The Road to Recovery - An Encore Performance by Athletes who Have Suffered Injury

It's true that over time our bodies can only take so much wear and tear, before we truly accept the fact that we need to take it easy on ourselves. This is a common problem, especially amongst professional performers and athletes. Through repetitive motions and heavy stress, we unintentionally create shallow cracks and stress fractures in our bones. This can be caused by a number of factors, including: ill fitting gear (i.e. shoes and improper protective gear), intense training and practice, incorrect training techniques, and bad training environments. The number one cause for most injuries is ill fitting shoes.

This is why it is very important to take very good care of not just our bodies, but also our feet. We need to understand that our feet are just as responsible for supporting our body, as our spine supports our posture. If our spine supports good posture, then our feet should support good balance. Another similarity between our spine and our feet, are that they're composed of neatly aligned bones. So you can imagine- if any one bone is out of alignment with the rest, or suffers from a stress fracture, then you can expect more serious complications to follow.

For instance, let's take a look at a stress fracture, which is a common foot injury. The bones that are more prone to stress fractures are the ones that are located within the forefoot (the portion of your foot that starts from the tips of your toes to the middle of the foot). Normally, stress fractures show as dark bruises, and are often mistaken as just a "bruise". This is commonly referred to as a "closed fracture".

Another sensitive area of the foot is the little toe (fifth metatarsal), which of course because of its location, can be sprained easily. Pivoting or turning wrong can twist the toe and tear the tendon. Since tendons attach muscle to bone, as it tears away, a piece of bone is also pulled away with it. A more serious complication of this kind of injury is called a "Jones fracture", which is caused by an interference of blood supply to the bone of the little toe. This type of injury requires surgery in order for it to heal.

Anytime you experience one or more of the following:

pain and swelling that worsens within the next two to three days

difficulty walking

discoloration of the foot

tenderness

Seek medical attention right away! Until you can be seen by a licensed medical professional, here is some helpful advice-

Keep the area iced with a wrapped ice pack (so that you don't get freezer burn from the icepack), to reduce any pain and swelling.

Take care in applying the ice pack to the injury- ice on for twenty minutes, then off for twentyminutes.... repeat until ice pack returns to room temperature.

Keep the injured foot elevated so that blood doesn't pool around the injury.

If left untreated, it will lead to chronic foot pain, or worst-case-scenario- Arthritis. So before you develop any distortion in the way that you walk, you may have to go through therapy and rehabilitation. As long as you are under the care of your: medical doctor, physical therapist, and/or chiropractor- the long road to recovery will be over, and you'll be right back on track.

Referance: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/85746-overview