so why does my achilles pop?
so why does my achilles pop?
Boy, I read this thread with that nervous feeling in my stomach. I've had four significant issues with achilles tendonitis. Each one requiring about six months off of running and the last one causing me to give up on running for over a decade. In fact, the physician on the last one prescribed so much ibuprofen that it resulted in an ulcer and a 3 day hospital stay for me as a result. Since coming back to running, I've had minor issues but never requiring any time off.
I went to a chiropractor who showed me the heel drop exercises. Those were a godsend and I continue to do those before each run. I really should take them more seriously and do them more often. I typically have problems if I try to do short fast repeats (200m and 400m). I really don't do much of those anymore. I gave up on hill running in terms of hill repeats although some have recommended hiking hills as beneficial. I will run hill repeats if it involves going up steps like at a dam spillway or similar. I feel my foot lands flatter and less strain on achilles that way.
Besides heel drops, an ice water bath in a whirlpool is ideal for 20 minutes at a time. Not many of us have access to a whirlpool so I just take a wide trash can, a 5 lb bag of ice and some water. Mix the ice and water at about 50/50 ratio and dunk that foot in there. I submerge to the top of the calf. I do it 20 minutes at a time. Give yourself at least 20 minutes after you finish before walking around on it. Do this as many times a day as you can. Most people would be lucky to do it 3-4 times a day. I would do it while watching tv or surfing the net. After the first few times, it's not so bad. It should feel unbearably cold the first time you do it until your foot numbs (after a few minutes).
Ice cups and ice packs are not nearly as effective IMO.
Do it immediately after your run. Do NOT do it immediately before a run. Although I've had some success with alternating between cold and hot treatments before a run. Finish with the hot treatment of course.
I bought an ultrasound kit but not sure if it helped that much. I've tried the electrical stimulus or whatever it is called - not sure if that was very beneficial either. It's probably good however to have a many-pronged attack. You sound like you're at the stage where time off is necessary however. Riding a bike didn't seem to bother it. So get on the bike for awhile or do some swimming.
It's not the height of the heel. It's the heel cups. Don't wear shoes that have a heel cup. And if you have achilles issues, don't wear shoes that have those little pointy things that stab your achilles with every stride. (Although many people just cut them off.)
Oh really....... wrote:
Another thing is that barefoot running is the easiest on my feet, and shoes with elevated heels are the worst.
The higher the elevated heels, the sharper the angle that the rigid heel cups cut into the heels. I can't run in any shoes that have elevated heels because they cut right into my heels and cause tremendous pain immediately.
I'm not a Dr I'm just telling what I am currently going through, what the Dr told me and what I have researched. I think there is some misunderstanding, OP said the pain was the middle of the tendon not the heal. Not sure how shoes affect that, I've tried various shoes. The only thing that made it even a bit better was 1/8" lifts in the heels. Basically cut the heel out of another insert and put it in. My thinking is this shortens the tendon.
As I understand it tendonitis is when the sheath and the tendon get inflamed, you get that popping sound when you move your foot and hit hurts. Tendonosis is when there are micro tears in the tendon and the collagen begins to break down. The tendon is turning to mush. Again, I'm not in the medical field so take this with a grain of salt. There has to be a Dr. or therapist on this board. My therapist said not to do anymore eccentric stretches. They have are using ultrasound, deep calf massage, tendon massage, ice rubs and iontophoresis. So far it's not doing much good.
One thing I should point out, I'm 51 years old. I'm sure that is some of it. The Dr. told me several times, "you aren't 20".
I had an achilles problem 2 weeks ago and seem to be recovered now, at least well enough to train.
Day 1: seemed to get worse and worse throughout the day where I couldn't walk or support any weight on it. At this point I thought I was toast.
Day 3-4: couldn't jog still, but able to walk semi-comfortably. Did 5 mile trail walk in a shoe with no heel cup (asics gel lyte).
