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on today's episode, load versus capacity. Welcome to the Run Smarter Podcast, the podcast helping you overcome your current and future running injuries by educating and transforming you into a healthier, stronger, smarter runner. If you're like me, running is life, but more often than not, injuries disrupt this lifestyle. And once you are injured, you're looking for answers and met with bad advice and conflicting messages circulating the running community. The world shouldn't be like this. You deserve to run injury free and have access to the right information. That's why I've made it my mission to bring clarity and control to every runner. My name is Brody Sharp. I am a physiotherapist of former chronic injury sufferer and your podcast host. I am excited that you have found this podcast and by default become the Run Smarter Scholar. So let's work together to overcome your injury, restore your confidence and start spreading the right information back into your running community. So let's begin today's lesson. Welcome back everyone for our third edition of this versus series, which doesn't really have anything linked. It just has the word versus in it. We're talking about load versus capacity today, particularly revolving around injuries or how to prevent injuries. In the past episodes, we went with what was weakness versus sensitivity, talking about the relationship between pain and if you have a lot of pain, does that mean it's just getting weaker? especially if you start trying to load it more and that does increase this pain, does that mean things are getting weaker? So looking at the balance between those two, then we looked at variety versus specificity. So how narrow you should be in your training, how much you should focus on one thing to get really good at it, or should we broaden our horizons and become more resilient? And so today looking at load versus capacity, this isn't a new idea. And in fact, it's probably repeating a lot of what we. once said in our Universal Principles, which are the first 10 episodes of this podcast. And I actually, I'm actually quite proud of you guys for listening. I do like to mingle and reach out and to send a bunch of messages to the listeners. And a lot of you are going back and listening to the start, which is fantastic because it just means that it's serving the original purpose of the podcast. I wanted people to go through the first episodes. and absorb that information, take on that before advancing into some of the more specific episodes. And so it's great that you guys are doing that. I'm not, I don't think I've ever come across someone who hasn't listened from the start or they're probably lying. I don't know. But thank you very much for going back and listening and serving the true purpose and just getting the best value out of listening to the podcast rather than just picking the titles. that you really want to listen to start with, you go back and learn the fundamentals before diving into something that might interest you. And I do know it doesn't have to be a purpose for someone to listen to every episode. Just listen to the first couple of seasons and then start to delve into the ones that you're interested in. Because some people that I talk to is like, sorry, I haven't listened to everyone. Well, you don't need to listen to everyone. You need to listen to the important ones and then whatever you find interesting. So this isn't a new idea. It's not a new concept. Um, a lot of people, a lot of the gurus that I follow, a lot of the health professionals that I like to follow, uh, they talk about this all the time. Kevin Maggs, who we have had on, I should probably mention what episode he was on when we talked about osteoarthritis misconceptions. I'm just going to pause this for a second and find out what episode that was. So episode 32 was when we had Kevin Maggs on knee, OA misconceptions. He talks about this load versus capacity a lot. Um, he has a YouTube video called load versus capacity. I think it's the title. He has the running reform is his title. Um, he's like Twitter. So if you want to type in running reform or go to running reform.com, you'll have a lot of that information there. If you want us to tune in. Um, but a lot of the information that I talk about today, um, covered some of his content as well. So thanks for that, Kevin. So, um, yeah, how do we get started? I guess maybe the definition. And we'll dive into this. Hopefully you find this a familiar concept, but would be a good refresher out to include in the podcast as well. So when we're talking about load, we're talking about the amount of physical load placed on the body. If you do, uh, if you do bicep curls, 10 kilos, three sets of 10, that is a load. If you go for a run for five Ks, that is a load. It is what most people would attribute to like an external load that you're placing, physical load that you're placing on your body. However, capacity is the body's ability to handle that load. And so it's very, very similar relationship, however, completely different because sometimes the body might feel a bit off on a particular day and not be able to handle a very similar load that you did the day before. And so there is a very tight relationship, which is why we're gonna discuss these two together today. And it just pretty much covers the concept if you increase load on the tissue greater than its capacity. So if every tissue will have a certain load capacity, if you exceed that, it increases your likelihood of injury. If you are used to running 5Ks and then you run 20Ks, that external load is exceeding the tissue's capacity and therefore will increase your likelihood of injury. Put in another way, which... the running clinic, which Kevin Maggs is a part of. The quotes that they like to follow is, the body will adapt to the load when placed upon it, so long as the application of that load doesn't exceed the capacity for that body to adapt. So this is back to our adaptation sweet spot. It's back to finding what you can currently tolerate, finding your adaptation zone and working within that adaptation zone. So if we apply load slowly, we should be fine. because capacity will slowly build up when load gradually increases. And what's described in that YouTube channel, that Kevin Magg's YouTube channel, that other YouTube video that I mentioned before, if you can imagine two columns or two towers, one being your load, one being your capacity, and they're side by side, let's just say those two columns are identical at the moment. So what you are putting through your external load, is matching your capacity. You won't necessarily break down because we have that relationship close by. So just visualize that, visualize those two columns, and I'll go through a few scenarios. Scenario number one, if we have a heavy brick that lands on your foot, that is a very, very rapid load, you could say, and you could say that the body doesn't have time to adapt to that, and therefore, tissue breaks down, you either break a toe, you get abrasions, you get bruises just because that load exceeds, that external load is way too much and then you get injured. So it's quite a humorous scenario, but it suits why we would get injured. And I guess you could say like not a lot of people could adapt to that, but if you started slowly and slowly dropped bricks on your legs and copped a lot of brute force, then the body could adapt. I think that's why martial artists can kick with their shins and kick with their feet quite a lot, because they're just used to repetitions. And