My Mistakes

You may not know this about me, but before I followed my passion, I was a lawyer, a really bad one. Not the greatest student. One thing I do remember from college is the old saying: "The lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client." Well, that hit me pretty hard this week. Turns out I'm the fool of a client and a bad coach!

What I did

About two months ago, I started running again after rupturing my achilles last year. My achilles felt good. I slowly building up speed and distance, and it kept feeling good.

A month ago, I did my first sprint. I'd built up my jumps, gotten back about 70% strength in my calf, and running felt solid. I was scared but confident I just needed to get out of my own head. So I did 10-yard sprints. No problem. 

The following week: 5 reps of 15 yards. Achilles still good, but I could feel my hamstrings weren't strong.

The week after: I set a goal of 5 reps at 20 yards. I got through 3 and felt a twinge. I stopped. I didn't push through.

This week was the real mistake. I went into the session with a regression built into the plan hill sprints, which limit speed and the range of motion your hamstrings go through because I already knew my body wasn't ready. I did 3 reps of 20 yards. The plan was 5. But my ego got in the way, and I decided to finish the last 2 reps on the flat instead.

Bang. Pulled my hamstring.

I got impatient, I moved away from the plan AND I didn't listen to my body. Silly boy. 

Why it happened

This isn't the classic return-from-injury mistake: rest too long, get deconditioned, feel no pain, jump straight back to where you used to be, get reinjured. I didn't do that. I was patient and diligent rehabbing the achilles up to a certain point!

Then I got impatient. 

This happened because my injured leg is just not strong enough yet. The uninjured one took all the load, hamstring buckled. I had planned that no max sprinting until I can do single leg calf raises with the same level of volume and load as the uninjured. I’m not there yet. Even though it has been a year. 

I had said a year, that was part of the plan but the time is irrelevant if the metrics are not hit. 

What I should have done

Stuck to the bloody plan.

I'd felt it for three weeks straight my hamstrings weren't ready. I'd even built a progression to address it. The main metric I had given myself I had not reached. And then I got excited and skipped it anyway.

The lesson

Knowing the right protocol isn't the same as following it. I can write return-to-play programs in my sleep. I coach people through exactly this. And I still broke my own rules the moment my ego wanted results faster than my body could give them.

That's the real lesson, and it's not really about hamstrings. It's that the plan only works if you trust it more than you what you want to actually do. I'm annoyed with myself, but I'm also glad to be reminded why we preach what we preach. Hopefully my mistake means fewer mistakes for our members. Let us blow up the lab so you don't have to.

What's next

Back to doing what I said I'd do. First: move and strengthen the hamstring as much as I can without pain, for as long as it takes. My achilles feeling fine doesn't mean it's at 100%, the strength might be 70%, not 100%. Same logic applies here. I’ll keep building and not skip steps. 

That means more patience, and trusting that it comes. I've got plenty of ways to stay active to beat the boredom of rehab work. Hiking, swimming, running, playing, strength training. I just can't sprint at max effort yet. So I focus on what I can do, and I stick to the plan.

Don’t make my mistake. Don’t skip steps!