A couple years back I had a lot of trouble with my achilles. Excruciating pain when any pressure was applied (like the back of my shoe or spikes). I ran through the pain but my times were definitely slow because of it. I trained for the last few weeks of my season barefoot and warmed up barefoot as well. It finally went away after about 4 months of no training and living in sandals. Now its back. What scares me the most is neither time did it come on like tendonitis, a little pain at first and gradually getting worse. Both times is was sudden, just hit me all of a sudden while jogging this past weekend. The first time i was just walking. It was so intense i thought a plastic piece of my shoe had ripped through the fabric and cut into my achilles. Same this time. The suddeness scares me because its not characteristic of tendonitis. Any thoughts on what i should do? I have just been icing and taking anti-inflammatories. Only 3 more weeks left to my regualr season so i'm hoping it will go away. Just looking to see if anyone has had any similar problems.
Achilles…
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Participant
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KeymasterDoes the icing and anti-inflamatories ease the pain? Does it get better after a thorough warmup? Is it worst in the morning?
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Icing and anti-inflammatories help right now. When i had it before it did nothing. And it doesn't get better with a thorough warm-up.
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Keymaster
Could be a partial tear / rupture. That would explain why the icing and anti-inflams work (they reduce the inflammation which causes pain surrounding the injury site), it came on all-of-a-sudden, and why it doesn't get better with warmup (as would be expected with tendonitis).
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
I'm still running on it. I think i can survive the 2 and a half weeks i have left in the season. Its not nearly as bad as i had it a few years back. I would be in tears when i finished my races. I went to a sports injury place and they used the electro therapy and ultrasound (neither did anything). The only thing that did seem to help wqas a cotasone patch. It was pretty cool, cortisone (or cortisol, whichever is used) cream was placed on the inside on a band-aid like patch with a small watch battery in it. The cream was charged and the same charged side of teh battery was placed facing the skin to "force" the cortisone into the infected area.
I plan on getting through these last couple meets and then taking a week or two off depending on how i feel then get back into training for the Empire State Games. My season has been crap because of injuries and i'd like to run at least one PR before i end the year. we'll see how it goes… -
Participant
word of caution. Mike could well be right about it being a partial tear/rupture (maybe very slight even), but my goodness, be careful on it. If it is partially torn, it could fully rupture any second, that'd mean you'd need surgery within 2 days (otherwise your in real trouble) and 6months out of running. I'd get it checked out ASAP, by a health pro, if they say nothing, get someone else's opinion. It might be nothing serious, it could also destroy the rest of this season, and whipe out all of next season. You may have had scar tissue from the old achillies injury which caused this one, so other then anything else get some deep tissue massage and break up the adhesion so it won't reoccur again.
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Participant
get some deep tissue massage and break up the adhesion so it won't reoccur again.
thats gunna be painful at the moment…haha!
And as of now its not nearly bad enough to stop me. If it stays how it is i can survive the next 2 weeks and then when i get home from college i'll look into an MRI or something of the sort to check it out. I don't believe i ever had one done last time and i can't for the life of me understand why not. If i were the doctor thats the first thing i would order…
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Participant
same problem, but after i have done a good warmup, jogging 30' on soft terrain it's much better. I believe in homeopatics and use for the moment arnica K30 and the same ointment from unda.
from the barefood i use symphytum leaves, i crused them and place them around my food and let them there a night :angel:
It comes definately from speedtraining, cause when i did long jogs the years before i had no trouble. For me roads and syntetic tracks are to avoid.
So i hope this will help me.
maybe we have to listen better to the recommondations of Lydiart system, by doing more basic millage on slow paces, so that bloodcirculation improves on a natural way.Of course this is not the specific training for a sprinter and 400m man. It would be a great benefit that we could train on golfcourses, like Coe and Snell did. -
Participant
Have u or anyone else tried the balance and eccentric reach workout a.k.a Walt's Special Achilles Strengthener. It's basically like a one-legged squat putting extending the free leg out in front, out at an angle to the left, and out at an angle to the right. This works the achilles of the single support leg in the three planes: the sagittal, frontal (side-to-side), and transverse (rotational). These are the three same planes which the achilles is worked through all at once when running.
Or the swedish eccentric calves, which are basically the down movement to get to the start position of heel raises coming from the plantar-flexed position. Another way to describe it is a one-legged eccentric movement of the lower leg complex, from up on the ball of foot to where the heel is below the step. These swedish eccentric movements are done with a slight bent knee and straight leg.
You can get a better description of them here: https://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0031.htm
If someone has had experience please share as I'd like to get a few views of how these exercises are for strengthening the achilles.
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Participant
Thanks Coldshot for the post, I too have been hampered by a nagging achilles, and tried the exercises you described, they seem to really work all three areas of the achilles, especially the exercise with the leg straight out and knee bent on the other leg, it could be a great warm-up exercise before a workout and after as well, I'm going to continue it every day, thanks again for the post. :thumbup:
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Member
I have also been plagued with recurrent achilles tendon problems over the past two seasons (I run 400m). I have been doing the eccentric loading exercises and such, but I was wondering if anyone could give me an honest opinion on the following home ultrasound device: https://www.aidmytendon.com and whether it would be of any use for tendon healing and/or recovery as they claim?
My girlfriend reckons that I am too easily sucked in by advertising for overpriced gimmicky products so I thought I would ask for an opinion. Their claims for the device are pretty impressive but I realise that they are selling a product so its in their interests to hype it up (which they really have done). They also seem to have successfully saturated the net with their own promotion making it difficult to find independent reviews. I was hoping for opinions on whether you guys thought it was really worth the money because its not cheap (but if it saved me physio costs as they say)?
