Doc On The Run Podcast

7 Steps When a Runner is Not Healing

Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast, we’re talking about the seven steps a runner should take when you’re not healing.

You’re probably a runner and you’ve probably been injured for some time. You probably just didn’t get injured last week when you were running a race, but you probably got injured a while back, and then a lot of things happened. You probably took a little bit of time and kind of took care of yourself, took off a few days from running. Maybe you iced it. Maybe you changed your routine a little bit, tried to do a little bit shorter runs, tried to in some way kind of slow down your training, slow down the intensity, and see if you could just get back on track.

But, something didn’t work. You didn’t get better. You maybe started to improve, felt like you were getting all better. Maybe even got to the point you were pain free, but then you started running again and the pain ramped back up. And now you’re sitting here wondering why it is that you’re not better and trying to figure out what to do next, and you’re probably incredibly frustrated because all of your fitness has dwindled away over this whole course of really half training and not really doing what you need to be doing in order to maintain all your running fitness.

So, there are always things you can do, but you have to really figure out what you can really do if you’re not healing. And today we’re going to talk about that.

Top 10 Myths About Plantar Fasciitis in Runners

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we’re talking about the top 10 myths about plantar fasciitis in runners.

There are a lot of myths surrounding plantar fasciitis, and plantar fasciitis is common, but you have to understand when you’re a runner that not all the stuff you read is true.

You can check out the course on runner’s heel pain if you’re really worried about this or you really want to keep running, you really want to figure out how to take care of it, everything’s in there. We created this monster course, it’s like two and a half hours of videos and it walks you through every step of the process of self diagnosis and self treatment of runner’s heel pain.

Is Running Risky?

I recently went to pick up my 10 year son Alex from an after school program. He and all his classmates were playing on the playground. The camp administrator that runs the program actually approached me as I was walking across the playground.

He said, “Alex doesn’t make good decisions for his safety.”

I looked over and Alex who was standing up on the tire swing. He was swinging so high that he was almost horizontal at the top of the arc.

I looked at the Camp instructor and said, “That may be true. But it looks to me like he makes awesome decisions in terms of adventure!”

I will openly admit that I may be defined or labeled as a “risk taker.”

I raced motorcycles professionally. I fly a paraglider. I’ve climbed mountains in Alaska. I have done lots of solo big rock climbs in Yosemite and Zion national Park. I've even free soloed routes, climbing over a thousand feet off the ground, alone, with no rope.

When Alex was little we used to ride motorcycles together. He would often ask me to ride wheelies while he was on the motorcycle with me. Does that seem risky to you?

A lot of people think that motorcycles in and of themselves are risky or dangerous. But is riding a motorcycle dangerous?

What about someone riding a motorcycle on a road, somewhere in the countryside with no other traffic or no cars around. Does that really seem risky to you?

Look, the point here is that some things are just more risky than others.

If you are a runner and you've been injured you have to think about risk. There is risk in everything! Is running risky?

Should a Runner Ice to Treat Soreness?

I recently got a great question from a runner in San Francisco.

“I just want to make sure that I’m not heading for an over training injury and want to make sure to reduce the inflammation. When I have soreness following a hard workout, should I apply ice?”

Overtraining injuries happen because you have too much tissue damage, and not enough healing of that injured tissue before your next workout.

If you want to make sure you never get an over training injury all you have to do is make sure that all of your soreness completely subsides before you do your next workout. Obviously that just makes sense. But it’s also an absolute impossibility for any training endurance athlete.

I would be willing to bet that almost all actively training and racing endurance athletes are almost always in some state of soreness. You’re going to be stiff. You’re going to be achy. That’s a normal consequence of the normal tissue damage sustained during a workout. You’re always going to be healing and recovering. That’s part of getting stronger.

Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast we’re talking about whether or not a runner should apply ice to treat soreness.

Inflammation Management: Keys for Runners

Today we’re talking about how inflammation management can make you slower.

After giving my lecture in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago I’ve had so many different questions about inflammation that I thought we should doing an entire series of episodes about inflammation management in runners and other athletes.

There are lots of things you think about inflammation and one of the things you have to understand first and foremost is that you don’t always have to prevent inflammation. Runners think that inflammations is bad. We hear all this stuff about inflammation, about how it causes chronic Achilles tendon problems and chronic disease. But inflammation is just the thing that happens when you train. It’s a normal consequence of training.

