed my Diageo needs cause I don’t eat meat. And so it was a fish diet of vegetables and we got all the stuff I needed also. I see there’s a slight problem that I had a problem with my kidneys in there.

[00:12:27] Mike: So we had to do some flushing, which made me anemic. So then I needed a blood transfusion. It got a bit hectic at times. So my iron count was really low. So therefore it became more important than ever that I looked at the food as a. Medicine really is the simplest way and natural form of medicine. So it wasn’t the taste it’s, the food is bland.

[00:12:49] Mike: There’s no salt. There wasn’t much fat in it. It was fish, it was rice vegetables, and I really wanted to have some really nice tasty meals into things like I know it’s not pretty healthy, but yeah, noodles or whatever chips fries, something. I just wanted that salt from time to time, but I ate everything that they gave me because I knew that was my medicine.

[00:13:11] Mike: So I sat down and I religiously, whether I was hungry or not, I didn’t care about putting on weight. I just made sure that they come up with this diet and everything that they gave me was eaten. And that’s so important that people forget that the food. Is your natural medicine is going to notice you.

[00:13:26] Mike: And actually I got iron supplements as well, and I’ve got my iron count now up to normally low as it works. I’m not going to have any problems in, in that sense that it got high enough that it’s a bit low, but it’s fine. And it will come up over the next few days and few.

[00:13:46] Daren: All right. So we’re measuring you’re obviously the food that you’re eating and I’m sure you’re going to go deep into the macros and the micros because you’re at home now and you can cook more your meals, you have more control over it.

[00:13:56] Daren: You measuring your iron. So that you don’t. Third point measuring your progress, which is oh, sorry, this is actually the fourth point, which is similar to the first point that you said, which is don’t compare yourself. So tell me how measuring your progress can help you. It all links it all the points, Lincoln really in the sense that we were breaking it down to make it easy to understand, but what I’m doing by not comparing myself to where I was is wonky and mentally fit.

[00:14:21] Mike: But then I have to look at where. And I have to measure where I am. So on day one, I had zero bend in the knee. Then a week down the line, I had 8% now, 70%. So I can see some progress. When I got home, my wife was really nervous about me going to the pool and then some rehab and really want me to go.

[00:14:39] Mike: And then to be honest, literally just getting from the airport to home was enough. I was absolutely shattered. Now, as you can see, I’m back to. I it’s an hour. It takes to get the pool. I get on my crutches and I hop up to the station. I take a seat in the disabled courage, which it’s given me a new understanding that I’m getting off the subject here, but give me a new understanding for disabled people.

[00:15:05] Mike: The world is not designed for disabled people and people with injuries. And I want a big shout out that we have to fight that case. We have to make it more wheelchair friendly, more disabled access for people because it’s excuse my French. It’s bloody hard work. Just me getting on and off a train.

[00:15:23] Mike: I even lost part of my my crutches because the doors shut the door, shut on the train too fast before I could get off. So I lost the rubber ends off them. But measuring my progress. I couldn’t get to the pool at first. I literally the thought of it was just too much, so it’s definitely I’ve come on long.

[00:15:41] Mike: I can now get the pool. Okay. And come back. And Rica said the first time I went to the pool, I just laid down in bed and slept well, now I get back from the pool and I’m looking forward to writing some training programs to study and doing work. So I can now see that. Yes. Compared to before. I’m making these progresses.

[00:15:58] Mike: And I actually don’t write it down so much, but I make a mental note. And one thing I suggest people do, which is a really good mental note in mental progress. Don’t compare yourself to the day before. So if someone says, how are you feeling? He said, oh, I had a really rough night. This button that was bad.

[00:16:13] Mike: It sounds negative. But if someone says, how are you feeling? I say Yesterday compared to a week ago, I’ve made huge gains. So yeah, it might not have been the best night last night. But when I think back to a week ago, when I had to have painkillers to get me through the night, last night, I got through the night without taking any painkillers.

[00:16:28] Mike: Yep. I had to wake up. I had to massage it. I get my wife to do it to massage. You get the blood flowing, but I got through the night without painkillers. I’ve made progress. If you don’t make these mental notes, you’d be sitting there thinking, oh, I’m still so ill. I’m so bad. It hurt all night. But actually it’s a big, it’s what I call a quantum leap forward from last week, which a week before that I was lying flat on my back after the operation wasn’t able to move the week before that I was in traction, in a waiting for the operation.

[00:16:57] Mike: Yeah, some big gains. And I make sure that I make a note to, to quantify those little gains as we’re going.

[00:17:06] Daren: Tell me about Kaizen. Did I say it correctly? K a I Z E N. And how that is something that I think might be a mantra.

