Motivation to train and tendinopathy

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hey Jordan, I just read the latest article on tendinopathy. Unfortunately recently i started experiencing pain on the outside of my right ankle (peroneal tendinopathy I think). I felt fine the prior week no issues then all of a sudden I started feeling ankle discomfort last week when squatting but was not driven by a particular load, it just hurt it all the same to go to normal squat depth at the bottom.

The main problem is the pain is now carrying over to normal life, where just taking my dog on a short walk can be painful. Is the fact it continues to hurt outside of the gym going to be harder to desensitize the area? It’s harder to modify real life to avoid irritating unlike training

some training notes

  • no sudden trauma or cause that I pinpoint, although I do have a “below knee bump” issue on my opposite leg mentioned before and I speculate I may be shifting more load on to my right side which might have contributed to over use
  • on PLII - not sure yet how I want to replace the 3x squat but on day 2 I just did calf raises, and day 3 I will try leg press or a DB variation to see if that works as a substitution
  • no real issues deadlifting at high intensities, which is good. Guess I’m a push puller for the next few weeks

Training motivation is probably at its lowest because squatting is my favorite and takes up so much of my exercises, and the psychological impact from pain outside the gym. How do you keep your effort and intensity up in face of issues that make you less excited to train?

2

MPG,

Sorry to hear you’re in pain, my friend. I’ll cut to the chase and say I’m not convinced that this is tendinopathy based on what you said here. It’s possible, of course, but I would want to do a more thorough evaluation before labeling it and managing it as such. There are ways to unload/reduce the load with activities of daily life using appliances, e.g. boots, braces, and so on. I think this would benefit from a consultation with our Pain and Rehab team, especially given how important training is to you combined with some uncertainty regarding management.

With respect to motivation, I won’t pretend that my experience and our advice is universal. However, I do think that finding small wins like being able to do a similar exercise pain free and progressing on that is pretty motivating. I also like to get crippling pumps if I can’t train heavy like I want to, just for that experience while I can’t do what I want. Injuries are unfortunately part of life. How people respond to them makes all the difference!

-Jordan

3

Thanks Jordan - I think I may take that up if I have trouble managing this over the next two weeks.

will look into getting that pump and maybe blend a little PB3 rep schemes in. On the bright side, at least I’ve got bench and deadlift PRs on the horizon