I recently posted about how I started training again after a longer break and how I thought I was using micro-progression to ensure avoiding injuries. Turns out that nope — this was not micro-progression at all, and adding 10 minutes every week is increasing the load quite a lot percentage-wise.
It was good while it lasted but at the start of the 4th week (now), Achilles’ tendons were sore again. Additionally, even though strength training felt completely okay, I was getting increasingly hungry and wanted to eat all the time. I consider the constant hunger as another sign my body wasn’t quite ready for the training load. Conclusion — for training long-term, there’s no rush, and for blending the training into my life better, micro-progression is crucial. Also, I’m not training for an upcoming event, I just want to be strong and active for life!
Fortunately, this week is a deload week, so I skipped one day and will do only part of the routine the other days. That said, I’m not a patient person and feel like I want to progress as quickly as possible. It’s very frustrating having to pause and take it seemingly extremely slow.
Here’s what helps me psychologically to deal with this — thinking about what I definitely do NOT want. Generally, knowing very well what I want to avoid and imagining the situation I don’t want, feeling the emotions of it — that’s a very strong motivator for me. In this case, I definitely do not want to have to skip months of training due to injury, and then starting again from zero.
A study of 254 injured novice runners (Nielsen et al., 2014) found a median recovery of 71 days — and 82 days for Achilles specifically, with 36 runners not recovering and stopping running for good. Also, progressing too fast in duration or intensity is reported in roughly 60–80% of Achilles tendinopathy cases (Silbernagel & Crossley, 2015) — so the exact mistake I was doing without even realizing.
The choice between skipping a week + progressing (annoyingly) slowly or spending a couple of months recovering is much simpler than just being frustrated about slow progress.
The second thing that helps me get through this is mapping out the progress long-term. My new plan for cardio training is increasing the load every 2 weeks by 5 minutes, and every 4th week is still the deload week. Same with strength training — I’ll only increase the reps/difficulty every 2nd week and also keep the deload week. This will also give my body more time to adjust with increased energy need to avoid hunger bursts. Example of how 4 next weeks could look like (in minutes):
| Week | Tuesday | Thursday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 (last week) | 20 | 20 | 25 |
| 1 | 20 | 20 | 30 |
| 2 | 20 | 20 | 30 |
| 3 | 25 | 20 | 30 |
| 4 (deload) | 20 | 20 | 25 |
Now, 5 minutes every 2 weeks seems very little, however, here’s how it’d look like when thinking 2 years forward (in minutes):
| Time | Tuesday | Thursday | Sunday | Weekly Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Now | 20 | 20 | 25 | 65 |
| 6 months | 35 | 35 | 55 | 125 |
| 1 year | 50 | 55 | 90 | 195 |
| 1.5 years | 65 | 65 | 120 | 250 |
| 2 years | 85 | 85 | 155 | 325 |
After 1.5 years, I’d already reach the recommended 4h/week cardio training* for longevity, thinking about training for decades, that’s actually quite short time. I’m becoming more and more convinced that avoiding injuries is the key to staying strong and active into old age. Focusing just on the current week, it feels annoyingly slow, zooming out and looking at the full path, it’s actually fast!
*See the link to understand where this number came from, there is no official worldwide accepted recommendation.
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