Thursday, January 13, 2011
Top of the Foot Pain-only problem so far
Today I went out for a run in my traditional brooks, thinking it would be good to rest the extra muscles that you use when you run barefoot. However, around mile 1 I noticed a pain on the top of my foot. It was not a sharp pain, but it was enough to make me stop and turn around and run back home. I've been doing research for the past 20 minutes or so and it seems that this pain is a common problem for people switching to barefoot (or vibram) running. As mentioned numerous times in previous posts, when you run in vibrams (as well as barefoot) you tend to put more stress on your calves. This in turn causes your calves to strengthen. However, in the in between phase when you calves are not yet fully strengthened, they can end up tightening. This in itself is not bad. However, it can lead to other problems. When the calf tightens, it pulls on 3 different tendons in the foot. Again, this is not a bad thing. However, when doing too much too soon, it can cause an inflammation on one or more of these tendons. Now for why this happened to me: In my opinion, Vibram 5 fingers allow to make more use of your leg muscles, and therefore allow you to run faster, easier. However, when running too fast for too long in the beginning can cause these tendons to inflame. Honestly I believe it to be the work of the run I did yesterday, 3.6 miles at a 6:40 pace, on asphalt. The week before this run was my workout week, I did not run in vibrams at all for the very reason of not getting injured. So yesterday I was anxious to get back into my distance work, and ended up overdoing it a little bit. I didn't even think that getting injured would be a problem. I figured that my calves would already be strong enough from my sprinting work. I guess I was wrong. Fortunately, this inflammation is very easy to get rid of, if treated early on. The general treatment seems to be rest, ice, and anti-inflammatory pills. I think I'm going to take the next week off at least, anything I do now won't help me for track anyway. I also plan on icing and taking some ibuprofen.
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***this pain is also caused by the velcro strap being too tight or not bending the knees enough while running. Not bending the knees causes extra tightness in the calves. Another cause of this pain is running too much on your toes instead of midfoot. I will admit I made sure my straps were very tight yesterday, and I tend to move to more of a midfoot strike when i go up hills when i run in my brooks. This change could be exaggerated in Vibrams, causing me to run on my toes and combined with the extra stress of the hill, cause pain.
ReplyDeleteBe careful with that pain, when I was researching vibrams, I found that stress fractures in the metatarsals are a very common problem with people running in vibrams. I found it on some podiatry forum, so I'm sure they're reliable, but they said that it's caused because when people land on their toes first, they make the mistake of not letting their entire foot come down and make contact after the initial forefoot landing. here's the thread if you're interested http://www.podiatry-arena.com/podiatry-forum/showthread.php?t=48566
ReplyDeleteyeah, ive never had stress fractures, but i hear they are really painful.This isn't majorly painful, just obnoxious painful. But ill keep it in mind. I don't really think its tendonitis either, because before today, I haven't even had the slightest pain while running. I think its from overwork. Hopefully a few days off will fix it. Thanks for the link though, I'll look into it
ReplyDeleteAlex, I think that A lot of people are making the mistake of doing too much too soon, I read a few blogs of ultra-marathoners who only run in vibram/barefoot and none of them report any significant problems. I feel like if people can do 100 mile runs in these things then they should be pretty safe..as long as you use them right...Kind of like a firearm...if you do it right You can provide for your family...but if your stupid you can end up shooting your foot off.
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