Broken my ankle running - how can I maintain fitness?

[athingthateveryoneneeds]

I'm drawing a blank. No swimming no cycling. Yoga is limited with a gigantic cast! I'm quite frustrated because I have been working on improving my running all year and now it will be weeks/months before I can get back to it. Weights? Any thoughts appreciated.

I'm impressed you're thinking about this. I broke mine last summer and sat on my arse with my leg elevated and gained a ton of weight through boredom.

You could probably do upper body and core with weights but you need to be careful,I assume you're non weight bearing?

To be honest, I found moving anywhere a struggle. However, I'm now back in the gym, normal fitness levels back and weight normal again.

I've lost a lot of weight over the past six months and really don't want to undo all my hard work. Will be lowering my calorie requirements as well but ugh. So annoying.

Spin with one leg?

Wouldn't the pedal whack into my cast? 😀🙃

take pedal or crank off, elevate bad leg out of way?

I'll have a think. :)

Are you walking on crutches? When I was on crutches I got s hell of a workout, both cardiovascular and upper body.

Walk as far as you’re allowed.

Yep, on crutches. Also have a baby in a buggy so not sure how to manage that one yet! But once I get my proper walking cast I can hopefully get up and about more.

Weeks....haha. I had to wait 3 months before starting running after breaking a bone in my foot.

As pp has said, crutches are good cardio/arm strength/core strength. TBH you may well find you get really tired just doing that and whatever your body does to heal bones. I found I was really wiped out for the first couple of weeks.

Oooh with a baby! Difficult. How long do you think you’ll be incapacitated?

Just wondering whether a sling would be safe with crutches... 😕

I'd be terrified to put him in a sling, and I love slings. :) I'm far too unstable at the moment.

dangermouse I'm happy to hear you got back to running again, though. Did you do any physio?

My gym has a cardio machine that uses just arms. That would work

Honestly I found it really hard and struggled to get anywhere

Id take it easy and let yourself heal. Once I got my walking boot on they said two weeks, it was probably another month just to walk ok and without a limp. I was really shocked. I thought it would come off and I'd be back to normal but your muscles waste and you walk funny after.

I'm now about nine months post it happening, and I still get twinges, I was 48 when it happened though and I broke it in two places. A spiral fracture, my leg twisted whilst my foot stayed in place and it was a spiral fracture. It broke like a cork screw. Fortunately i basically twisted it back into place so it was non displaced and I needed no surgery.

I now do about an hour to 90 mins in the gym again most days, six or seven times a week, a mix of cardio and weights, and would be classified as fit, but I'd say for six months I was totally out the game. I'm sorry. Although I was walking without crutches, I knew my ankle wasn't stable and it limited what i could do. Even now, running, i wouldn't want to go over on it, as I suspect it would break a bit too easily.

I did this last year. Managed to do quite a lot in the gym, used weight machines not free ones, and just isolated the bad leg. Hard to explain but it was very doable. Also used TRX kit, if you have access to it, just stood on one leg a lot! Try power plates for planks and other core stuff. Plank on good leg with bad leg hooked over and resting on it. Good luck!

Ouch Bluntness100 I'm totally cringing!

I've broken my fibula but it isn't out of alignment (apparently, I didn't get to see the x-ray which was disappointing!) so I'm hoping the healing process is straightforward.

I'm going to be stuck indoors for a while so I'll look into this TRX kit option. Thanks for the suggestions and commiserations. :)

Actually it was four months I was out the gym.

I did it late August, by decemeber I was walking straight again and by jan I was in the gym and running.

Just be careful you don't put weight on it when you shouldn't and follow your doctors advice. You will need to do some exercises to strengthen it when the cast comes off. Muscles waste very quickly indeed.

However it heals. It's just time.

Very true. Thank you - your story gives me hope that I'll be back to running again eventually. My pessimistic side was telling me I'd never manage it again.

I think it's more important to take a long term view and let it heal properly, rather than continuing to exercise and making it worse.

Dh broke a bone in his foot trail running a couple of years ago. He thought it was a bad sprain so iced it and continued marathon training on it for a few of months afterwards, doing 20 miles on a Sunday etc.

He stopped running as the pain just increased and six months after the initial injury was diagnosed with a break which had, by that point, badly healed. He would either need an operation to remove the bone and reattach ligaments with a six month healing time (three of those with leg elevated 23 hours a day) and an 80% chance of running again OR to just accept the injury is permanent, will cause pain when running at times etc.

He chose the latter and it's worked out ok, he has gait analysis when buying shoes to make sure his wobbly foot is supported and he does Triathlon which takes the emphasis off running a bit. It sometimes causes pain but not always.

He had a year out of running but the level of retained fitness was surprising.

Sling is not safe with crutches! And would be really hard. I don’t know quite how you’d push a buggy on crutches...can you get someone else to push it?

I did see a physio but he said I was fine...just had to do some jumping about. I would say that you have to go by feel a lot and return gently. I started after 3 months, but stopped again as my foot kept swelling, and it hurt. I waited a bit longer and just did lots of walking. Mine was displaced though, so had to do a month no weight bearing at all for 5 weeks, even when I had the boot, then crutches and putting a bit of weight on it for another 2 weeks, before walking in the boot. Will you be allowed to walk right away or will you be told to keep off it (hard if you have kids). The boot is much better in this sort of weather though as you can take it off!

You should run again, don't worry, I am. However it is important to take the time to let it heal, and not do further damage.

You'll be surprised when the cast comes off, I was in one for four weeks and was shocked when I saw my leg, it was about 30 % smaller than the other one. Just muscle wastage. In addition I couldn't rotate my foot or move it back and forward, because the cast holds it in one position and the muscles waste as said.

It doesn't take long to build them up, I didn't have physio. But for a couple of weeks after the walking boot came off, which was on for two weeks after the cast came off) I was on crutches and when I walked my foot pointed the wrong way. Out to the side, and I had a pronounced limp. I was really worried and I recall my husband saying he thought I'd have to have it reset. I didn't. It was just the muscles.

As said for me, a month after the walking boot camp off I was walking normally and then a month after that I was running again.

The other thing you need to watch is if you damaged the tendons or cartilage when doing it. You won't necessarily know that until you're out of the boot. My consultant told me the exercise bike was good for it and then the cross trainer. However as a pp said. If it's not ready it will swell up and you'll feel it.

To put it into perspective when they x rayed me at four weeks they told me it was healing fine. But the consultant mentioned you can't see new bone growth on the x ray at that stage, it's too early and the bone isn't dense enough, but they knew it was there basically as something was holding the broken bits together.

If it's not dense enough to be seen on an X-ray, then it's no where near strong enough to run on.

If it's not dense enough to be seen on an X-ray, then it's no where near strong enough to run on.

Makes perfect sense. I appreciate you sharing your experiences, dangermouseisace and Bluntness . And yours dh's, swirlyorangecarpets.

I broke my foot running a few years ago . It was 6 weeks in a cast boot ( during this time I did core work and used some kit at the gym which didn't require legs) then 6 weeks out of a boot building up length of time walking , I used the cross trainer and spin bike during this time and then at about 15 weeks ( when I could walk one hour pain free ) I was able to start running again but I had to run one minute walk two minutes and build up in ten minute increments. I think it was about 9 months until I was fully back to normal running and fitness ( broke it whilst running a marathon , was running a half marathon at 9 months ) and that it with exercising in some capacity daily from 48 hours of breaking it.