Day 5-6: kept walking, mixed in a little bit of jogging with longer, hillier walks. Started generous amounts of calf raises and heel drops. Massaged calf with "the stick" vigorously since any tension here will pull at achilles. Iced.
Day 7: able to jog about 6 miles super easy at 8:30 pace. raises/drops, massage, ice, etc.
Day 8+: repeat, repeat, repeat. Just finished up a 14 miler at 7:00 pace exactly 2 weeks since the injury and felt great. I'm still a little too scared to do anything intense. My regular run pace slowed from 6:40 av to 7:30 since I'm too scared of re-injury, but at least I'm running again. Shooting for Chicago in October and praying I can still run 2:45ish after this setback.
I strongly believe in an active recovery. You gotta move that tendon around as much as possible. Long walks are boring, but great.
On a final note, this may be BS, but eat a lot of protein, vitamin C, and calcium. I've been going through milk like crazy and it makes me feel better psychologically.
Thank you so much for the information, but I am curious to know if anyone is having the same issue as I am currently. I adapted a while ago to the barefoot running style (meaning, I still wear quite low profile running shoes, but always land from the ball forward and never heel first). Initially I made the mistake of transitioning to that type of running for my full training run... which I realized one should never do. Haha! The calf in not used to that and I was in so much pain after that first run it took me a few weeks to recover. Since then I learned to ease into it. That was 5 years ago and I am now running fully with the barefoot style and could not be happier with my times, my lack of any knee pain whatsoever, and a definite increase in endurance all around.
Here is my issue. My Achilles pain (right foot only) is now out of control and I don't get it! Here are the specifics. If I run on a slight incline, I'm fine. If I hike in the mountains on difficult paths and terrain, I'm fine. If I am running straight downhill on a steep grade, I am fine. When I run on flat surfaces or a very slight decline, the pain is excruciating and afterwards (even with immediate icing and wearing an evening brace to stretch out the achilles) I can barely walk and have to stop running for at least a couple days before I can start up again. I have tried to strengthen with heel dips, stretching and such, but nothing seems to work. It is only in my right heel (thank god) but regardless, it has prevented me from entering any long distance races (like I used to) and severely limited the amount of running I would prefer to do. What am I doing wrong?! And do I need to go to a specialist to get checked out? God knows I can't afford that, but if that is the only solution I am going to have to bite the bullet (and the pocketbook) and just do it.
So there it is. Anyone having the same issue??? Barefoot running style is supposed to PREVENT achilles pain I thought. Help!!!
AchillesStory wrote:
Since this came up again, I'll share my experience as this is my first post ever on this forum. Although mine is insertional achilles tendonitis, hopefully it will still help. Here's the story: I was deployed as a contractor and spent a year in the middle east running my ass off on treadmills and really flat surfaces in Saucony Kinvaras and theen immediately sitting in a chair in a converted warehouse for 60 hours a week. I trained harder and harder and got slower and slower. Then one day on an uphill treadmill workout I just felt something go in my left achilles insertion and stupidly finished the workout. That was April 2014. Throughout the rest of the year I came back and spent it on and off running, not doing workouts, losing fitness. Long story short, I actually recovered from it after doing the things I'll explain below and then re-injured it and got it again. So here goes everything I've learned and will recommend, in list format...
Active Treatments:
-Go to a Graston/ART specialist and have Graston done. It takes like 6-8 weeks of sessions 1-2 times per week but it works.
-Someone else mentioned it but biomechanics are huge, go get a gait analysis done. As someone mentioned again shoot for 180 steps per minute and shorten your stride.
-I never had success with PT, my Graston guy is a Chiropractor, also of note I never actually had success with doing heel drops/toe raises but to each their own.
