How to heal your running injury which lasts longer than 2 months
Do you have chronic injuries which last longer than 2 months?
It’s very strange because all skeletal muscle cells are reborn within 2 months. So, if it goes longer than 2 months, something is wrong. If you are in this case now, I will tell you what happens right now and how to fix it.
The difference between acute inflammation and chronic inflammation
You have a pain or fever now, that means you have inflammation. Inflammation more often occurs than most people think.
For example, you would have muscle soreness after a race, that is also inflammation. If you are a German, probably you had a headache because of drinking beer too much. Pardon me?
You German people do not get hung over no matter how much beer you guys drink?
Oh I’m sorry for that. But if you go to Tokyo in Japan on Friday night, you can see many office workers sleep on the ground with wearing a suit. That is also inflammation in their brains. That’s why drunk people are stupid. Are they smart if they do not drink beer?
I’m not sure about it. But I’m sure inflammation more often occurs than most people think. First of all, what is the purpose of inflammation?
The purpose of inflammation is basically healing. When inflammation occurs, more immune cells move to the place which tissue gets damaged by blood flow or any other body fluids. So, that place gets bigger than other places and as a result that area stimulates pain nerve and that’s why you feel pain.
Do you feel pain when you get muscle pain after a full marathon race, sprinting, long runs or downhill run, right?
And then, did you notice your legs or feet were bigger than usual?
If you haven’t noticed it yet in your life, please check it in the next time you get muscle pain.
Anyway, basically by more immune cells, blood flows and body fluids, damaged immune cells get rid of bacteria or broken-down tissues, more nutrients go into the damaged area and waste products are got rid of so that damaged tissues get healed quicker.
If there is no inflammation, your body does not heal or heal slower. So, basically inflammation is important.
However, we need to know two types of inflammation in this world.
First one is acute inflammation which I just explained to you. The sign of acute inflammation is swelling, heat, redness, sharp pain and restricted movement. Since there are very clear signs, we very easily notice this.
While there is chronic inflammation which do not have these 5 clear signs. It occurs very often silently.
But basically, also there are signs of chronic inflammation.
Have you ever experienced that you could not focus on your study or work after hard workouts like interval workouts or long runs?
You have no pain or muscle soreness but the whole body is dull, feel tired and your brain isn’t working well. Everybody experiences this situation once in your life, right?
Honestly, I experience this very often.
This phenomenon is also inflammation. But not acute but chronic. Or I would say low level inflammation and often this low-level inflammation lasts longer. This is the biggest problem and roots of your chronic pain.
The biggest problem of low-level chronic inflammation is, making necrosis. What is necrosis?
Probably you English native speakers might think that I am using wrong word now. But I’m not wrong. It is necrosis. Before I explain what necrosis is, I need to explain how our life phenomenon is going on without our knowing.
How we stay alive
Everything in this world gets older and finally broken down sooner or later. This is the law of the universe which is called the law of increasing entropy.
Think about this. In terms of average, we live until 85 years old. This is pretty long, isn’t it?
Probably you want to live until 100 years old. However, I ask you how long does your shoes last?
Basically, shoes can be patient only 700km to 1000km. That means, I need one new pair of shoes every month. My shoes life is only one month.
While the master of shoes, in other words I have been running for 20 years and still fine. How?
One thing I cannot believe is that all of my coaches in junior high school, high school and professional time, quit running by the age of 32 which is my age. I’m very much durable.
Anyway, the reason why my body and your body is much more durable than cutting edge high-tech shoes is because our body is always reborning. All the cells inside of our body are regenerating, 1% of a day on average.
In other words, physically speaking, I am a completely different person as me 100 days ago. But surprisingly, I’m still the same person. I look like me 100 days ago, I am able to run as fast as I did 100 days ago although I spoke English slightly better than I did 100 days ago.
Why?
I am a completely different person physically speaking then why am I the same person? It’s because I am still the same person informationally.
Physically, I am a completely different person.
However, I still have the same information. Where is the information?
Information is in DNA. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. The minimal unit of our body is cells. We have approximately 37 trillion cells. The number is slightly different according to researchers. It could be 100 trillion cells and it could be 60 trillion cells.
