TRAINING

When Not to Train

Steve Bird (VIC)

Beware of training with aches, pains, sniffs and sneezes

Most of the time going out training will be good for your Orienteering fitness and health. Regular moderate exercise is proven to reduce your risk of heart disease, have a positive effect on your immune system and promote your physical capacity. As well as providing opportunities to socialize and benefiting your mental health. However there are a few occasions when it may be wiser not to train or to compete. This may be when you’ve got an injury, feel like you’re fighting a virus, or been overtraining and gone stale. If you are suffering from any of these then not going out running could be the sensible thing to do and be more beneficial in the long term. Always be sensible with your health and fitness. Going out running regardless of your condition could be putting both in jeopardy.

Running with an illness

Undertaking strenuous exercise when you have a virus can be a very risky thing to do. A fact which was brought closer to our attention a number of years ago, with the untimely deaths of 16 of Sweden’s top orienteers 1. (Ed:- and earlier still, one of Britain’s top orienteers.)

It is a mistake to think that you can ‘sweat out an illness’ by running hard. What you are more likely to do is to make your condition worse and slow up your recovery. In extreme cases you may even cause yourself long term, or even permanent damage. We all know of people, perhaps even ourselves, who in the past have run when we’ve been fighting a cold or something similar. However, with increased medical knowledge certain potential hazards are becoming apparent and as a consequence running with a virus such as the flu is now considered not worth the risk. The most severe problems that can be caused by running with a virus concern the heart. Strenuous exercise can result in the virus inflaming the heart muscle (myocarditis)2,3. In such cases the heart can start to malfunction, which in extreme cases can result in permanent damage and may be fatal.

A further long term problem which, whilst still not fully understood, may be caused or exacerbated by exercising with a virus is that of ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ and the extreme condition of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)4. Sufferers from this condition experience extreme fatigue and find it difficult to undertake even light forms of activity such as walking. This unfortunate condition can last for months or years and is made worse if the victim attempts to return to exercise too soon.

Also associated with viral infections is a general inflammation of body tissues producing a general all-over ache and stiffness. This may increase the risk of injury, with the inflamed state of muscles or tendons leading to pulls and strains. In addition to these risks, if you are suffering from a viral infection such as the flu then you will not be feeling your best, you will feel weak and your concentration may be below par. Not the ingredients for a successful and enjoyable run. Therefore, for the sake of a few days training or one event, it probably isn’t worth it.

Following any illness give yourself plenty of time to recover. Don’t go out training on the very first day you feel capable. Give yourself a few more days to recuperate and when you do start training again build up gradually. Spend a week or so gradually increasing the distance you cover and the pace you run at. Don’t expect to feel fit immediately. You may feel weak for a number of days after the other symptoms of the illness have gone. Running an easier shorter course the first time back may be advisable. The presence of an injury could be another occasion on which training or competition should be missed. If you do consider training or competing with an injury then remember the running could make it worse. In such cases taking a few days off may be preferable to the weeks or even months of inactivity that could result if you aggravate it. An alternative to taking a complete rest could be to change your activity for a few days. For instance, if you have sore shins then try swimming or cycling. This will take the stress off the injury whilst helping you to maintain your fitness and enabling you to get your regular dose of healthy exercise.

In general, for the major traumatic and overuse injuries, it is obvious that you shouldn’t run. However, there are many occasions when you have a twinge or slight soreness that you can run with, albeit with some difficulty. These are the occasions when you don’t know whether you should run or not. Unfortunately, there is no set of strict rules or guidelines to help you. Most sports doctors and physiotherapists recommend rest up to a point and then suggest light exercise as part of the rehabilitation process for an injury. The question is when to run and how much? As a general rule if you have an injury that is causing you discomfort seek the advice of a sports doctor or physiotherapist. If for some reason this is not practical, try resting it for a few days (injuries take time to heal up so don’t expect 24hrs to be sufficient). If it feels all right then try some light training, not a hard session, and build up gradually from there.

Listen to your body, pain is a warning mechanism that something is wrong! When you are recovering from an injury remember that just because the pain has gone, doesn’t mean that the muscle, tendon or ligament is back to full strength. That can take many weeks, and until that point is reached the injured area will remain under-strength and vulnerable to further injury. So hold your enthusiasms in check for a few weeks and try to build up again gradually, rather than trying to do what you were capable of before the injury, and end up re-injuring it.

One of the problems with an injury is that in the excitement of competition or even in training you don’t feel the injury. Warming up may often cause the pain to lessen or go away but not necessarily the injury. Remember that most of us have on occasions finished an event and only then noticed that we have a pain in the leg and have to limp back to the car or have an impressive set of cuts that we can’t remember getting.

