Steady State

The majority of us will experience some form of chronic low back pain throughout our lifetime.

It’s a complex issue that is unique to the individual. However, there are clear relationships between mindset and movement patterns that are observed with symptom improvement.

This is not meant to devalue pain or to say that the pain is “all in your head,” but to highlight the power of mindset and movement and positive outcomes. In the end, research suggests there is a 90-100% correlation between becoming less protective with movements and a decrease in pain.

The 10% rule for increasing mileage is commonly adhered to by runners and coaches, even though there have been studies showing no difference in injury risk between groups following a 10% increase rule and groups following a 25% increase rule (Damsted et al 2018). In both groups, 20% of the runners sustained an injury over the course of the 8-week study.

Why is that? The only logical answer is that there must be much more to injury rates than just how far/long you are running.

Here are some metrics you can use during your training to account for the factors that the 10% rule ignores!