Doc On The Run Podcast

Every time you go out for a run you deliberately damage the muscles, tendons, bones and ligaments just enough to stimulate healing response that makes them stronger. An overtraining injury is nothing more then a little bit too much tissue damage, in one particular tissue.    If you are training for a marathon, your number one priority is to make sure you are recovering fast enough to avoid an over...

If you are runner trying to get down to your race weight, you may be considering a new diet. If you are a runner trying to build more muscle, or build tissue faster after workouts to recover faster, you might need to modify your diet. I get questions about diet nutrition all the time from injured runners. Do you really need more protein?  Do you really need to eat like a cave man?  Do you really n...

Fracture walking boots are over-prescribed and often worn for way too long by many injured runners. Nobody who's a runner wants to be injured or wants to have to wear a fracture walking boot.  It's really easy to get angry and resentful about feeling like you wasted time in a fracture walking boot while you are recovering. You may be upset just because you've been sitting around recovering.  You m...

Running injuries are not random.  Over training injuries are actually very predictable. Runners get injured as a result of too much stress, applied at the wrong time. Certain life circumstances can coincide with stressful blocks of training that put you at risk of developing an over training injury. If you're training for a marathon and you want to make it to the starting line in tact, you need to...

Endurance athletes are uniquely prone to self-sabotage.  Ironically the destruction rises out of the very skill that lends us the strength to finish a race like a marathon. Success comes from being strong.  Healthy runners are fast runners.  No one runs their marathon as fast as possible when injured.   No one gets a new PR with pneumonia. Today on the Doc On the Run Podcast, we’re talking about h...

Destination races hold a lot of appeal. Awe inspiring scenery. Amazing cultural experiences. Fast, flat courses. We spend countless hours and significant sums of money just getting to some of these destination marathons and triathlons.  Obviously, if you are heading to a key race in a far-away place, you want to have the best race possible.  Incredibly, many runners make one simple but crucial mis...

Every runner in training tracks progress to monitor for improvement.  Heart rate, wattage, mileage, pace, and perceived exertion are all commonly tracked by athletes in training. So many athletes preparing for an event, so diligently track and record metrics which reassure us and provide visual confirmation that we are on track toward our goals. Yet, many of these same athletes simply stop recordi...

A torn plantar plate can be one of the most frustrating injuries for a runner. A runner who has been following many of the suggestions regarding ways to reduce the stress and strain on the plantar plate ligament, has been treating the injury on her own and was getting better. Then she recently got a set back and understandably got super frustrated. But like most strong runners, she is focusing on...

A runner and a listener to the podcast recently sent in a question regarding how long it takes to heal an old fracture versus a new fracture. There are many risk factors for developing problems with healing a broken bone. Each year there are about six million broken bones the United States. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of all of those fractures do not heal as quickly as we would hope and turn into...

I recently got  a question from a runner with a partial tear of the plantar fascia who asked, "I am struggling with a partial tear - going on 6 months of pain with running. I’ve tried everything - PT, rest, PRP, and most recently embryonic membrane injections. This injection was four weeks ago - with crutches for 5 days after and boot for two weeks. I’ve also had four weeks of no running at all an...

Is there a difference in healing time when there is a crack in the bone visible on x-ray, compared to when a runner has a “stress fracture” with no visible crack on x-rays. What do you think? Would it take less time to return to running if you have a stress fracture with no crack visible on an x-ray than if you do actually have a crack visible on an x-ray? The answer surprised many doctors a medic...

Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast, we're talking about surgery for a sesamoid stress fracture in runners. If you're a runner and you start having pain under the big toe joint and you develop this thing called a sesamoid stress fracture, you may get really worried. In fact, if you go to see a doctor, you're probably going to get a lot more worried because the doctor's probably going to tell you t...

Oxidative stress is something that normally occurs in all runners. But we know free radicals and the consequences of an imbalance of oxidative stressors can delay tissue healing. Anytime you have an overtraining injury and you are trying to get back to running, you have to make sure you are healing as quickly as possible. The big question is whether or not exercise, such as running, has a positive...

When you decide to sign up for a race, you start training.  You follow a specific plan that you know will get you stronger and stronger, day-by-day. You make a plan to get to your race, prepared to achieve your goal time.  But what happens when you get injured? You basically do something completely opposite, completely different, and not at all in alignment with the strengthening process that you...

If you're a runner and you get injured, you're certainly going to be bummed out, and it is really, really easy to get frustrated. In my experience when working with injured runners when I do consultation calls, is that most runners beat themselves up unnecessarily. You have to look for every possible opportunity to view something as a success, as a victory, as a win when you are recovering from an...

Stress fractures are a common overtraining injury in runners. But if you want to run on a stress fracture, you better be sure that choice is not going to ruin your ability to run in the future. You have to figure out whether or not your stress fracture is low risk, or high-risk. Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we're talking about which stress fractures are low risk for a runner.

If you get a stress fracture your first question is probably whether not you can just keep running. Before you can answer that question, you have to figure out whether or not the particular stress fracture you got as a consequence of over training is a high risk stress fracture or a low risk stress fracture. If there's a high risk your stress fracture is going to break, you may not want to run on...

Shin splints are a common overtraining injury among runners. That aching pain in the front of the leg can be really annoying. Some common questions from runners with shin splints are… Can I run with shinsplints? Will I get a tibial stress fracture if I run the shinsplints? Is it really risky to keep running if I just have shin splints? Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we're talking about wheth...

It is widely accepted among athletes that our mindset, visualizing a specific outcome and working toward that specific outcome are all interconnected.   No one wins a race without believing they can win.   And I believe no one heals unless they believe they can heal. Whether you have a metatarsal stress fracture or an Achilles tendon injury, you have to understand that your mindset will either hel...

Shin splints are common among runners your ramping up their mileage. Unfortunately, stress fractures are also common. If you have an aching pain in the front of your leg you may be misdiagnosed with shinsplints and later find out you have a tibial stress fracture. If that happens, your doctor might panic and want to put you in a fracture walking boot. But it may help you to understand why of fract...

One time I saw a guy who actually flew all the way from New York to San Francisco to see me.  He had seen a bunch of doctors, he'd seen very qualified people.  He had gotten an MRI, a CT scan, some x-rays, all kinds of different tests.  He had a number of different evaluations and none of his doctors made the correct diagnosis. After I watched him run on a treadmill and did a couple of diagnostic...

I was recently lecturing at The International Foot & Ankle Foundation's annual scientific meeting in Las Vegas, and that conference is all for podiatrists, foot and ankle surgeons, and sports medicine doctors, to figure out how to treat foot and ankle injuries better. I was doing a lecture on stress response, stress reaction and stress fractures in athletes, and one of the main points of that talk...

Some of those stress fracture classification systems use MRI, some use CT scans and some use X-rays to try to determine how bad your injury happens to be.  Of course, the point of a classification system is to help you decide when and how to get back to activity quickly by helping your doctor make decisions. Is this stress fracture going to heal quickly?  Is this stress fracture going to heal slow...

If you have an accident and cut the front of your leg open, you may have to have stitches to sew the skin back together. Of course, most doctors will probably tell you that you should avoid exercise until your skin fully heals and the stitches are removed. Depending upon the location of the stitches, it could take two or three weeks for the skin to heal. Most runners don't want to wait two or thre...

Ingrown toenails can be painful. Particularly if you're getting ready to run a marathon or some other goal race. I recently got a call from a runner who called and asked… “Can I run my race with an ingrown toenail?” It seems like wanting to know whether or not she should wait until after her race to have her ingrown toenail removed, was a reasonable question. But the answer may surprise you. Today...