Injury Prevention Through Workload Monitoring – Part 3

older woman running

This post is prepared by West 4th Physiotherapy associate Peter Francis

How about a practical workload monitoring example?

Let’s take a real life example and help apply it by using an elderly person in our general population who simply wants to stay mobile.  Some older adults might keep a walking log, so here’s how we can take a brisk walk to the next level!  There are only two columns that the individual needs to fill in (1) distance of blocks walked at a brisk pace and (2) session’s rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) rated by the individual as 0-10.  The rest is automatically calculated. The calculations are the summation measure = blocks multiplied by sRPE.  The workload ratio is simply the current week total measure divided by the average total of the last four weeks.

Day Date Distance (blocks) sRPE 0-10 Summation Measure Acute:Chronic Workload Ratio
Sun Mar 5, 2017 10 5 50
Mon Mar 6, 2017 12 6 72
Tue Mar 7, 2017 16 8 128
Wed Mar 8, 2017 14 8 112
Thu Mar 9, 2017 0 0 0
Fri Mar 10, 2017 10 5 50
Sat Mar 11, 2017 12 6 72
 Week 1 484 1.0
Sun Mar 12, 2017 12 4 48
Mon Mar 13, 2017 14 5 70
Tue Mar 14, 2017 14 6 84
Wed Mar 15, 2017 0 0 0
Thu Mar 16, 2017 14 5 70
Fri Mar 17, 2017 16 5 80
Sat Mar 18, 2017 17 6 102
 Week 2 454 0.97
Sun Mar 19, 2017 18 8 144
Mon Mar 20, 2017 21 9 189
Tue Mar 21, 2017 0 0 0
Wed Mar 22, 2017 17 6 102
Thu Mar 23, 2017 18 8 144
Fri Mar 24, 2017 18 9 162
Sat Mar 25, 2017 19 9 171
 Week 3 912 1.48
Sun Mar 26, 2017 16 5 80
Mon Mar 27, 2017 18 6 108
Tue Mar 28, 2017 20 7 140
Wed Mar 29, 2017 10 3 30
Thu Mar 30, 2017 12 5 60
Fri Mar 31, 2017 16 6 96
Sat Apr 1, 2017 18 7 126
 Week 4 640 1.03

As you can see in week 3, this person increased the intensity of walking a lot and the ratio was near 1.5 so could be at risk of overtraining or getting injured.  Using this simple table can help an individual to rate how they were feeling based on a given activity completed and monitor week to week for reasonable progression.  The difference for an elite athlete might mean a drop in performance but for the older adult a drop in mobility can be debilitating.  Working too hard one week can result in taking the next week off because of soreness/fatigue and walking too little can lead to deconditioning.  Slow and progressive wins the race!

Peter-FrancisPeter Francis, Registered Physiotherapist
MPT, BKin, Dip. Sports Science

West 4th Physiotherapy Clinic
Main Street Physiotherapy Clinic

Follow me on social media!
Twitter Peter M Francis   Linked In Peter Francis   Baseball Blog BC

To book an appointment with Peter phone the clinic at 604-730-9478.  Help us to spread the Good Physio word by liking us on Facebook.

This entry was posted in Avoiding Injury. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.