Other stuff that is really important:
-Footwear. Can we just stop with the minimalist thing? I mentioned earlier, I thought I was fully better after a while so I threw my Kinvaras back on and hit a track workout. Bang. Back to square one. I understand it works for some people but I've given up light weight minimal shoes. I run any hard workouts and quality in Mizuno wave inspires (huge heel/toe ratio, 13m or something) and I run easy runs in...I'm finally ok saying this...Hokas. I could no longer ignore stories that they fix injuries and grabbed a pair and honestly, it works. I actually bought a pair for my Dad who isn't even a runner and my Uncle. I'm fully on board the Hoka bandwagon.
-I have certain rules now, no more track workouts, maybe ever, definately no more Kinvaras ever. You can still do 200s, 5k repeats, 800s, whatever on flat roads or dirt paths or treadmills.
-Stretch after every run for just 5 or 10 minutes, every run, for the rest of your life, just do it.
-Warm up slow, maybe do a few pre run glute exercises to activate but first mile, especially in the morning should be pretty slow.
-Get a massage regularly, once a month or so.
-Run varied routes up and down hills and on hilly terrain. I think what did me in was all the flat running for a whole year and no downhills, downhills are really eccentric.
Now, my final note, find your nearest mountain and hike it. Seriously. Then do it again the next day. As a matter of fact do it as much as possible, do it until it not only fixes your achilles but activates your glutes and quads and hamstrings and all those other fantastic muscles that need to work so your achilles doesn't have to do as much. Then start jogging the mountain. Once it is healed run as much as possible on soft surfaces even if it is inconvenient. Run trails a lot and do hard workouts on a soft flat surface or treadmill.
Even now I hesitate to call myself fully recovered but I'm running more mileage injury free than ever before.
Thats my 2 cents, its long but hopefully it helps someone! Good luck!
Aren't hokas low drop? I'm wondering how they can help with this issue.
My Achilles are Achille-ing Me wrote:
I started training for my first marathon about a year ago. I maxed out at 40 MPW. When I ran my marathon I realized that that was just too little mileage to get the results I wanted. So I started building my mileage every week. I eventually made my way to 90 and started having mild Achilles tendinitis in one ankle. I was never sore or tired - I always felt like I could do more, lots more. But my Achilles was not right. So I toned it back and things were fine. Then I would ramp back up to 90 MPW and I would have the pain again. So then I started hovering around 70 MPW. Now the tendinitis is in both ankles and it is slowing be down.
I was wondering if I kept running if my body would eventually adapt or if time off is needed. I am in the middle of training for a marathon for November. Every run has been great and my times have been right where I want them until yesterday's tempo run where I was running about 20 seconds slow per mile.
Does anyone have any experience with Achilles tendinitis from ramping up mileage too fast? I would love some advice.
There are a lot of threads like this one on Achilles Tendonitis/Tendonosis.
The anti-dote is time off from running and physio-therapy. You might be able to do that on your own but a great therapist can do wonders. Give up the idea of racing for awhile and concentrate on getting stronger legs!
Most people do not listen to all I say and most people remain-injured.
I used to get achilles tendon problems a lot when I did a lot of flat road running but when I moved to a hillier area they went away. It could be because I run slower on hills, or it could be the hills. When you run up a hill you're basically doing eccentric heel drops, but the motion involves your whole leg rather than isolating the ankle joint. Running steep hills is great for ankle tendons overall. Running down them too. The thing is that you need to run them. A lot of people power-walk the hills when they do a hilly run, which is good for racing. Sometimes conserving your strength on the hill gives you an edge later. But when you're doing an "easy" run you should really make an effort to keep your cadence up and run up the hill, even if it means taking very short steps. It's also really good for dialing in your form. It's really hard to heel-run up a steep hill. Your forefoot hits the ground and immediately drives you up and forward, the way it should be happening all the time. Don't strain your calves. Let them stretch and flex however they will. Walking up a hill won't develop strength and elasticity in your tendons. If you have hills where you live and do lots of "easy" runs on them, after a year you will never have achilles problems again.
Amputate. You'll have tendinitis for life
I had my first bout in 2014 and it still hasn't gone away