Maintaining fitness while injured?

Question

yeah, well i think i might have shin splints in my right leg it sucks ..a lot..I'd really like to maintain and get better fitness for my upcoming XC season though..what's the best way to do that? I've heard cross training or the elliptical or water running..but what do you think would put me in the best shape for XC?..and what work outs should i do?

Answer 1

it happens to a lot of people. tape em up, take some pills and tough it out.  walk backwards in grass on your toes (this is the best thing) and lift things up with your feet to strengthen the muscle so it does not happen again

Answer 2

You need a mix of endurance and cardio training.  The elliptical is good in that you can do it for an hour or so and build up your leg muscles in a way that running won't, and will enhance your endurance.  And yet it will not raise your heart rate and respiration rate enough to make you a XC star.   Water running, swimming and track sprints will help you in those regards.

Answer 3

In his book on running, Jeff Galloway advocates water running as the best form of exercise if you can't run.  You will lose almost no running fitness if you water run (in fact, many people come out of the pool stronger runners than when then they started).  Other forms of cardiovascular exercise (elliptical, cycling) will slow down your loss of running fitness considerably, but are not running specific, so they don't really help.

Water running gets the weight off your leg, which is why it's helpful with shin splints.  Make sure if you try any other cross training exercises that they aren't bugging your shin.  Sometimes the elliptical will bother shin splints.

Do whatever workout you would have otherwise planned to do -- if your plan calls for 40-minutes easy, then try to approximate that effort in the pool.  You can easily approximate running intervals, tempo runs, etc. in the pool.

I would strongly suggest not running through bad shin splints.  Let them have time to heal so you don't end up missing your season due to a stress fracture.

Answer 4

I had a similar situation. i had to have surgery on my hip so i could not do any weight work outs with my lower body. So I started swimming and water running/walking. It helped me A LOT. Swimming and H2o running/walking are great because you don't have nearly the amount of gravity forcing you down and it also helps build muscle.

Answer 5

anything that would keep stress of the legs.  Go with a bike or stationary or long distance.

Answer 6

You could also do some cross training.

But involving cycling, but easy rides or swimming or even other water sports as you use similar muscles in all of these.