Honestly speaking, I have never counted how many cells I had in my life. So, I don’t know the exact number.
However, these days the number 37 trillion cells is getting more and more popular while in the past the number of 60 trillion was the most popular. So, let me say here 37 trillion cells.
So, first of all we have 37 trillion cells and there is one nucleus in the central cell. And there is DNA in nucleus. 1% of cells are reborn a day on average. And then, new cells are regenerated based on the information inside of DNA. This is the reason why we are basically same and also, why we look like our parents if your mother didn’t cheat on your father.
No matter how many times I look into a mirror, I see a true Japanese man in the mirror. I have never seen a white man or black man. This is because of my DNA inside of nucleus.
In this process, first of all old cells should die properly. More exactly speaking, once the cell gets old enough or damaged enough, that cell catabolizes into small pieces which are called apoptotic body and some immune cells like macrophage eat them. This is also the reason why the right intensity and right amount of inflammation heal damaged tissue quicker.
Swelling means more body fluids and more body fluids mean more immune cells like macrophages, so they eat apoptotic bodies quicker than usual. Once these immune cells clean them up perfectly, we can build new cells.
Additionally speaking, if we give our bodies proper training stimulus, these new cells are stronger or I would say better for long distance running or marathoning, this is the mechanism of getting faster.
Also, this is the reason why consistent training is the most effective training method. Approximately only 1% of all cells are regenerated on average.
So, no matter what you do, it takes approximately 6 weeks to see your improvements. 6 weeks means 42 days, by the time you finish your next 6 weeks training, your body changes 42% on cell level.
However, if you did only one training session a week, you gave your body only 6 times in 6 weeks. No matter how hard you did these 6 training sessions, you cannot beat someone who trained 7 times a week because their cells were regenerated 7 times a week with information that we need to get faster while your body cells were regenerated by only 1 time information that we need to get faster.
This is the reason why the most effective training principle is moderate volume moderate intensity with high frequency.
Anyway, if apoptosis occurs, it is OK.
However, there is one more way to regenerate cells named necrosis. The problem of necrosis is giving other cells’ DNA around that necrosis cell oxidative damages.
Apoptosis is something like living out your natural lifespan while necrosis is something like Kamikaze attack. You explode and die. Then attacking other cells’ DNA. And that attacked cell also make necrosis because the governor is now damaged. The governor cannot make the right decision anymore, in other words they cannot make apoptosis anymore so all they can do is necrosis.
Also, since their DNA is damaged, they cannot regenerate properly. As a result, newborn cells are also abnormal. This is the phenomenon of chronic diseases and injuries. In a sense, your body produces your injuries by itself. That’s the reason why it cannot be healed.
Who governs apoptosis?
The governor of apoptosis is an enzyme named cytochrome c oxidase. This enzyme plays a big role when you produce energy by using aerobic metabolism. At the end phase of aerobic metabolism, we need to move protons to produce biological energy named Adenosine triphosphate. Protons have positive energy and electrons have negative energy. So, these two materials attract each other, with that being said, if electrons move, automatically protons chase electrons so that we can move protons to produce adenosine triphosphate.
But question is, how can we move electrons?
To move electrons, cytochrome c oxidase plays a big role. And this cytochrome C oxidase also makes a decision whether apoptosis occurs or necrosis occurs.
As long as cytochrome c oxidase is not damaged, apoptosis can occur while if cytochrome c oxidase gets too much oxidative stress, cytochrome C enzyme cannot make apoptosis occur.
Why does necrosis occur?
It is said that everything in this world has a meaning. No matter how bad self-image you have, since you were born in this world, the universe expects you to do something good.
Anyway, necrosis has actually an important role.
Necrosis is actually a kind of survival strategy for cells. In certain circumstances, cells cannot produce biological energy by using aerobic metabolism.
In this case, all they can do is producing biological energy by using anerobic metabolism. So, cells which were newborn and occur necrosis are more specialized for anerobic metabolism.
Then in which circumstances do these cells cannot produce biological energy?
Roughly speaking, there are two reasons.
The first reason is local anemia which is caused too tight muscle. If your muscle is too tight, your blood flow is limited and limited blood flow means lack of oxygen because oxygen is carried out by blood flow.
