So I managed to earn myself my first triathlon-related injury. I was doing a tempo run and on a curve my right foot stepped into an indentation in the pavement made by a truck tire (must have happened when it was still hot), I heard a loud pop followed by ridiculous pain and I flew onto the grass. I have broken my big toe before, this hurt about just as much. Now that the dust settled and the swelling set in, it seems I have a standard run-of-the-mill inversion ankle sprain. This puts my plans on kicking ass at Florida 70.3 on hold but that’s not my biggest concern.
This injury comes right in the middle of my base 3. From what I understand it’ll be about 3 weeks before I can ride and possibly longer before I can start running. I’d want to play it safe 'cause re-injuring would probably cancel my season. So what can I do so retain the most of my fitness while I am “out of commission”? I was thinking of taking this time to build up my swimming from 12,000 yards to 40,000 per week as recommend in another thread but what else I could do that would resemble biking and running in specificity?
Captain Canada’s training plan.
Captain Canada’s training plan.
I’ll put that one down as my fallback plan.
Can you bear weight?
Do you have tenderness of the distal fibula (a few cm above the tip)?
Aquajogging, if not painful works pretty well to maintain fitness.
When it’s better, you can ride with an Aircast Stirrup.
I am still coming off a partially torn Achilles diagnosed in November. I have been in Physical Therapy for about 15 sessions from January to March. I am doing IMWI in September and am now running on full weight for only about 3 weeks. I am 50, and this should encourage you in what I am about to say. I am not a professional so take it what it is worth.
First, I would go to a doctor. Second, I would get under a physical therapist if the Doc says OK. then if the doc is a sports minded person, and the PT as well, you can do what I am doing now.
I am running now, after 6 full weight runs and 4 months not running, faster than I ever have. Why? I have been doing water running (from hell) with all the noodle ladies in the pool for 3 months, and as well doing running (about 10 sessions for 1 hour) on an alter-g machine at my PT’s office. http://www.alter-g.com/product/anti-gravity-treadmills I cant believe it but, the endurance is just as good, and the lower impact had positive effects. The only thing that I needed to recover from was from the small muscles that got weaker in the foot and ankle that was not used to full weight. The PT’s have me doing plyometrics and strength exercises that I would have been doing had I been healthy. I think it alone has helped my strength and stability both on the run as well as a good stability for the bike mechanics.
Dont push it, and get the pro’s help, and you wont loose any time (hopefully)
watch the Giro D Italia
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Can you bear weight?
Do you have tenderness of the distal fibula (a few cm above the tip)?
I can bear weight on it just fine. It’s not exactly comfortable but I can limp along. I started using an ACE bandage to put a bit compression on it and that makes it a whole lot more comfortable.
I wouldn’t say the distal fibula is sore but there’s quite a bit of swelling near the ankle joint, right now it’s roughly 2x the size of the other one. The range of motion of both feet is comparable, I mostly feel the pain when I try to lift the toes up or turn them inside which is how I concluded that this is most likely an inversion ankle sprain.
If you can stabilize it then you should be able to swim. I must have sprained my ankle 7 or 8 times back when I played basketball almost every day. I don’t think you can really do anything to make it worse unlike many injuries triathletes have to deal with. So IMHO as soon as you can stand the pain get on the bike, and as soon as you can stand the pain, run.
A good PT can really speed your recovery and the recovery of your proprioceptor and your stabilizing muscles. If you have a high ankle sprain, that requires the help of an orthopedist, or perhaps a podiatrist.
Can you bear weight?
Do you have tenderness of the distal fibula (a few cm above the tip)?
I can bear weight on it just fine. It’s not exactly comfortable but I can limp along. I started using an ACE bandage to put a bit compression on it and that makes it a whole lot more comfortable.
I wouldn’t say the distal fibula is sore but there’s quite a bit of swelling near the ankle joint, right now it’s roughly 2x the size of the other one. The range of motion of both feet is comparable, I mostly feel the pain when I try to lift the toes up or turn them inside which is how I concluded that this is most likely an inversion ankle sprain.I screwed up my ankling missing a step last year, and couldn’t run for ~2-3 months. Swam with a pull buoy instead.
get a theraband or something similar and do a bunch of the ankle rehab exercises associated with it; if it isnt broken try very hard not to baby it when u get back to light running just going to end up giving yourself some type of nagging injury on the opposite side. I had a similar injury the pain was tolerable once my foot would fit back into a shoe (I wouldnt recommend a brace of any kind for prolonged periods of time if at all). Some people say try to get on soft surfaces but most the time those are uneven i would stick to flat surfaces “roads” until the ankle is stronger. Aquajogging is a decent means of cross training if you dont mind in my opinion probably the most boring type of workout.
As previously mentioned, I suppose aqua-jogging is an option. As far as specificity is concerned, I don’t think you can adequately replicate the specific bike/run workouts if you don’t have use of your ankle. Just (my) common sense?
Personally, I’d recommend throwing a good bit of intervals into your 40k/wk swim workouts. Kill it in the pool, every single day. Even if your bike/run does suffer a little bit, you’ve used your downtime to improve yourself in a category that most triathletes are lacking.