Staying Off Your Feet
from MountainTechs.com February 07 Newsletter

Should I hike Rainier today? It’s a sunny, warm winter morning in Seattle--a rare occurence--and from my apartment window, I can see clearly all the way to the mountain. My daypack is loaded and lying outside the closet. The robins are rattling their way into the drains, and there isn’t a soul to be seen on the street. The only thing standing in my way is that I can’t stand up.

Strains and injured tendons aren’t uncommon for the avid backpacker or rock climber, but the injury that I have is fairly unusual--a fracture of the fifth metatarsal of the foot, which acts as a stabilizer on the side of your foot. This kind of injury is more commonly known as a “march fracture,” named so by Army doctors who began to see them regularly in new recruits at boot camp. Many of these soldiers would show up for basic training, have fully loaded packs thrown at them, and immediately hike 20 miles night after night. Doctors observed that without building up their bone density and overall strength in advance, their feet couldn’t handle the stress. While these fractures won’t even show up in x-rays, they will become more and more painful over time with no visible inflammation.

The only way to heal march fractures is to stay off your feet for at least four weeks, and then spend the next month or two slowly building yourself up to a normal level of activity. Otherwise, the injury will recur and you’ll start the cycle all over again. In some cases, I’ve seen people who needed 8-12 weeks to fully restart their routine.

Well, I haven’t been hiking 20 miles without advance preparation. Recently. But then again, we outdoor types have been known to go a little crazy now and again. After all, if it’s the storm of the century outside, it’s time to grab the snowshoes and that ice axe...

With the wide array of outdoor activities available to people in the Pacific Northwest, you can be running on Monday, rock climbing on Tuesday, hiking on Wednesday (with some rock climbing that afternoon for good measure), biking on Thursday, weightlifting on Friday, and running or skiing (or both) the whole weekend. I repeated this routine for weeks on end, and after a while, it hurt. I skiied some hard moguls, and it hurt. I nailed a 5.10+ at the climbing gym that I’d been eyeing for weeks, and it hurt. It was even possible to keep rock climbing and hiking and running through the pain, only to discover one fateful morning, I had trouble standing when I got out of bed.

Proper sports medicine dictates that you should take a day off once a week, and ensure that you alternate between different activities to ensure that you don’t overuse muscle groups. Of course, I forgot that more than your muscles have to heal from trying to peg that difficult route. You have tendons, sinews, bones, and other connective tissues that receive stresses and microtears that need to be repaired before you stress them again.

Something I didn’t realize--until it was too late--was that staggering your workout routine on the off-season means more than alternating activities. It means alternating weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing activities, balancing aerobic and anerobic exercise, with enough time off with absolutely no exercise for your body to fully recover. You’ll be stronger for it. Plus, it’ll give you a chance to plan that kayaking trip around the San Juan Islands...

The sun’s a bit higher in the sky now. Maybe I can take a short walk around the block, before my foot gives out for the day. Or go for a swim later… or hit the gym? Old habits die hard, especially for outdoor junkies…