Running (ankle injury)?

[Frimley111R]

By over doing it in November (fast 5k) I managed to damage the tendon(?) in the back of my ankle (hurts from the back of my foot to about 6 inches up). Its getting better but is still stiff in the mornings and a very small run across a car park yesterday from the car aggravated it immediately. I may try a very very short run tonight but is it a case of just staying off it for a few months (hope not as it compromises most exercise types)? Or if not what should I do/what are my options?

[944fan]

Your Achilles tendon?

First thing for any soft tissue injury is RICE. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

http://www.firstaid4sport.co.uk/PRICE-Injury-Proto...

Do that for a couple of days. Once the inflammation has gone down you can try applying a warm compress to encourage blood flow.

Might be worth a trip to a physio as well.

You need to prevent the injury in future. It could have just been over doing it or maybe you have the wrong trainers or a muscle weakness/imbalance

ETA - defo don't run. Do what most runners do when injured, acquaint yourself with the local swimming pool, although kicking might still aggravate that - get a pull buoy and do crawl without kick if it does

[Hoofy]

Yeah, definitely don't do anything to aggravate it. You will just keep resetting the healing or make the injury worse.

As mentioned, swimming could be good as could a gym bike in terms of keeping fitness levels up.

[Foliage]

944fan said:

Your Achilles tendon?

First thing for any soft tissue injury is RICE. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

http://www.firstaid4sport.co.uk/PRICE-Injury-Proto...

Do that for a couple of days. Once the inflammation has gone down you can try applying a warm compress to encourage blood flow.

That's wrong. Its no longer advised to rice sports injuries or similar (you can rest and ice within the first 30 minutes as a 'first aid' reaction, but rice isn't a treatment). You need to keep it moving but don't do the activity that caused the injury, but you can do other exercise, do not rest it or use any sort of support bandage. Iceing it will relieve the pain and swelling but wont help it heal faster so if you don't do it it doesn't matter.

See your doctor.

Remember to stretch before and after you run, if you start your run gently you don't need to warm up bit if you start your pace off hard its worth having a 5min fast walk/light jog to get the blood flowing first.

[Frimley111R]

Ok, so basically do not run, do not do anything that aggravates it, find something that doesn't (maybe get on my bike) and then just sit it out until its fixed. Thanks (even if it was not what I wanted to hear!)

[Hoofy]

Frimley111R said:

Ok, so basically do not run, do not do anything that aggravates it, find something that doesn't (maybe get on my bike) and then just sit it out until its fixed. Thanks (even if it was not what I wanted to hear!)

It's tough especially if you enjoy the activity.

[Frimley111R]

Yep, plus I can run in the dark but I can't cycle in it which makes it a weekend only exercise. Finding things that don't involve stressing tendons in the back of my ankle is my new challenge.

[944fan]

Frimley111R said:

Yep, plus I can run in the dark but I can't cycle in it which makes it a weekend only exercise. Finding things that don't involve stressing tendons in the back of my ankle is my new challenge.

Yep its a real bugger. I really got into running a couple of years back, building up the mileage, thinking about a marathon and then bam. No running for months.

Had similar thing this year. Couldn't swim, which I loved, because of eye infection. Instead of doing something else just sat around sulking and put on about 2 stone.

[Frimley111R]

Lol! Well today I dragged my MTB out of the garage and gave it a clean up. Hopefully this won't put too much pressure on my ankle and will force me to get back out there. I am aiming to do a few rides to get get used to things again and then join a club to push/motivate me to keep at it. (Although still thinking about spending £££ on a Boardman FS as my 'new motivation' )