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Achilles Woes
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I would say that if you have a lot of pain even after you have warmed up then you should at least cut back on training. Your idea, Nick of 2 weeks off to crosstrain sounds good.once you start running again it may still hurt unless you continue with the exercises and lower levels of intensity.
Good luck and keep us posted.
With all the research and money that goes into shoe design it's surprising the manufacturers still haven't produced a solution to this obviously widespread problem. Meanwhile I look forward [for this reason alone] to the rain which will soften the ground.
I've had a lot trouble in the past with calf tears. Since doing a lot of work on my calfs I've built up my milage and intensity too quikly and the calf problems have moved to my achillies.
I've had a niggleing achillies for about 6 weeks and tried to ignore the pain thinking that it would just go away with time, as the body adjusts to the new workload.
I did a hard session at the club on Tues and had to stop half way thru due to to the increasing pain, you can't do quality work with a limp. Yesterday my left achillies had siezed. I knew I'd done something fairly serious. Today that has been confirmed as a partial rupture of the tendon.
My advice therfore is don't ignore it, treat it. A couple of weeks of easy is better than 6 weeks no running followed by 6 weeks easy running.
Now the calf injury has subsided I am left with a sore achilles on that side. It's sore and swollen at the top where the tendon joins the muscle.
I've got an appointment to see a physio on Monday for some deap tissue massage as I've been told that the old scar tissue is probably causing the other injuries.
So it's not just me hair line I've problems with.
I am so cheesed off, I cant afford to go to a physio so it looks like I am up the creek without a paddle.
I did a lot of running years ago with no achilles probs at all, now being 48 it looks like I am more likely to have problems as you say Pizza Man, looks like I might have to hang up my trainers, but not for good I hope....
However I still think the exceptionally hard ground is to blame because I don't suffer from any AT problems in the winter.
Before my injury I was running long runs of 13 mile and 25 miles+ a week so the very short runs I have just done are nothing really.
At a bit of a loss what to do now......
wrong/old trainers
increase in millage/intensity/too many hills
running surface
scar tissue in tendon
inflexible calf muscles
There is a condidtion where the tendon starts to break down due to age but I doubt you have that. As we get older we become less flexible so you might need to stretch more. Also you might have some inflexible scar tissue in there that needs to be woked out. Don't give up yet.
I started running again 16 months ago after a long layoff.
I did everything right (I think) I went to Start Fitness in Newcastle, they watched me run and told me I over pronated on my left foot (the problem achilles) and neutral on my right, I was sold Nike Air Span Triax.
I built up my milage very gradual as recomended.
My achilles started playing up after 5 months, (250 mile), it was just an ache to start with so I carried on running for another 3 months (up to 530 mile total) achilles was hurting now, so went back to Start Fitness, they said my Nikes where shot and that was probably causing my trouble, so I had a Adidas foot scan which confirmed I over pronated on left and neutral on right and was sold a pair of Adidas Supernova control.
I managed to run for another 2 months, my milage got shorter and shorter, then I had to stop the pain too bad.
I had 6 months rest, then started running again as it seemed ok, but after 3 weeks it hurts just as much as it did 6 months ago, so I am resting yet again.
Well thats it, the rise and fall of my running comeback, sorry if it was a bit long winded but I thought I would give you the full story.
Oh one other thing, I live in a very hilly area and run a lot on county roads which are heavily cambered.....
Thanks for listening, Gaz......
Are you memeber of a gym? If so leave the running again for a while and get on the stepper and the eliptical triner for a few hard sessions. This should stretch out the achillies without any impact.
IMHO you should seek a therapist or physios' advice, you might well have some scar tissue in there.
Chris I looked at the Peak aperformance site and couldn't find anything. Is it a rolloing site with articles changing all the time?
My initial treatment was to Bin my new Nike Pegasus' (actualy I sold them to a mate) and completely avoid running and use pool running and cross training (bike and elliptical machine) to maintain fitness for 2 weeks. Third week recuperation involved running only 10 miles then i gradually increased the mileage.
I was interested to read Pizza Man's comment about achilles injuries occur with age. I'm 33 and right enough I;ve never had problems before this year so there could well be something in that. Not a lot we could do to stop father time though.
PPB.
This is a long artcle on achilles and exercises - don't know how to do a link so you will have to copy and paste
Try pool running! Its a great way to keep up your fitness and its easy on joints. You will probably find that its harder to run in the water but you're legs will certainly feel like you've run. Maybe you should give this a try and incorporate some short runs/walks/strides etc until you feel better.
hope this is useful.
If you'de read the whole thread you would have found that reference on page 2 and even better one's on page 5 posted by chaos.
Lets not go reinventing the wheel constantly.
Maybe its time to start a thread that explicitly states "good exercises for achilles injuries" and try to keep it fairly high on the forum. I'm off to Spain tonight for a couple of weeks, but when I get back if nobody else has. I'll have go then.
BTW Chaos's posts on page 5 really work, anyone else suffering at the moment really should have a look.
Charles
many thanks TF.
I've read your posts on this thread and I'm having a go at the excercises you helpfully gave the address for. I am a relatively new runner of 4 months and I got AT in one leg. To start with I cut the back of my cheapo trainers which helped but I've now got some expensive lovely Saucony ones and some sorbothane heel inserts. It all got better for a while but gradually crept back as I got fitter and my runs got longer - now 35 mins per day. However I realised today that the AT is sorest at the bit where the back of the tab on the shoe ends and it was sore when running for the first time today. Usually its just stiff and sore when I get up in the morning and gets better during the day and is fine when I run.
My questions are:
1) have people got good results from the eccentric knee squats and stretches on the reccommended links?
2) should I go for it and cut the beautiful wonderful expensive trainers - and if so is it vertical slits either side of the tab or do I just hack away with the kitchen scissors?
Thanks for your advice in anticipation,
Nancy
Starting again; when I started the exercises, my achilles tendon was killing me (I was stuggling to keep my balance for four reps). But little by little, it's been getting better, and with a couple of days rest, the pain's now almost completely gone!
Over what period of time did you start to get results, did you combine these excercises with any other treatment/rehab', how much rest did you take and did you cross train?
many thanks.
Results have become apparent within 3 weeks of starting the exercises. I did not do any other treatment or rehab; I did not even ice! All together I must have taken 5 or 6 days off (through a back injury!), and yes I did cross train (I'm a lifeguard and kayaking coach, so I always do a fair amount of non-running related exercise). So, yes, for me these simple exercises (maybe 5 mins a day) have proved to be nothing short of miraculous (I've had chronic AT for over a year now, to the point where I could not walk in the mornings). I still feel some mild discomfort, but it is so much better than it was that I would (and have done) strongly recommend these exercises to all AT sufferers.
The Pose Method teaches you to run on the balls of your feet using the elasticity of your muscles and gravity to gain your forward momentum.
I believe that your achilles is under most pressure in heel to toe running. When your heel strikes the floor the achilles works overtime to stabilise your foot/ankle. Chronic overuse can lead to AT.
I still have the injury but can run well using the pose method. If I revert to my old heel toe style I have problems.
I spent my time off from running putting together a program of strengthening exercises using just your body weight. Some of these are for explosive power.
I have found that the result of Pose Method Running and explosive power exercises has made me much faster and less porne to injury in the future.
The above exercises are at http://www.xertion.net/Downloads/Xertion Manual - No Weights Required.pdf