What qualifies as an injury?

Ok, so I'm having problems with this. I wouldnt be thinking about it if I weren't participating in a study that is looking at injury rates...

What do you guys call an injury?

I just reported an IT Band strain that made me take a whopping 2 days off (I usually take 1 off anyway) and reduce my mileage temporarily (my last 2 runs totaled 7 miles instead of my normal 10ish), and while it definitely hurt when it happened, I have a hard time calling it an injury because it didn't lay me up for at least a week. Anyone else feel the same way? Am I being too punishing on myself? Someone give me some perspective please!

I was struggling with the

I was struggling with the same question when I filled my January survey. I decided not to report the mild pain on the top of my foot because even though it was unusual and was bothering me, it was not painful enough to prevent me from running. Plus, I didn't know how to label that "injury" since it had not beeen diagnosed by any competent professional.

I think, as barefoot runners, we are getting quite good at listening to our bodies and not pushing through the pain, therefore we may call injury something that other runners would not give much thoughts about.

I'm confident that the person conducting the study will analyse all the parameters (type of injury, seriousness, how long did it prevent you from running, whether it was caused by shoes, minshoes or barefoot, etc). I think you did the right thing in reporting your injury, particularly if the survey is elaborate enough to take into account the above parameters.

I do not beleive it's fair to hide injuries in order to affect the result of the study and demonstrate that barefoot running leads to less injuries. But I would also refuse to fill in questionnaires that are not precise enough to take into account all the parameters. It would be too easy to give bfr a bad reputation based on injuries people sustain by doing tmts of poor technique in minshoes.

I'm curious to see what others think.

Does the survey you're taking

Does the survey you're taking part in have a comments section? Hopefully it does. If you need to clarify what happened to you, or ask about a gray area, you should write it in there. When I've done survey research I've often found that the comments section helps me interpret the results more accurately.

Of course you can always contact the researchers and ask what they mean too.

I would consider anything

I would consider anything more than normal soreness an injury. Even though you might not take time off it does affect your training in other ways.

Thankfully they did have a

Thankfully they did have a comments section! And then I wrote a rambling tale of magic and heroism in there to explain exactly how it all went down!

You'd think something bad enough to make me stop and walk 2.5 miles back to my car (was at 10.5 miles when it happened) there would be no question about whether to count it or not!

The did include everything down to cuts and blisters, so I'm guessing we should be including anything that even mildly impairs our running.

I wouldn't call it an injury

I wouldn't call it an injury per say but a warning instead, meaning that if you don't slow down then it migh turn into a real injury.

I usually don't do surveys

I usually don't do surveys because I find the ambiguity frustrating. There could be 3 different categories to ask about.



1) Injuries where you seek medical attention

2) Injuries where you take time off from activity

3) Discomfort other than normal fatigue/soreness



Even then you need some sort of subjective measure of the severity whether it is time or pain level etc.

that definitely givves me

that definitely givves me some perspective everybody! thanks!

I think I did the right thing in reporting it (I've been nervous about skewing the data), as it was definitely more than almost anything I've had to deal with. I figure the comments I left will either be useful supplemental information or it will spur the researchers to ask for more info.

now I just have to stay patient and let my mileage climb back up nice and slow.

Barefoot TJ wrote:I do not

See now, that's what I would say as well except that they actually suggest blisters and cuts as two of about a bijillion options. (I'm doing this survey as well.) And after filling out the form once for Achilles stuff, once for PF, and once for a toenail that's been falling off about once a year for ten years (although lately, withough shoes it's looking healthier than ever!), I didn't want to fill out anthing more just to complan about blisters and one stupid piece of glass. The blisters thing was an issue in shoes, but it was a completely different issue when transitioning to bf, and it hasn't been any issue at all for several months now. Plus if I were going to do that, I'd have to list the shin splints I had four years ago, and since they won't let you call it shin splints on the form (it's not accurate enough), I'd have to do a bunch of extra research just to figure out and self-diagnose whatever exact problem I used to have. Bleh, no thanks.

The glass thing might actually be worth mentioning because it was in there for a while before I found it and it ended up changing my footfall, which led to a tweaked ankle for a while. Still, the "comments" section isn't all that big, and I just got sick of filling out the form over and over. Maybe I'll send an e-mail or something with another injury form...bleh.

Oh yeah, and I completely

Oh yeah, and I completely forgot about my stubbed and bleeding toe from yesterday because it just didn't seem like that big of a deal. (Looked pretty sweet, though.) I didn't even notice that it happend until way after the fact. Still, they have a category on their form for stubbed toes, too. So do I include it? It bled, but it's towards the top of my toe so it won't keep me from running tomorrow.

Wow! Chelsea, I now consider

Wow! Chelsea, I now consider myself a very fortunate individual, if the only thing if had to put in was a measly IT Band strain!

Haha Smelph, glad to hear

Haha Smelph, glad to hear you've managed to stay so injury-free!

I know there are plenty of people around BRS who've had it much worse than me, so I consider myself pretty fortunate as well to have found BFR before things really got bad. I just don't like filling out stupid forms. And the more I think about it the more stuff keeps coming to mind. In the fall of 2007 I ended up breaking off my marathon training when I woke up for a 16 mile run and couldn't even walk across my bedroom without pain. "Runner's knee." Is that IT Band stuff?

Per my old high school coach.

Per my old high school coach. If you can play then you're hurt, if you can't then you are injured.

I look like an 80 year old

I look like an 80 year old man getting out of bed every morning, and really embrace the pains that come from pushing just a little too hard. Because of that, I have had to come up with a way to determine if those pains are normal, muscle strengthening, or something more serious. Here is my system...

If, after running my 4 mile morning run, all the aches and pains actually feel better, then its just the normal wear and tear that comes with running, especially increasing intensity/mileage of the summer racing season.

If those pains don't go away, or aren't evenly distributed throughout my body, then something may be wrong, and it could be an inury.

Did I add any new work to my training schedule, such as track repeats, a new hill route, or more cycling?

Did I skip an ice bath after a long run?(this almost always leads to increased soreness for me)

Take a couple of days completely off.

If after a 2 or 3 day rest, the pain is still there, its probably an injury.

My training partner often asks if this pain or that pain is "normal". How do you answer that? Whats normal for me may be totally unacceptable to someone else. I just tell him if your a runner, your always "injured" in some way. Its up to you to learn to read the signs from your body and determine how seroius it is.