So, if your muscles are too tight and it inhibits blood flow too much, your cells cause necrosis and inflammation. In other words, only abnormal cells produce in that area that’s why your injury is not healed even if you completely stop running.
Second, your cytochrome c oxidase gets too much oxidative stress. So, cells in that area cannot cause apoptosis, as a result, cells make necrosis, as a result only abnormal cells are built in the area. So that you always have pain even if you stop running completely. It is not healed.
How to heal the injury?
The first thing first is loosening up your muscles at all costs. You need to do everything you do, like massage, light exercises, Yoga exercises, kinetic exercises, acupuncture, anything.
My best recommendation is the combination of endurance sports at low intensity and massage.
In terms of light endurance sports, very often people quit exercising completely when they get injured.
However, there is a big problem. That is, if you quit exercising, your muscles get tighter. Of course, if you do hard workouts, your muscles get tight and produce too many oxidative stress. These factors could inhibit the healing process.
However, light exercise loosens your muscles up and also, if you stop training at all, your quality of mitochondria and cytochrome c oxidase gets worse. That means, your body can produce less biological energy for healing and also less ability to be against oxidative stress.
These things also get your healing process slower. So, keep training at low intensity and do Yoga exercises or kinetic stretch exercises after that.
To make sure, let me say this. I don’t believe the story you got injured because you did not do enough stretching exercises.
However, it helps you to loosen up your muscles. So, do some Yoga or kinetic stretching exercises only after light exercises like 5-10 minutes.
The next question is, what kind of training you should choose?
The basic rule is the closer the movement is to running, the better. However, the closer the movement is to running, the higher risk there is to get your injury worse or delay the healing process.
So, you need to see what is good for your body by yourself. If you do not feel pain, you can do everything. Don’t worry about getting your injury worse too much. While if you feel a pain with that movement, it is better to stop doing it.
My personal recommendation is always stationary biking because it is OK to do almost for all injuries even if you have stress fractures and the movement and rhythm (the cadence) is pretty close to running.
In terms of massage, if you know someone who gives you very intensive massage to the extent that you scream, go for the therapist once or twice a week. It will really work well.
However, it is very difficult to find that kind of therapist usually.
So, in this case, you need to do moderate massage as often as possible. More exactly speaking, you do 3-6 times a day. One session would be 2-5 minutes. Moderate intensity means, you feel pain but at the same time somehow comfortable.
If you type ‘How to use foam roller’ on YouTube, you can find many videos you can use.
Also, there is one more way to get rid of oxidative stress from cytochrome c oxidase and help cytochrome c oxidase to produce more biological energy for the natural healing.
That is low level laser machines. More exactly speaking, machines which emit the light which the wavelength is from 600nm to 1000nm except 700-770nm.
If this wavelength light is absorbed by cytochrome c oxidase, it gets rid of oxidative stress from cytochrome c oxidase and also, cytochrome c oxidase can produce more biological energy for the natural healing.
By the way, we human beings live by producing energy by using aerobic energy. Roughly speaking, there are two aerobic metabolisms.
The first one is aerobic glycolysis, and the second one is aerobic lipolysis.
And here is the chemical equation of aerobic glycolysis.
1 glycogen+6 Oxygen=6 Carbon dioxide+6 water molecules+36 adenosine triphosphate
Adenosine triphosphate is biological energy.
And the chemical equation of photosynthesis is
Sunlight energy + 6 water molecules + 6 carbon dioxide = 1 glycogen + 6 oxygen.
So, our aerobic glycolysis is completely opposite of photosynthesis of plants. And low-level light energy increases the number of adenosine triphosphate by being absorbed by cytochrome c oxidase. This is a kind of artificial photosynthesis by using low level light energy and cytochrome c oxidase.
But anyway, the fact is more important than the theory for us long distance runners, right?
So, I will introduce you to some sentences from a book titled ‘Red Light Therapy Miracle Medicine’ written by Mark Sloan.
‘Dr. Harry Whelan from the Medical College of Wisconsin has been studying red light in cell cultures and on humans for decades. His work in the laboratory has shown that skin and muscle cells grow 150-200% faster than control cultures not stimulated by the light.