If you do pull a muscle, strain a tendon or perhaps twist your ankle, then the immediate treatment should be to put ice on it. The ice should be applied for about 20 minutes every few hours. This helps to restrict any internal bleeding and reduce the amount of swelling at the injury, hence this will lessen the time needed for it to heal up. This immediate treatment is crucial to lessening the effect of the injury and speeding up the recovery process. At this stage massage is not recommended since it will have the opposite effect and increase blood flow to the area. After 24 - 48 hrs the bleeding should have stopped, at which time heat and massage may then be applied to promote the healing process.

If the injury is sufficiently serious then medical advice should be sought - the sooner this is done the better. In the case of serious injuries such as broken bones the injury must be left to the medical services and as a general rule of first aid the subject should not be moved unless under medical supervision.

Running when feeling stale

Staleness is a general term given to the mental and physical state of an individual who may have lost enthusiasm for the sport and/or be performing below expectations for no obvious reason. It can be brought on by training when, for whatever reasons, the body has been overstressed and unable to recover fully from its exertions. The condition may be made worse by the mental stresses and pressures of competition.

One of the physical characteristics of staleness is often a disturbance in some of the hormones of the body. Most notably an imbalance between those that are involved in the repair of body tissues and those that are concerned with the breakdown of body tissues and the provision of energy. Some of the outward characteristics of staleness can include irritability, lethargy, loss of appetite, loss of enthusiasm and spots, as well as the reduction in performance in the sport.

Staleness is a very common phenomenon among competitors in virtually all sports. Children can be particularly vulnerable to it where, through their own enthusiasms and those of parents or coaches, they are overexposed to a sport. As a result they overtrain and over-compete, their results get worse, so they train harder in order to try and rectify the problem, which only makes matters worse and it becomes a vicious downward spiral. In the end they become fed up and disillusioned with the sport. This is a common occurrence among top-level juniors and can be referred to as ‘psychological burnout’. The remedy is to have a short break away from the sport. This is often achieved in the off-season, such as the summer in Orienteering. The break should allow the mind and body to recuperate and recover. At the same time the enthusiasm for the sport should return.

Up the sand hill forty times - later-to-be Red Kangaroo Herb Elliott follows the coach - courtesy “Athletics” by Percy Wells Cerutty

Conclusion

So if you have a virus such as the flu then it would be wise to miss a few days training; if you don’t then it may force you to miss weeks or even worse. Don’t believe that just because you are fit you are invulnerable. Indeed evidence would suggest that, whereas doing a moderate amount of exercise may help to prevent you from becoming ill, overtraining can actually increase your susceptibility to illness 5. A few days off may be just what you need and could prevent a longer, more serious lay off. Of course the difficulty is deciding when the problem is genuine and when you are just being lazy looking for an excuse. Most importantly, if you are in doubt seek expert advice and don’t risk it.

Regular moderate exercise is certainly good and it is recommended that we try to do some on most and preferably all days of the week. But for those of us who try to go beyond these moderate levels of activity and train hard, it is a mistake to believe that the body can be pushed hard all the time. Training is a positive stimulus and the harder the training the greater the stimulus for improvement, but the body also needs time to recover from these hard exertions and a break involving more moderate levels of exercise should be looked upon as the chance to recharge the batteries, both mentally and physically. If you are ‘stale’ then some easy moderate exercise is what you need, not harder and more severe training. You can’t build good long term fitness upon a foundation of poor health.

sudden deaths among young Swedish orienteers 1979-92. Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases Supplement, 104: 41-49. 3. Friman G, Wesslen L (2000). Special feature for the Olympics: effects of exercise on immune system: infections and exercise in high-performance athletes. Immunology & Cell Biology, 78: 510-522. 4. Shephard RJ (2001). Chronic fatigue syndrome: an update. Sports Medicine, 31: 167-194. 5. Gleeson M, Pyne DB (2000). Special feature for the Olympics: effects of exercise on the immune system: exercise effects on mucosal immunity. Immunology & Cell Biology, 78: 536-544.

Professor Steve Bird is Director, Centre for Population Health, Sunshine Hospital, Melbourne. Steve worked with the Great Britain National Orienteering Squad for over 10 years.

References

1. Wesslen L, Pahlson C, Lindquist O et al. (1996). An increase in sudden unexpected cardiac deaths among young Swedish orienteers during 1979-1992. European Heart Journal. 17: 902-910. 2. Friman G, Larsson E, Rolf C (1997). Interaction between infection and exercise with special reference to myocarditis and the increased frequency of A one-year subscription (7 issues) of Orienteering Today $A115, payable to The Australian Orienteer. Send to PO Box 165, Warrandyte, Victoria 3113