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Keymaster
Have u or anyone else tried the balance and eccentric reach workout a.k.a Walt's Special Achilles Strengthener. It's basically like a one-legged squat putting extending the free leg out in front, out at an angle to the left, and out at an angle to the right. This works the achilles of the single support leg in the three planes: the sagittal, frontal (side-to-side), and transverse (rotational). These are the three same planes which the achilles is worked through all at once when running.
I've done this before but never for the achilles. I don't have too many achilles issues with my athletes so perhaps it works.
Or the swedish eccentric calves, which are basically the down movement to get to the start position of heel raises coming from the plantar-flexed position. Another way to describe it is a one-legged eccentric movement of the lower leg complex, from up on the ball of foot to where the heel is below the step. These swedish eccentric movements are done with a slight bent knee and straight leg.
I've done single leg eccentric calf raises on a couple occassions but can't say anything conclusive. I know eccentrics are very useful for tendonitis. Dan Pfaff uses eccentric calf raises quite frequently.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
I have also been plagued with recurrent achilles tendon problems over the past two seasons (I run 400m). I have been doing the eccentric loading exercises and such, but I was wondering if anyone could give me an honest opinion on the following home ultrasound device: https://www.aidmytendon.com and whether it would be of any use for tendon healing and/or recovery as they claim?
My girlfriend reckons that I am too easily sucked in by advertising for overpriced gimmicky products so I thought I would ask for an opinion. Their claims for the device are pretty impressive but I realise that they are selling a product so its in their interests to hype it up (which they really have done). They also seem to have successfully saturated the net with their own promotion making it difficult to find independent reviews. I was hoping for opinions on whether you guys thought it was really worth the money because its not cheap (but if it saved me physio costs as they say)?
I'd be a little leary of home versions of ultrasound devices. While administration of the care is fairly easy (some PTs/ATs actually let athletes to it themselves) the machine itself and its settings are pretty important to proper and effective usage.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
How about calcaneal bursitis? Treament, other info…?
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Participant
my achillis trouble is now almost on a better hand 😉 i get the suggestion to do only endurance work on soft surface, so i did now 3 times a week. Runs in the forest for 45 to 60', with some short light build-ups. I do the exercises that i found on this forum and with the know how that i read in Lydiarts old books, to give more circulation, there is improvement. Speedtraining isn't yet for tommorrow,
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Participant
today i did a typical endurance training 16 x 30" ( 3 – 5K pace) with 60" rest jogging on a grasscourse. a wonderfull training. many drills afterwards, barefoot, skips and cooldown 10' jog. I feel that the circulation on that part is improved of my right achillis. To substitute the speedtraining i do it by light easy drills, but i need more advice on that , ….
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Participant
Wauw what a plaisant feeling to run almost without pain.
Yesterday it was a real good test with more speed in it, but all done on my favoured grasscourse. 2 (3 X 40") 400/800m pace, 40" jogpause, 80" between set a 5 -10 ' walk jog – then
5 X 30m sprint easy starts but build-ups, rest walk back.
5-10 barefoot jogging. I feel no strain and no pain anymore.
the injurie heals itself, maybe true the light endurance work that gives more circulation. I have used the recommendation from the swedisch on the dietplan. -
Participant
i just bought new shoes "asics, duomax" with thicker soles.Quality is better then before. Now i am looking for new spikes too, i think they are from my last competitionperiod, 14 years ago when i was 42 :sniff:.
I am trying to get the special heel-cups from MF athletics her to our country. Today i had a new test on my favoured grassland :angel:, doing pure sprints of just 30m. Wonderfull, no pain, no strain.
In the future i will be more carefull with sprints downhill on the road in my pré-comp period. -
Keymaster
i just bought new shoes "asics, duomax" with thicker soles.Quality is better then before. Now i am looking for new spikes too, i think they are from my last competitionperiod, 14 years ago when i was 42 :sniff:.
I am trying to get the special heel-cups from MF athletics her to our country. Today i had a new test on my favoured grassland :angel:, doing pure sprints of just 30m. Wonderfull, no pain, no strain.
In the future i will be more carefull with sprints downhill on the road in my pré-comp period.Be careful with thicker soled shoes. While it intuitively makes sense that the extra cushioning would prevent injury this is almost always not the case. When the sole gets too thick it tends to negatively affect how you contact the ground and how the foot functions.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
If you don't take care of the achilles injury early it turns into tendinosis. Which means theres no inflamation, and will start to build lots of scare tissue. That scar tissue will form into a nodule on the back of the heal. I've tried everything P.T, Chiroprator (joke), ionpheresis (electric stim with cortisone). My continued training made it worse (training for 7th national championship off of a comeback). I had topaz microdebrider surgery. I spent 9 days on crutches versus 6 week with the old school surgery. Recovery (depending on your age) is significantly shorter. see http://www.topazinfo.com
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Participant
anybody ever had plantar fascitis?
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Participant
anybody ever had plantar fascitis?
I've had plantar fascitis. If it hurt when geeting out of bed, have a towel near by to stretch. I received PT for this and I've not had any more issues. When were you diagnosed?
Treatment:
Achilles stretch: bent knee
Ultra sound
Massage
Night Splint
Ice massage
Cross training=active rest
Pick up items with toes to build arch strength -
Participant
i dont have the morning issue..i have had the orthotics for 7-8 weeks…i do the ice bottle massage..imma do the tennis ball one today..i jus started the night splint yesterday..i ice like 2-3x/day…i stretch
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