Common Running Injuries and Their Treatment

This hour long video could help many runners with some self help ideas. Dr Kevin Kirby is a podiatrist in Sacramento, California, always known for his brilliant ideas and innovations. 

https://youtu.be/9bgoIdnqNhM

Runner's Injuries: Check out this nice overview

http://mytopfitness.com/index.php/2016/07/23/running-injuries/

Nike Turbo Shox: Great At Cushion, But How Stable?

Nike Women's Turbo Shok 

Hi, Doc.  You helped me immensely with my bunion / hammertoe combination on
my Left foot about a year ago.  THANK YOU.  I now have a shoe question:

I bought a pair of Nike Turbo Shox shoes about Xmas time & for 6 months I

was so happy & they seemed to the best shoe EVER for my feet.

HOWEVER, recently I have very tight muscles on my inner soles & very tight
lower calf to heel muscles, especially in the morning, especially my right
foot.

My Questions:  (1) Do you think my Nike Shox shoes are causing these
problems?  (2) Do you have an opinion re the design of this shoe for my
bunion & hammer toe prone feet?

Thanks & best regards,
Cindy

Dear Cindy, This type of shoe in my experience is for cushion, especially at heel impact, and for ease of motion. They lack the qualities of a Motion Control Shoe or Stability Shoe in terms of stabilization. This is intentional as they are designed to exercise your feet. When you have bunions and hammertoes in my mind, you need to err on a more stable shoe for the stress of running, at least 50% of the time. Bunions and hammertoes are caused by instabilities within your foot and gaining stability out of a shoe and orthotics can be very important. With all this said, and the strain you are feeling probably from many factors, in which the shoe is just one, I would recommend running 50% of the time in this shoe, and 50% of the time in a more stable shoe. This is a Golden Rule of Foot for shoes. Runners for years have alternated between 2 slightly different shoes to vary the stresses in their feet and legs and prevent injuries. Another Golden Rule of Foot: Cut your mileage in half, until your symptoms begin to improve, then slowly go back to your present distance over the next month. Hope this helps. Rich Blake

Leg Pain in a Runner: Tibial Stress Fracture (Part 2)

Recently a long distance runner presented with leg pain of 4-5 months. The pain came on suddenly during a long training run. The patient attempted to run through the pain, because it was not too bad, for 2 months. Then, common sense dictated stopping running for the last 2 months. The pain is not only not better (can I throw a few more nots around) but now hurts walking around which it never did before. He tried changing shoes and icing occasionally. These measures did not help. 

In a runner with leg pain developed with long distance training, the diagnosis is a stress fracture until proven otherwise. The following 3 X-rays just taken show a healing tibial stress fracture with marked amount of new bone formation. Try to look along the normal border of the bone. As the normal border gets obscure, this is the new bone forming. Unlike this X-ray, you normally do not see a fracture line with a stress fracture only the subtle new bone formation. 

On this oblique view, one can really see the fracture line. Fractures look bad for a long time for 2 reasons. The fracture line looks worse then it really is since there is more water content near the fracture itself in the bone. More water makes the fracture look worse. Fractures heal inside out, so total healing may have occurred internally, but the X-ray still shows signs of the fracture still present.

Due to the compression forces and the muscle contractions of the leg muscles, most running stress fractures on the tibia occur on the back surface of the bone. This makes it hard to locate and hard to see any swelling.