How long before I can run with a second metatarsal stress fracture? Well, that is a great question and that is what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast
I get lots of questions from injured runners about things like second metatarsal stress fractures. This is one of the most common injuries I see and as a consequence one of the most common questions I get is how long is it going to be before I can run if I get a second metatarsal stress fracture?
Well, believe it or not I get lots of people that ask me questions because they say well CHAT-GPT says this. So, in this case I decided to ask Dr. CHAT-GPT a question. I simply typed in how long before I can run the second metatarsal stress fracture and the answer CHAT-GPT gave was recovery time after a second metatarsal stress fracture can vary but generally it takes about six to eight weeks for the bone to heal enough to resume running. You should wait until you’re cleared by a health care professional and it’s important to follow a gradual return to activity plan to avoid re-injury. This may include starting with low impact activities and slowly building up intensity and mileage as your foot tolerates.
All that is correct in a sense. Number one the timeline six to eight weeks is total BS. There is no proof that anybody can rely on the timeline of six to eight weeks to be back to running if they have a second metatarsal stress fracture.
If you think about this in the simplest sense what would be the difference if you just said okay let’s say that everybody that heals fast gets back to running in six weeks. Everybody who still heals slow gets back to running in eight weeks. By the way that is not true so this doesn’t mean it’s going to apply to you but let’s just imagine for argument’s sake that that is the timeline that everybody that gets a second metatarsal stress fracture will be running in either six weeks or eight weeks or somewhere in between.
What is the difference? Why would some people take eight weeks to get back to running and others would get back to running in six weeks? Is it some of them have a better doctor? Probably not. It’s probably what the runner does to try to stimulate the bone to heal and decrease the forces applied to the bone that can prevent it from healing.
Now, that timeline is truly much wider than six to eight weeks. In fact the largest meta-analysis of stress fractures in runners actually showed that the time was four to 52 weeks not six to eight weeks. So, I would argue with Dr. Chatt GPT about this one point.
Having said that the second point that is given here is that you should wait until you’re cleared by a health care professional. Totally true. If you start running on it because you picked six to eight weeks and you just waited eight weeks and went for a run, you’re probably going to break something again or get a different overtraining injury. There’s a really important reason you want to talk to a health care professional.
Also, it’s important to follow a gradual return to activity plan to avoid re-injury. That is kind of goes without saying, I think. I mean my strategy is really simple. What I do when I work with runners is I try to figure out how much activity can you do without slowing down healing the bone at the exact phase of recovery you’re in today based on things that we can determine together today.
Instead of just guessing on some timeline or waiting you should figure out how severe the injury is. How well the bone has healed so far and add activities that will not exceed the strength of the bone in the strength that it has right now today. That is a gradual return to activity plan but you can’t get that if your doctor says okay here’s your boot come back in six weeks. That is nothing gradual. That is waiting and then stepping up to a different level of activity in one instant.
I don’t do that. Although other part of this is that you may want to include some low impact activities and slowly build up intensity and mileage as your foot tolerates. It’s a hundred percent accurate but it’s very vague. So, what you have to think about is what are the activities that you can do today that you know again are not going to exceed the strength of the bone and re-injure it.
The whole point is to continually not just when you get out of the boot not once you see it healed on the x-ray not once your MRI or your doctor says it’s okay but how is it that all along the course of healing you can match your strength building activities to match that level of activity in the bone. And if you do it that way that will work.
Again, Dr. CHAT-GPT is pretty good but there’s a lot of missing details here that you can discuss with your doctor that will really help you to get back to running faster.
If you want to learn more about these exact strategies I use with runners when I work with runners who are trying to run a marathon when they have a fracture or the ones that I teach to physicians at medical conferences when we’re talking about these injuries and I’m trying to help them understand the approaches I use with athletes like you, you can get it for free at the Stress Fracture Masterclass www.docontherun.com/stressfracturemasterclass. So, come check it out and I’ll see you in the training.
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