[00:17:14] Mike: So Kaizen is a Japanese word. It’s actually come from artists and people, bakers and craftsman, a constant improvement.

[00:17:23] Mike: So when they’re making their pottery or their art or their food, they’re constantly tweaking and trying to make it, they don’t say. Perfect version. They constantly tweak it and can make it a little bit better, a little bit better. And it’s a term that’s actually become an English term. If you look in the dictionary, it’s in the English dictionary, Kaizen, it means improvement, constant improvement.

[00:17:41] Mike: And that’s my mantra that, yeah, again, going back to the first point I look at where I, I am now and I try and go forward a little bit tomorrow. I don’t really look back and say, that’s where I was. I was where I was, and I can look back fondly at that, but I look at where I am now and what can I do to make it a little bit better?

[00:17:58] Mike: So I really struggle to put my right sock on waiting for you to call it took me 10 minutes to put it on, but I was determined not to call my wife and ask her to put the sock on for me. And eventually I might still wiggly on because the knee doesn’t bend in. If I manage to get enough flexibility to get it on.

[00:18:15] Mike: And so there that’s a little program. And can we get that sock putting on down from 10 minutes to five minutes to two minutes to one minute to do it. It’s natural only little things, but those little things actually do a lot to your psyche to keep you in a positive frame of mind.

[00:18:28] Daren: Couldn’t agree more so let’s sum it all up.

[00:18:31] Daren: For anyone again, that is coming off of. This is mainly for injury. This can also apply to being sick, but we’ll just focus on injury right now. And let’s say this four point. So one is don’t compare yourself to the old you. Two is work on rehab a little and often three food and water is your medicine.

[00:18:49] Daren: Four is measure your progress. Kaizen,

[00:18:53] Mike: I’m going to give it, give me a five talk to professionals and work with professionals. I know a lot about sports science, but I’m talking to people who know more than I do. So to physios, to surgeons, to lots of other people around. So I’m taking a dice, I’m not doing this willy-nilly I am taking the advice and pushing it to the limits.

[00:19:14] Mike: So make sure that you’re talking with people to know. How far you can go because you can do too much too soon.

[00:19:21] Daren: Let’s go welcome to the show. I’m your host, Dan lake tips and tactics. You could train like a pro this gas to help you and fascinating. You could go.

[00:19:36] Daren: you agree in doing sports, a metaphor for life metaphor, baby, eat and clean seagrass asleep all the time. Master a lot to master a little, just stand them. Don’t mess the road on master of none. Just be a master of some

[00:19:53] Daren: is the health and fitness internet too much, sometimes too many conflicting articles and videos that confuse you on how to train and eat, or you don’t have time to just read and watch everything about, I don’t know, the new trends on carb cycling for trail running. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of all that for you.

[00:20:09] Daren: Sign up for our free email newsletter. Three thing Thursday, we’ll put three. The curated and created things in your inbox for better living and training. Go to DLA creates.com/ttt. We do the hard time consuming work and scour the health and fitness internets, deepest and darkest corners. This is so that every Thursday, you have a piping hot new email with the latest and coolest tips, tricks, tools, tactics, and skills also that you can train and lift consistently to do dope shit in your next in Dorrance event.

[00:20:41] Daren: Sign up now you can receive my quick guide on how to get healthy, stay fit. Create habits that last a lifetime that’s delayed creates.com/ttt to be inspired and motivated on the regular time. Time is a resource. No one can make more of, so we appreciate you taking precious time out of your day to listen.

[00:21:02] Daren: This far, our goal is to show the world how to live better than. Cycling and triathlon the episode, and many others have a transcription go to the show notes description to find out more. This was produced in Sydney, Australia, and I’d like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Yarra nation, where the traditional custodians of this land.

[00:21:19] Daren: I pay my respects to the elders past present and future. I recognize the continuing connection to the land waters and culture. These lands were stolen and sovereignty was never ceded. If you liked this episode again, we’d highly appreciate it. If you go on whatever app you listened to and make sure to follow DLA creates podcast.

[00:21:35] Daren: Modify apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Amazon and a bunch of others. And if you’re feeling real loose, a rating review or share of this episode to anyone that would be into something like this would be amazing. If you have any questions, concerns, suggestions for the episode or hell you want to be on the show hit us up the best way is to email talk T a L K at DLA creates doc.[00:21:57] Daren: We’re also on the socials. Mainly Instagram, you can hit up Mike trees at the letters, R U n.in RG. Or you can hit me up on instagram@dlakecreates.com or just wherever you can find us as fun. If you need any transcripts, you enter podcasting, or let’s say you just are big into accessibility. Please use the company that we use.

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