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Why Loading Capacity and Load Tolerance Should Be Your Top Priority
Why Loading Capacity and Load Tolerance Should Be Your Top Priority
Question: Why do we get injuries?
Is it overtraining? Is it form? Is it mobility? Is it strength? To simply say yes to each of these may be true, however the real cause of the injuries can often times arise from a much deeper level.
Answer: Load capacity and load tolerance.
What does that mean?
The load capacity is the how much force you can withstand in the muscles before causing breakdown. For endurance sports you should think of this like a cumulative effect.
For example, when you run at certain pace for a specific amount of time you should produce a certain amount of total force. If you exceed your load capacity by going too fast or too far you will have exceeded your load capacity. Capacity is what dictates your ability to go long distances without breaking down as quickly.
The next piece is load tolerance. This part is what we can directly link to injuries. Our load tolerance is the amount of force that a muscle and tendon can load before becoming overloaded. Once overloaded, tissue damage and inflammation occur which leads to injury.
Now that we know what these are, how can we improve them?
We can solve the load capacity equation by strength training. In order to have more capacity, you need more muscle and strength. Doing heavy strength work once or twice a week with a weight you can only do about 3 sets of 5 reps will help muscle growth. A couple of great exercises are using a barbell for back squats and deadlifts. A good rule of thumb is to try to slowly but surely work up to lifting your body weight for heavy effort days.
Load tolerance will improve by incorporating the other facets of strength and mobility training. A good program for this should include hip, knee, and ankle mobility and more importantly single leg and lateral movement exercises trying to build into a full range of motion as strength improves. You still want to use kettlebells or dumbbells for most of these exercises but the reps should be closer to 8-12 per set. Plyometric movements are another useful tool to help keep load tolerance adequate in tendons.
How does improving these improve your overall performance?
If we can improve both load capacity and load tolerance, we will have the ability to go harder for longer. This is what causes fatigue resistance in your body and the ability to withstand hard uphills, downhills, and fast paces without the same crash and burn. It means running the hill instead of walking. It means running an even split race. It means avoiding the bonk in the long races that has you moving slower than your normal easy pace just to finish. These are all huge performance improvements just from adding a few simple things to your training routine.
Do you want to learn more about how to structure your training or rehab some issues you're having?
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Dr. Dylan Glass, PT, DPT, SMTC
Dr. Josh Cornett PT, DPT, COMT, CDNT
Return 2 Sport PT
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