Many athletes have suffered an impact on their performance due to having a history of herniated discs and runners are no exception. Running with back issues like herniated discs can possibly impact your times. I say possibly because having back pain when diagnosed with a herniated disc is not necessarily the quicksand to your running times. Although a mild to moderately acute (ie newly) herniated disc injury can cause secondary issues like compressing nerves and cause inflammation pressure resulting in weakness, spasms, tightness and back pain, these issues can often be treated conservatively. However when a runner suffers a severely herniated disc injury or recurrent smaller injuries that overtime worsen the tear it can require invasive surgery.
The first thing is to seek a proper assessment from a medical physician or physical therapist who have experience or specialize in orthopaedic low back pain issues. A medical physician specializes in diagnosing injuries and diseases through examination and appropriate diagnostic tests. Physical therapists are movement specialists, who also manually assess for mechanical dysfunction and pathological red flags. Furthermore a physical therapist uses conservative methods without side effects and plans of treatment that consider the runner's movement deficiencies and how to restore a competitive movement pattern to return to running without limitations.
Once you are moving without pain and stiffness and are cleared to run again from your health care specialist, reevaluating your running routine is the next step. The key to complete success is to formulate a plan with your physical therapist that considers how your body responds to high-impact activity. Here are some suggestions to prevent future injury before returning to a full runner's training program.
- Perform a runner's core strengthening program to get your core ready to handle all out running at a maximum performance level.
- Begin with a low impact exercise training program to prepare your body on incorporating solid running mechanics in a controlled manner and prevent risking re-injury on high impact forces prematurely.
- Incorporate a runner's specific flexibility program with a customized approach to target both general back and your specific areas of tightness.
- Progress to a high intensity interval training program specific to building endurance for runner's.
- Bring it all together and test it out with full impact running drills and endurance training.
- Incorporate a runner's specific maintenance and injury prevention program designed by a licensed or certified expert, for the best sustainable results.
