What are the two most dangerous parts of a run when you have a stress fracture? Well, that is what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.
When you have a stress fracture and you are getting back to running, there really are some things you have got to pay attention to if you want to make sure that you do not get a re-injury. The name of the game is increasing your activity to the point that your metatarsal stress fracture can withstand the stresses you are applying to it.
The first time that is stressful when you start running, it’s at the beginning of your run. Until you warm up, until you hit your stride, your running form is basically off. This is why people do drills before races and if you do that before you warm up when your form’s not good, you can suddenly load the metatarsal and lead to a problem and you are just getting started so you’ve got to ease into the run.
The second part of course is at the end of the run. You have to understand that when you are running, as you fatigue at the very end of your run, you start to wobble and sway and your form degenerates and because of that, the bones may actually get loaded at higher peak forces than they do during the middle of your run. And so, the very beginning of the run, the very end of the run, they’re both dangerous times for runners who have a stress fracture when you are first getting back to running.
This is why you’ve got to make sure that you are very carefully and very incrementally loading the metatarsal and making sure you do not exceed the stress that is being applied to that bone as you return to running.
A simple thing you can do to really mitigate that risk is number one, walk or ease into your run at the beginning and also of course you can cut your run short. If you are running to the point that you know you are fatiguing, you know your form is terrible, you know that you are exhausted, then cut your run short. You are adding undue risk when you run further than you can stand based on your fitness.
If some doctor locked you up in a fracture walking boot for six weeks and then you start running, this is super high risk. Your form is going to be terrible. If you took months off of running without any real treatment plan and you are easing back into it, you’ve got to be especially careful.
These are just a couple of the mistakes that I see runners making when they’re returning to running after they’ve got a stress reaction or stress fracture and they’re trying to get back to race shape. Now the number one mistake I see on runners who are waiting for a stress fracture to heal, you are not going to believe, but it is something that every runner can do. It’s something that all runners are missing when I talk to them, when they call me for a consultation call.
So, if you are a runner who has a stress reaction or stress fracture, maybe you are not even sure which one it is, well if you’ve been told you can’t run, if you think you are losing all your running fitness, if you feel like you’ve been trapped in a fracture walking boot unfairly, well you are probably right. If you think it doesn’t make any sense, you just have to sit around and wait and wait and wait for something to show up on an x-ray that wasn’t there the first time you went into the doctor’s office, well you are probably right.
But you’ve got to really understand that you have a lot more power in the process of getting your stress fracture to heal than you may be aware of. And what you also might not realize is that you were probably making a very big mistake if you are not actually tracking everything that is going on with your foot right now, irrespective of whether or not you have ever seen a doctor because I will tell you that the big secret is that your return to running after you have a metatarsal stress fracture, a metatarsal stress reaction, any of that, it’s not based on the findings on an x-ray or an MRI of your foot.
It is also not based on how long you’ve been off of running. I get runners all the time that ask me specifically, they’ll say I’ve been off for six weeks, can I run? Or I got an MRI that is a grade 4a stress fracture, how long will it be? Can I run? It’s not based on any of those things. It’s also not based on how long ago you stopped running. In fact, the longer ago you stopped running, the worse it may be. You can’t miss the opportunity that you have right now to actually figure out what’s going on with your stress fracture.
If you really want to understand the questions, I would ask you if we’re on a consultation call, you can get that for free. You can access it at www.stressfracturesecrets.com and I will show you the exact things that I would ask you that I know other doctors don’t ask you, so that you can really understand more about what’s going on and then how you can start really deciding what you can do right now to salvage your running fitness, stop getting weaker, and get back to running faster.
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