"Tired" feeling in foot

Injury Clinic
1

One of my athletes ran the first leg of a 4x100 Saturday. On Sunday as she was warming up for a 100, she “felt” her left foot - not really pain, but a feeling of not being quite right.

The foot was a bit sore on Monday, but it’s gone today.

Today on Wednesday (on training Monday and Tuesday), she felt something again. She described it as a “tired” feeling located on the inside of the joint of her big toe on her left foot.

There’s no actual pain, and she did jump squats without problems.

I have been wondering whether her foot was somehow twisted running the curve on Saturday.

I have never had any experience with stress fractures - do we have reason to worry?

2

I would get her checked right away just in case.

3

She’s now due for x-rays and possibly a scan on Tuesday.

If this is a stress fracture, I think we have caught it in a early state. Will this make a difference time-wise?

Arrrghh - she is in the form of her life :frowning:

4

It will definitely help to catch it early and even if you are cleared to proceed, you have a warning to modify tempo type work to minimise the pounding. I’ve had success with working around this type of problem with track SE sessions only once or twice in the week with all other work in the pool or exercise room (female 52.30 400m in HS after 3 months with this type of work in competition 6)

5

ditto with CF.

i run a hand timed sub 11.1 with NO regular tempo just because my shins cant take it (dont ask why). I utilize static bicycle, non impact body weight circuits etc.

i also avoid doing ANYTHING unecessery on the tartan with spikes. I do solely speed related work that way, i even do drills on grass with flats

6

There’s still no diagnosis. X-rays due tomorrow.
The pain/odd feeling is almost non-excistent.

I am trying to plan ahead in case of a worst case scenario…

How could one (try to) maintain maximum and explosive strength levels, if you have to keep any load of your injured foot?

I have found suitable drills for relevant muscle groups, but I have a hard time to figure out how to do this for the knee extensors.

Running in water doesn’t really fit the bill in my opinion for sprinters. More inclined to different gymnastic drills (non-standing). Any opinion on this?

7

The running in water is a replacement for tempo.
What exercises do you have in mind?

8

I have been thinking about drills with manual resistance - like the reverse glute/ham drill. This I plan to do with rather high manual resistance in order to try to maintain max strength levels.

Also I will try to use drills from here .

But if loading of the injured foot is to be avoided, I guess barbell work is out of the question, which gives me a problem regarding knee/hip extension.

I don’t know if I am on the wrong track, but I haven’t been able to find usable alternatives.

9

Okay - the results are in :smiley:

No stress fracture. It was diagnosed as a sprain of the soft tissue between the 1st and the 2nd metatarsal.

No plyometrics until pain is gone, and sprinting only in long jump shoes.