Lots of wisdom here that jives with my experience with pain and (phantom) injuries.
So often, based on pain (or should I say “tissue sensitivity”?), I’ve self-diagnosed what appears to be an injury that the Internet tells me will be around for a while.
But after a few days of rest followed by easy running or cross-training and maybe rehab exercises, the issue fades.
The pain seems more a warning than anything else. It might be nociceptive or even inflammatory pain as described in the post linked to above (in the later case, there might be a slither of damage). There may be no actual or at least significant damage; just pain.
And hear what the author (a physio) has to say about overuse injuries:
If there is no pathoanatomical basis for the athletes pain it should not
be labelled as an injury. Wording such as ‘overuse injury’ can be
associated with tissue damage when none has occurred.
Relapses especially, I’ve often felt, may be nothing more than cautious, brain-made pain. While the initial injury may have taken time to get over, I find relapse “injuries” or pain can pass in a matter of hours.
The above site also has as comprehensive and insightful as you’ll find page on calf rehab. Not the usually recycled, out-of-date, non-runner-useful fluff Google normal serves up.
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