Working with Naval doctors in Norfolk, Virginia and San Diego California to treat injured soldiers, Dr. Whelan and his team found that soldiers with musculoskeletal training injuries who were treated with the light-emitting diodes improved by 40%.
In 2000, Dr. Whelan concluded after many years of research that ‘’The near-infrared light emitted by these LEDs seems to be perfect for increasing energy inside cells. This means whether you’re on Earth in a hospital, working in a submarine under the sea or on your way to Mars inside a spaceship, the LED, boost energy to the cells and accelerate healing’’.
A review of the scientific literature reveals there are literally dozens of other studies evidencing the powerful wound-healing benefits of red light.
In 2014, a group of scientists from three universities in Brazil conducted a scientific review of the effects of red light on wound healing. After reviewing a total of 68 studies, most of which were conducted on animals using wavelengths ranging from 632 nm to 830 nm, the study concluded that phototherapy, eighter by Laser or LED, is an effective therapeutic modality to promote healing of skin wounds’’.
Above is the evidence of how low-level laser machines work for wound healing. Basically, it works for running injuries in the same way.
Also, the below is quote from the same book.
‘Upon exposure to any of the environmental contaminants listed above, cells produce a free radical called nitric oxide, which binds directly to cytochrome c oxidase, deactivating it. For as long as nitric oxide is bound to this enzyme, the cell will have a defective cancer metabolism.
Enhancing Metabolism
The impacts of red and near-infrared light on cellular metabolism are fascinating and unique.
Remarkably, red and near-infrared light have both been proven to actually unbind (aka photodissociate) nitric from the cytochrome c oxidase enzyme, restoring its activity. But the truth is even more incredible.
Cytochrome c oxidase is unique in that it actually absorbs light specifically within the red and near-infrared portions of the spectrum. So not only does red and near-infrared light liberate the cytochrome c oxidase enzyme from inhibition by nitric oxidase, it also directly energizes this enzyme, which supercharges its activity.
The result is enhanced cellular metabolism and the cascade of beneficial physiological effects that emerge from increased metabolic activity, including :
Increased energy (adenosine triphosphate) production
Increased cellular oxygenation
Increased blood flow in the body
Increased CO2 production
Reduced stress hormones
Reduced lactic acid
Reduced inflammation
Reduced free radicals
It’s this cascade of beneficial physiological that can account for most, if not all, of the broad-ranging beneficial effects of near-infrared and red light therapies.
Summary:
Red and near-infrared light penetrate deeply into body tissues, where they impart their healing effects by enhancing mitochondrial energy production’’.
Now, I hope you understood that my explanation was right.
Anyway, first of all, please find tight muscles first. It could be different area with your pain point.
For example, very often your pain in the bottom of the foot is healed after you loosen up your calf muscles and hamstrings.
Very often your knee pain is healed after you loosen up your hamstrings and adductor muscles. So, throw away your preconceptions. Find any places which are tight and loosen up there.
If you don’t know how to massage your muscles by yourself, find a good therapist or buy a foam roller and search how to use it on YouTube. You better watch a video which a beautiful woman explains you instead of my explanation.
And if you are liquid right now, just find a LLLT machine, emit the light to your body twice a day, the first session is as whole as possible, for example from your chest to thighs and in the second session, you emit the light energy to your pain area. One session would be 10-20 minutes.
If you cannot afford to pay 1200 US dollars right now, I recommend you buy cheap one which is probably made by China.
And if you can afford to pay 1200 US dollars, please click here to purchase the low-level laser machines which I invented. I cover your shipping cost wherever you live on this planet. I already have customers in the East Asia and now I am waiting for the first customer in the Europe and the USA.
Already more than 500 customers have used my machines in Japan including athletes who won the Japanese championship, Japanese record holder, Olympians and got top 6 in the world championship, 2:08 marathoner etc.
Just give me one shot and believe me. Even if you are satisfied as half as other my customers, you are going to be very very satisfied. The only problem you’re gonna have is that you didn’t purchase it six months ago and started using it then.
Does that sound fair enough?
Comments