I think, I did see a documentary on when martial artists, they like kick trees, just to harden up their shins. And so if a brick was to fall on that shin, might not break down. But yeah, I'm sort of digressing a little bit with that scenario. Scenario number two, so we still have those two columns. We still have that load column and the capacity column next by. So in scenario one, that load tower will shoot up and be way too much and be way, be greater than the capacity one, therefore injury is created. Scenario number two, we start a new activity, doing too much too soon. Most people will be familiar if you say, start a gym exercise, go to a class. and you're doing a whole bunch of new exercises that you're not used to, that if we're looking at that load versus capacity, the load might be too much before your capacity and you start breaking down, the muscles will be sore. If you hit your adaptation zone, yes, we'll have a good muscle soreness, but if you continue to overdo it, that might increase your likelihood of an injury. Maybe one gym class is fine, you'll just be a bit sore the next day and fine after that. But if you do... four or five of those new classes in one week, then your external load will exceed your capacity tower and therefore injury will be likely. Starry number three is the sensible one. We slowly build up and if you have that load and you slowly build up that load, that load tower will slowly climb up, slowly become taller, but because we are doing it gradually and because we are doing it slowly, that capacity tower will slowly start to build up alongside it. And so your overall foundation, your overall capacity starts to rise along with your load. And because there's not much of a discrepancy between the two, then the likelihood of injury will reduce. Scenario number four is where we get a little bit trickier because we can have physical load that if you're running 5Ks three times a week. that is a load that you place on your body and your body might be totally fine with dealing with those. However, what about if your load stays exactly the same throughout the week, but your capacity tower starts to diminish? And that's where we talk about under recovering. And that's a similar concept that we talk about in, say, our recovery month. And it's something that we talk about when it comes to our pain, rest, weakness, downward spiral. Your capacity can drop. And so if you have things like poor sleep, if you have increased stress, if you have illness, this can inhibit your recovery. The body will not be able to handle the same loads that it once used to. So bear that in mind, if we have those two towers again, you've got that load and capacity side by side at the same height. All of a sudden, if you're getting poor sleep, poor nutrition, you're unwell, that capacity tower starts to diminish. And then you, once again, you have that discrepancy between load and capacity, and you can start to develop an injury. And so it's a simple concept. Um, I recommend watching that YouTube video. I might actually include that in the show notes. And, uh, it's like last episode, it's time to self-reflect. Think about a time that you were injured or you, if you are injured right now, think about those two columns. Where are you with your load? Where are you with your capacity? And, uh, is there much discrepancy between the two? So another thing that when we're talking about this is try not to steer into the problem of the injury being like something wrong with your body or something that's biomechanical. Even if your doctor or even if your health professional throws these beliefs at you like you get injured because you have flat feet or your pelvis is out of alignment or you're pronating, you, what's another It can be unhelpful, it can be disempowering, and can start to trigger a lot of anxiety for people because how are you meant to get better? How are you meant to increase mileage if you have a leg length discrepancy? When in fact, a lot of these abnormalities, well, number one, there's not a lot of evidence to show that there is a link between these. In fact, there's a lot of evidence to disprove a lot of these beliefs that I just mentioned around pronation, alignment, glutes not firing, leg length discrepancy. A lot of the... a lot of, if you follow the evidence, there's not a lot to support that. Number two, there are a lot of abnormalities that the body will adapt to anyway. Like if you do pronate, if you do roll the knees in a little bit, the body will just adapt as long as you keep within that adaptation zone. So the body does tremendous things at adapting to how you run. And if someone's trying to convince you otherwise, just make sure that you're following this load. capacity model because you've run it, you've run the same way your whole entire life. You have run the same way with the same style and you haven't been injured. The only time you have been injured is when you're running with that style and you've mixed in something too much too soon or you've had that training error. So reflect back on this load versus capacity model because it can help reframe a lot of the reasons why you're injured. and help empower you moving forward. And you're actually learning moving forward and making smart decisions that way. So self-reflect on the past, self-reflect on injuries that you're either currently managing or have overcome in the past. And then look ahead, look ahead to see, okay, how can I raise my capacity if needed? We do that through sleep, stress, and just adaptation, nutrition as well. And consider that in the future, if you do have to change your volume and increase that load, make sure that capacity column is just slowly following up alongside it. Okay, so if we were coming to a conclusion today, just self-reflecting, looking at that load versus capacity, load being the physical amount of external load on the body, the capacity being its ability to handle that load and adapt to that load, we want to make sure that those two columns follow side by side at the same rate, at the same amount, at the same height, and we're wanting to make sure that those two towers don't skew too far away from one another. The capacity could drop, the load could increase, depending on what training you're doing throughout the weeks or what you're subjecting your body to. We just want to make sure the discrepancy isn't too far. And if it is too far, we want to make sure that we resume back to that the same heights very quickly. Okay. So that's it for the next video. for the versus series, I guess you could call them. Um, hopefully this is something you already know quite well, but hopefully it is a, um, concept that just requires a little bit of refreshing. And I think we always need a bit of a reminder to self-reflect sometimes, particularly when we're injured or particularly if we've tried to negotiate several injuries over the past couple of months, I know we're, you know, well over a hundred episodes now. So. These refreshes can be quite nice, but we'll be diving into back into interviews and back into Q and A episodes over the next couple of weeks. So look forward to bringing you those happy running and bye for now. Thanks once again for listening to take full advantage of the knowledge you are building. You need to download the run smarter app. This contains all of my free access podcast episodes, written blogs and ebooks, along with my paid video courses, all neatly housed into categories for you to easily navigate through and find content you're interested in. 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