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How to Prevent Stress Fractures

January 2, 2010 By Run S.M.A.R.T. In Training tips /  

Came across an interesting article I’d like to share from the NY Times, titled: How to prevent stress fractures.

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A recent study showed a correlation between smaller or weaker calf muscles and greater risk of acquiring a tibia stress fracture, one of the most common forms of stress fractures. The article talks about even a minor increase in calf muscle mass or strength can go a long way to help prevent tibia stress fractures, especially in women runners.

The other half of the article focused on a separate study which showed that shorter stride lengths, or a higher running cadence helped minimize the risk of tibia stress fractures.

Brent Edwards, lead author of the study and now a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition at the University of Illinois, in Chicago. “If you spend less time in the flight phase of running” — meaning in the air — “you’ll hit the ground with less force.” On the other hand, you’ll hit the ground more often. But in Mr. Edwards’s models, the reduction in pounding from an abbreviated stride outweighed the shock from a few additional strides per mile.

We certainly don’t recommend trying to force your natural stride length overnight but the article does note that even a 10% or less change, which Edwards says can be done without any discomfort, can go a long way to prevent tibia stress fractures. It’s also important to understand that there are many elements involved in preventing stress fractures, like nutrition and diet, the types of surfaces you’re doing the majority of your running on, genetics, etc.

Check back for tips on increasing your running cadence.

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3 Comments

  1. John Carstens
    January 3, 2010 at 3:24 pm

    Good article…..any suggestions on reducing metetarsal stress fractures!!

  2. Author
    Run S.M.A.R.T.
    January 6, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    Hey John, I actually suffered a stress fracture about 10 years ago in my 4th and 5th metatarsals. It was not fun. Very painful to put pressure on in the beginning and then it was a long recovery of pool running before I transitioned into cross training on the bike and elliptical and then back to running. That whole process took about 12 weeks before it was fully healed and I was ready to run again. Even after not running for 12 weeks it was sore for a while after runs. In my case, I believe it was as a result of training through an achilles injury on the same foot so I had less flexibility and was putting more pressure on the outside of my foot with each step due to compensation. There was more pounding and I was probably in the wrong shoes as well for my foot type.

  3. John Carstens
    January 6, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    Thanks for the reply regarding metatarsal stress fracture……it seems it always happens on my left foot(second metetarsal)however it happen on the 1st metatarsal(Proximal)and it took over 3 months till I was running. It still has a dull ache depending on the day.

Comments are closed.

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