The Hardest Advice I Give My Patients
Last week was a rough one for me. There were a handful of patient cases that lead me to very difficult conversations. Conversations no runner ever wants to hear. Every…
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A few weeks ago, my newsletter talked about how whenever I’m building someone’s return-to-run program, I always start with non-consecutive days of running.
Which usually means, 3 days of running per week. Typically, Mon/Wed/Fri or Tues/Thurs/Sat based on what works best for the patient’s schedule.
This gives the body a buffer day to recover while still rebuilding consistency.
Once we’ve built the runner up to doing these runs comfortably, at high enough volumes, without pain, the next step is adding a 4th day in the week.
This is the key challenge: When you go from 3 to 4 run days per week, you no longer have the luxury of complete separation. No matter how you arrange it, at least two days will end up back-to-back.
Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat
Mon/Tues/Thurs/Sat
Mon/Wed/Fri/Sun
Tues/Thurs/Sat/Sun
There’s no way around it. And that’s the whole point of the transition – introducing one back-to-back run.
When progressing from 3 to 4 run days per week, it forces us to run on back-to-back days.
I was talking to a patient of mine about this exact transition. He was rocking solid 3 days of running per week on Tues/Thurs/Saturday and it was time to add a fourth.
When I mentioned progressing him to 4 run days a week, he was excited and mentioned that the previous program he was following had him doing Tues/Wed/Thurs/Saturday
I told him that we were definitely NOT going to do that!
Since he was already doing Tues/Thurs/Saturday with success, we just need to add one day a week and create one back-to-back run.
Adding Monday or Sunday are really the only options if we want to stick with Tues/Thurs/Saturday
Adding Wednesday creates a 3 day run streak of Tues/Wed/Thurs and adding Friday does the same thing with Thurs/Fri/Sat
When adding that fourth day to test out running back-to-back days, the day you choose matters.
That’s the art of a return-to-run program. Finding that sweet spot between challenging the injured tissue and recovery.
If you’re stuck trying to figure it out all by yourself, schedule a free discovery call with me. I’ll help you figure out the right next step so you can get back to running strong!
Your best is yet to come!
Dr. Michael
Valiant Physical Therapy
Evanston, Illinois
Physical therapy for Runners | Sports Rehab
