Developing a niggle or injury is frustrating. Whether you train to race, play, compete or for leisure and fun, not being able to do what you enjoy is tough. Therefore, one question you will have is ‘how long will it take?’ Whilst I cannot answer that question for your specific case in a blog post, I hope the information below will demonstrate how I work and the basis for the answer I will give you.

How long will it take?

Having a timescale is crucial and I am trained to ascertain approximately how long it should take for you to recover. The affected structure (ligament, muscle, tendon, cartilage etc) provides the basis for this judgement. Ligament & muscular injuries follow a reasonably predictable pattern, and timescales will be based upon severity (Graded 1, 2 or 3). Longer term or chronic injuries like tendinopathies can be less linear & predictable in their response. Factors like how long you have had pain, recurrence & what your goals are, will all contribute to concluding an approximate timescale.

In all cases we are bound by how long the body takes to heal. Our job is to help the body do this efficiently & effectively but it’s still a process we have to work with, not against.

What happens when the body is healing?

Your body undertakes some complex processes to heal an injury. Think of a wound on your skin, how long before a scab forms and how long does it take for evidence of the wound to completely disappear? In most cases it’s longer than a month. Just because you cannot see it, doesn’t mean it happens any quicker or differently under the skin.

The healing processes for a wound are around 21 days. The body will continue to shape and remodel tissue until 3 months and beyond. Let’s think back to the wound on your skin. Once a scab is formed, you can probably touch it gently but if you catch it or pick it (yes we all do it!) you open the wound and the process begins again. Think of rehab like gently pressing the scab, it can help the process along, could probably tolerate a walk, cross trainer or light weights but go for a run or lift too heavy and you open the wound again.

Taking all this into consideration the timescale is also dependent upon the following factors:

-          Diagnosis.  What tissue is damaged and how severely? An accurate diagnosis isn’t always straightforward. Even with a scan it can be difficult to pinpoint the structure that’s at fault and sometimes it isn’t a structure at all but a heightened neural response.

-          Rehabilitation. If I set rehab for 3 x weekly and you manage 1 x week it will take longer to recover.

-         Training. I will always keep you training if that’s your goal. That training might look different to what you would like but keeping the rest of the body strong and your fitness maintained is important, so we must adapt. However, if we reduce your weekly distance to 25km and you run 35km ‘because I felt good’, it will likely slow things down!

I appreciate we aren’t robots and life gets in the way, provided we can have honest conversations we can set realistic targets.

How do we determine these targets and how I will progress?

For most injuries or niggles we look for a baseline – what can you currently do pain-free and work progressively from there. In terms of rehab, I will conduct tests to achieve some objective markers. These will be relevant to your injury but might include things like; number of heel raises, hamstring bridges or how many single leg squats you can do. Seeing progress in these markers allows us to move forward.

How often will I need to see you during this time?

This will vary according to what we are trying to achieve. An increase in range of motion can take a week, an increase in strength can take 6 weeks. If you have a solid rehab plan and some progressions to follow, I’m more than happy to let you run with it. If your markers are likely to improve quickly, which is often the case with acute injuries in the early stages or with very reactive conditions, then I may recommend more regular sessions.

Can you guide me outside of appointments?

Absolutely. I come from a professional sport background where I could see players daily if required. Regularly checking in to see how you’re doing means I can adapt our plan, provide tweaks here and there and give you someone to be accountable to! We all need some extrinsic motivation from time to time! I can also use these quick catch up’s to decide if we need an apppointment sooner than anticipated or that we can postpone to a later date.

Contact me

If you would like to discuss your niggle, injury or pain with me, please drop me a message via the contact form or whatsapp. I am always happy to chat before you book.