Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast, we’re talking about why you should convert your off-season training program to your recovery program when you have a stress fracture.
Just this morning I was on a coaching call with a runner who is recovering from a stress fracture and stress fractures are very common in runners and it is very common that they really disrupt your training because you are told you cannot run, you cannot work out, you cannot do anything, you got a stress fracture, you need to stop activity and let it heal.
Well, there is some truth to that but it’s not really an absolute truth it’s sort of a half-truth at best. The fact is, is that almost every runner I talk to can immediately start exercising and start doing stuff to maintain their running fitness if they understand how severe the injury is, and they don’t have to just take time off. It is heartbreaking to me truthfully when I talk to somebody who has been completely off of their foot and on crutches in a fracture walking boot and worse not exercising at all for two weeks, four weeks, or six weeks before I ever talk to them.
The first thing I do is I try to figure out how to get them to exercise and when I was having a discussion this morning with this athlete who has a stress fracture, she said something that I had never really thought of before and it made total sense. When I was explaining the activities that she should do to start maintaining her running fitness she said, “Oh so basically I should just convert my off-season routine to my recovery routine right now because you know I don’t really run in the off-season I do all these other things that I know make me stronger and make my body more prepared to begin training and running and I could do those things now without really stressing my stress fracture right?” and I was like yeah that’s genius that’s exactly right.
So yes, if you just dive into your off-season strength training routine and you have one then that would make a lot of sense to giving you a very quick win to actually start doing something to maintain your running fitness immediately because every day that you don’t train particularly if it goes on for weeks, every day you lose more and more and more fitness. It’s not a straight trade. If you take three weeks off with zero activity you do not get it back in three weeks, that’s for sure. It takes you a long time to rebuild that fitness, so every day is critical.
If you have a stress fracture number one, make sure your doctor knows what your goal is make sure that you’re doing everything you can do to maintain your running fitness and whatever you do, do not start doing anything until you know the severity of the injury. The way you make every increase in activity as you return to running, the way you make every decrease in interventions like casts, crutches, taping offloading it with pads, all of that stuff the way you make those decisions is based on changes in the severity. And if you don’t know the severity of your injury today and you have a stress fracture, you’re making a tremendous mistake.
If you want me to show you exactly how I figure out the severity of somebody’s injury, now if you have a stress fracture and you’re trying to figure out what’s going on, what the detail is, is it a stress reaction, is it a stress fracture, is it a stress response, go check out the stress fracture master class. It’s a thing I put together for you where I go into a deep dive of the exact step-by-step strategy I use with elite runners, and this is the same strategy I teach to physicians at medical conferences when I lecture on stress response stress reaction and stress fracture in athletes.
In fact in two weeks I’m going to give a lecture at the International Foot and Ankle Foundation on that exact topic and it is the exact strategy I teach to those doctors you can go get it for free I’ll show you exactly what I do and how I do it and the strategies that could help you in working with your doctor when you have a stress reaction or a stress fracture and you want to get back to running as quickly as possible. It’s completely free just go to www.docontherun.com/stressfracturemasterclass. You can sign up and I’ll see you in the training.
