Pain in The Foot Part 2

2. Stress fracture

Stress Fracture are small breaks in the bone that cause sharp, localised pain, tenderness, swelling, walking/running differently to avoid putting pressure on the injured area and bruising. Any bone can be susceptible to a stress fracture, but the metatarsals are the most common.

Causes: Stress fractures occur as a result of repetitive overuse and, similar to plantar fasciitis, they can result from a sudden increase in work/training load, doing too much running on hard surfaces or wearing footwear that is not correct for your foot type or biomechanics.

Prevent it: If you experience any pain that you suspect to be a stress fracture it is important you stop impact activities and get a medical diagnosis to confirm the specific nature of the injury. This is best done by a sports medicine physician.

Treat it: Unfortunately, the treatment for stress fractures is rest with no impact activities and you may even need a period of six 6 to eight weeks in an immobilisation boot, but this will be discussed once you have an accurate diagnosis.

So prevention is your best friend. build up slowly (patience is a virtue and really is the best way of avoiding most injuries, take your time building milage and intesity)., Vary your running terrain,run on grass dirt and tarmac, it changes the load and and the way the musles are used on each stride). Vary your intesity, Easy runs should be just that easy ( a good strting point is 1.5 mins slower that your tempo pace). Once agsin wear appropriatte well fitted footwear but also have more than one pair to run in again varying the way your foot strikes the floor each stride.