I got a fibular stress fracture, and I have to run in 25 days. What should I do? Well, that is what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.
Today’s episode comes from a comment posted on one of the videos on the Doc On The Run YouTube channel, and this is somebody who is, I think, looking for advice, which I do not ever give through social media comments, but that is neither here nor there. Let us talk about what is going on here.
This was on the video that this person watched. It was called, “Can I still run after I heal a fibular stress fracture?” and in that video, I was trying to talk about how you can decide basically whether or not you can run after you have had a fibular stress fracture.
But the comment he posted was, “Hello, I got a fibular bone crack while running and I have an army physical in 25 days. Please tell me the solution due to which I will be able to give my physical fitness test.”
Okay, here’s the solution. Well, number one, what does that mean? You’ve got a crack in the fibular while running. When? How long ago? What have you done between now and today that you watch that video? Okay, the good thing is he has a timeline. I like this. So, this guy has a dedicated timeline. He has a physical fitness test. He knows what it is. He knows how long he has to run. He has to do it in 25 days. That means you have a deadline of 25 days.
Step number one, figure out your goal. Step number two, well, you want to do everything possible to speed it up and do everything possible not to slow it down. That sounds stupid but every day that runners call me for second opinions, they talk to doctors, and they don’t know how to do either. So, the way that you go about that is first you figure out how bad the stress fracture is right now. You need to know the severity.
Saying there’s a crack and it doesn’t tell me anything. I don’t know if that is a crack that is partially healed. If it’s not really a crack, you think you have a crack. There was a crack on an x-ray or there was a little bitty crack on a CT scan or there was an MRI that might have showed a crack, but you’re not sure. If you do not know how severe it is, you cannot make a plan to recover. So, you figure out the severity based on how it feels, how it looks, all of these questions I would ask you if I was doing a second opinion with you.
Then what you do is that you take that information from those questions I would ask you that tells you what the severity is, and you would carefully reduce the stress and strain on that bone that has the stretch fracture in the fibular. You would reduce the stress and strain on the fibular so that you know the severity goes down after that and only after that. After you know what the severity is, after you reduce the stress on it so you know the severity is going down, then you start training and testing so you can maintain and rebuild your fitness so that in 25 days you can do your physical fitness test.
But you have to do all of those things because if you don’t, if you just sort of like train a little bit less and it continues to ache and hurt and swell and all those things, if it continues to have bruising developing, it’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse and then it might really break while you’re doing your physical fitness test.
If you think you have a fibular stress fracture, that is what you have to do. Number one, figure out how bad the stress fracture really is right now. You have to understand that now because tomorrow, when that tomorrow gets here, today is gone. The information that you had today about how it feels, how it looks, everything that is going on with it, the things I would ask you, that is gone. If you don’t, you’re missing an opportunity if you don’t do that right now.
Step two, you again, you reduce the stress and strain based on the severity of that fibular pain, discomfort, everything that you can figure out yourself without an x-ray, without an MRI so that the fibular stress fracture can actually start to heal faster. If you’re aggravating the stress fracture, it’s not going to heal faster. It’s going to heal slower.
The last thing you do is you just start methodically testing, adding exercises, confirming that the things that you figured out in step one, you’re not making it worse. So, you’re going to methodically add exercises and tests that will rebuild and maintain your flexibility, your running fitness, your neuromuscular connections, all those things so that you can run without re-injury to the fibular. That is exactly what I would do.
If I was on a call with you, if you want to understand exactly what I would ask you on that call to figure out the severity, to help you figure out whether or not you could stop using the crutches or stop wearing the fracture walking boot and when and how you could actually start working out. Well, you can get that for free.
It’s a two-page worksheet that I have created over the last year of helping athletes and like really thinking every single time I talk to one, what did they not understand that I just asked them? You can get that for free, that worksheet going to www.stressfracturesecrets.com. It’s there. You can get it. You can print it out. You can figure out the severity and then you will be able to figure out ow to reduce the stress and strain and start working out. Based on the severity of your actual fibular stress fracture.
If you have a doctor, then you can go back to your doctor with this information that they didn’t ask you and you can ask them what to do right now. So go check it out, download it, get it, fill it out.
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