"Walking" through an injury?

If it doesn't hurt to walk then you should definitely do some walking. I've never been in your situation injury-wise, but I live in a city and walk everywhere and I think it's a great complement to the running I do. Walking won't get your heart rate up like running does, but at least you're on your feet strengthening some of the same muscles, tendons, etc. that you'll be using when you get back to running.

When I had my stress fracture in my foot, I was seeing one of the top ortho docs in Santa Barbara and he told me that I could resume running whenever I wanted...it all depended on how much pain I could tolerate and that running on it wouldn't re-injure it again. This was maybe a month after the initial stress fracture. I walked through the injury without the use of crutches almost immediately. The area will prolly feel bruised or achy for a while but that is normal. To be on the safe side, don't resume running until there is no pain present. Good luck!

3 days into my journey across the country earlier this year i was crippled with IT band pains in both legs. the pain resulted running 20 miles a day for three days with a 14 lb pack on my back. i was physically incapable of running on the 4th day. unwilling to quit for any reason....even take a break to let my body heal (and my partners) we resorted to walking. it's all we could do. we basically walked the entire state of pennsylvania at 20 miles a day for 20 days. after those 20 days our bodies were ready to slowly start running again.

granted, i (we) were dealing with IT band issues, and you are dealing with a stress fracture. but the body's ability to heal is amazing. we still did 20 miles a day (walking) and our bodies rebuilt themselves. so i would say go for it. if you don't want to just "walk" then hop in a swimming pool (if you have access to one) and aqua-jog.

Good to hear from you scott, followed your trip on the web page. Gonna update it anytime soon?

yeah, for the few people that still actually check the site from time to time, we'll be updating it with the final 60 or so pictures that dave and i took on the road. i'm in the process of writing a final "essay" for the website, an x-mas letter to send to all of our hosts, and a lengthy article for a magazine. so there will be some more stuff up before 1/1. then we'll arrange the site so it can stay up forever with little or no updates.....or at least until we do it again : )

Learn how to race walk, but don't tell anyone on this board that you're doing it or they'll question your manhood. You will be able to keep your aerobic conditioning and also work muscle areas that are completely neglected by your running. If you want to pursue this, go to www.racewalk.com for pointers on how to do this without killing yourself. You can also search for a coach in your area there too.

There is another discussion about walking in which I relate my experience with a calf problem. If you can racewalk, and emphasize leg turnover, you should be able to get a good aerobic workout. Just watch out for pain.

Wayne

Thanks for all the good comments. I walked 30 minutes yesterday and my injury did not hurt. I can tell if I ran on it, it would hurt though. I'll keep walking until I'm able to run.

Burb04 wrote:

I'm in the process of getting over a stress fracture. Not being able to run is driving me crazy. I think it'll be at least another month before I can run again (already off it almost two months). A friend suggested that if I didn't feel any pain walking that I should try that in place of running until I can do that again. I've done some cross-training but I think that walking will at least simulate as close as possible a run without the pounding. What I'm getting at has anyone else tried a regular walking regiman when they were injured? Comments? Suggestions?

I've done it before. I absolutely loathe the bike. So whaat I've done in the past is walk hard for the same amount of time i'd normally run. In other words, get up in the morning and walk for an hour and do the same thing in the evening. You'll be surprised at how fast you heal and how well the transition back to running goes.

Good luck.

Scott, Can you reprint the web address for those of us motivationally devoid.

Just walk baby