You run, you train and when you do that you get tissue damage. That’s part of the process. You damage the muscles, you get little micro tears and then your body repairs them and you get stronger. 

Inflammation is the very first step to repairing any tissue damage when you’re training and is the first step to getting stronger. So you have to have the inflammation as that initial response to the injury that you inflict on yourself when you’re training.

So today we’re going to talk about some basic guidelines about inflammation management. 

Inflammation in Runners- Sometimes its good and sometimes its bad

Just about a week ago I was giving a lecture in Las Vegas at the 24th Annual Scientific Program of the International Foot and Ankle Foundation and this is a medical conference where podiatrists, foot and ankle surgeons, sports medicine doctors go to get their continuing medical education credits.

One of the lectures I was asked to give there was entitled “Inflammation in athletes – The good, the bad and ugly” and in that talk I was trying to go through and explain to doctors what really happens and why is inflammation such a big problem.

There’s lots of stuff written now and it’s been going on for a long time in way back in 20014 there was the cover of Time magazine. It was the secret killer and this link between inflammation and all these other chronic diseases that really cause trouble.

We think of inflammation as this inherently bad thing. In fact if you do a search and you’re looking up inflammation, you’re trying to learn about inflammation, you can actually find where doctors have written that inflammation is a pathology that has to be treated. And that may seem like its true because there’s so many different things related to inflammation and particularly in chronic inflammation.

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast we’re talking about inflammation, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad so you don’t always have to treat the inflammation.

7 Healing Limiters that Slow Runners Down

Today I was out on a run and it was a great day. I was running in the sun and I was just trying to think about like what are the things that really slow runners down in terms of healing because the whole key with training efficiently is to avoid an overtraining injury and to really train as hard as possible, to do as much tissue damage as possible and then rebuild that tissue before you do your next hard workout so that you can actually increase your fitness, increase your strength, increase your speed and continue training.

All of that back fires when you get injured. So if you listen to this you may be one of those runners who is actually recovering from an actual overtraining injury. But if you’re not then you’re probably recovering from the last workout.

The whole point here is that there are really a bunch of things that we can do. I’m thinking about the really simple limiters. The things that we all do that we can easily capitalize on that. We can easily take into our training, into our daily routine and actually recover faster.

And that is true for you whether you have a true overtraining injury that sidelined you or if you’re actively in training and you’re trying to make sure that you avoid one of those overtraining injuries by making sure that you recover before your next key workout.

In this episode we’re talking about seven healing limiters that slow runners down.

2 Reasons Runners Should NOT Get an MRI

An MRI is an interesting diagnostic tool and we often think that an MRI is the best thing to show you what’s going on inside your body when we suspect you have some kind of injury and your doctors have a difficult time making a diagnosis. But the truth is there are two really good reasons runners shouldn’t just jump to an MRI and try to get an answer when they’re injured we’re going to talk about that today.

Today we’re talking about 2 reasons you may not want to get an MRI if you’re a runner.

Sub-Fibular Impingement in Runners

In this podcast episode we’re talking about sub-fibular impingement syndrome.

Why do runners get sub-fibular impingement syndrome? How can you tell if you have sub-fibular impingement syndrome? 

That may sound confusing to you but I am going to explain it. I’m going to talk about what this condition is, the signs and symptoms, what you can do about it.

 

Sinus Tarsi Syndrome in Runners

What is sinus tarsi syndrome? I mean it sounds like a complicated name but it’s not really a complicated condition. The “sinus” means basically like a tube or a passageway and “tarsi” refers to the rear foot bones in your foot. So the tarsal bones are the big bone in your rear foot like the calcaneus heel bone or the talus that sits on top of the heel bone and sits underneath your tibia and your ankle joint. Those are the greater tarsal bones.

Sinus Tarsi is actually a tunnel that runs between the talus and the heel bone. Your subtalar joint, the joint under which is important and runs under the neck of the talus in your subtalar joint and it’s a little cavity that has some fat, it has some nerve endings and it has some fluid that lubricates the joint.

But sometimes you can get inflammation on the tissue that lines that joint and when you get inflammation of the lining of that joint and it hurts, that’s sinus tarsi syndrome.

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast were talking about Sinus Tarsi syndrome on runners.