What are the symptoms?
Stress fractures usually produce intense pain along the line of the bone, typically in the tibia (shin bone), metatarsal (toes) and femur (thigh).
What are they?
Stress fractures are small cracks in the bone that occur at stress points in the bone. Xrays don’t always pick them up.
What causes stress fractures?
Stress fractures occur when repetitive, weight bearing exercise puts stress on the bone. We typically see them where people undertake long distance pounding exercise such as long distance running.
How can I stop a stress fracture from appearing?
- Try and rotate the exercises you do to include low impact exercise, or try and alternate between hard and soft surfaces to try and reduce the continuous pounding
- Try interval training on some days, rather than continuous bouts of long training days – see our quick guide to interval training for tips
- Eat a healthy diet high in calcium and Vitamin D to strengthen your bones particularly if you partake in high impact activities such as long distance running
- Include plenty of rest days, particularly if you are new to exercise
- Make sure your footwear is reasonably cushioned
- Get your mechanics checked out?
What Corsham Physiotherapy can do to help a stress fracture?
- We can diagnose a stress fracture easily using our fracture equipment
- We can treat the stress fractures to heal them quickly – see our main page on fracture healing to see how this works
- We can review your mechanics to try and prevent them from happening again
Please contact us if you want to book an appointment or discuss your condition with our friendly physiotherapists.