The Pain Rehab Center for OCR Athletes: Train, Eat and Recover Like This

The Pain Rehab Center for OCR Athletes: Train, Eat and Recover Like This
Presented by Spartan Training®

Knee pain sucks—and if you struggle with it, you're not alone. (Most runners and OCR athletes do at some point!) Bottom line: Knees are infamously known as the best and worst joint in the body for good reason. The key is to care for your joints by prioritizing cross training, recovery and eating right. With the proper rehab and enough pre-injury intel, you can circumvent inflammation, osteoarthritis and other game-stoppers down the line. In this series, we team up with DUROLANE® to bring you our top tips from MDs and pro trainers to treat your knees like the gold they are.

Plus, bonus tips on bone health, brought to you by EXOGEN. (Hint: when it comes to destroying obstacles and crushing races, skeletal health is more important than you think.) 

Suffering with knee pain? There’s almost nothing worse when it comes to dominating OCR at max performance. We get it. Your knee joints power you through miles of tough, unpredictable terrain, lift you up and over unforgivable obstacles, and are a key connection point in your body’s kinetic chain from your feet to your core. 

The bad news? Knee injuries can cause osteoarthritis if you don't recover properly, take them seriously, or prioritize joint health. And even worse, once you have knee OA, it's a lifelong battle.

That said, you can do a lot to prevent early onset OA and keep dominating OCR—if you train smart. We talked to experts from registered dietitians to fitness trainers and world-class doctors to bring you this all-encompassing knee-recovery center. Here, get top-tier intel to avoid injury, recover from setbacks and maintain joint health so you can keep flipping tires and crushing trail runs for the long game. 

Your Knee Pain, Decoded: Common Myths About OA in Endurance Athletes

pain management for athletes

Knee injuries in endurance athletes are super common. Whether you tear soft tissue in an accident (it happens!) or because you overtrain (ugh), it's crucial to know how to deal with it. Here's what you need to know about knee pain—and what's not true, despite what you may think. 

3 Spartan-Approved Therapeutic Exercises to Manage (& Rehab) Knee Pain

pain management for athletes

Struggling with stiff knees from your workouts? Use these exercises for knee injuries to build strength, rehab joint pain and prevent injury in the future. Spartan's Director of Fitness Sam Stauffer gives you the best moves you should use every single day to bolster this key joint. No excuses, no exceptions. 

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Top Joint-Friendly Foods to Stay Fit & Limber for Life

pain management for athletes

If you battle joint pain, eating a heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory diet may help. Here are the best foods for healthy joints, recommended by an RD, to support your training efforts around the clock. Think: preventative eating = staying strong, fit and fast for as long as humanly possible. 

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To learn more, visit DUROLANE.COM.

DUROLANE is a unique, single-injection hyaluronic acid therapy that provides long-lasting pain relief from knee osteoarthritis, and acts as a supplemental lubricant and shock-absorber for affected knee joints.*

*DUROLANE [package insert]. Durham, NC: Bioventus LLC; 2017.

4 Things OCR Athletes Should Know About Their Bones

bone health for endurance athletes

Bone health is crucial to optimizing your performance. Think about it: your skeletal structure supports literally everything in your body. Without it, you're just a meat sack of muscle and soft tissue. Healthy bones play into balance, coordination, joint health and several other functions necessary to crush it at OCR—and stay active for the long game. Here's what you need to know. 

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EXOGEN is approved for the accelerated healing of indicated acute fractures and the healing of nonunions* (including infected, instrumented, or poor bone quality nonunions, excluding skull and vertebrae). There are no known contraindications. Patients may experience sensitivity to the ultrasound gel. 

*A nonunion is considered to be established when the fracture site shows no visibly progressive signs of healing.

See EXOGEN User Guide at www.exogen.com.