Dr. Tigerchik wrote:
Quote:
(1) 10k steps every day without aggravating the left Achilles or the bottom of the left foot (too much). (I've been able to do this the last 3 weeks, but it's like watching paint dry.)
do you have an achilles rehab program? Is it insertional achilles or the more standard one? I believe it's insertional based on where the pain has been. (I saw a doctor and he said it was the achilles, although at the time I had a lot more pain in my foot after a false (rotation) movement in the garden. I don't see how the foot pain was related to it, as I haven't been able to find info about a foot tendon connecting there.)
Since I wasn't wild about the original diagnosis (no explanation about the foot) I've just been going old-school: Take it really easy and observe what seems to bother it. I stayed off of it for a long time (starting in October); when I started back up I found that I had to limit cadence, step length, and walking duration at any given time. (For a while I greatly shortened my stride with my right leg, as a regular stride seemed to aggravate the left achilles a lot.) I found the usual stretches that I used when I had (the usual) achilles problems from before seemed to aggravate it. (These were the exercises the doctor recommended.)
So now I've been taking the attitude of the 100/100 and just trying to put in (fairly) constant volume to start strengthening the achilles as well as whatever's going on in the foot. One day I did 20k steps total, which didn't feel too bad, but the next day, when getting up after studying in bed, my left leg didn't feel asleep but the muscles didn't respond at all for about 20 seconds, to the point where I had to hold onto the bed to avoid falling down, so I'm trying to be more careful.
Anyway, your question caused me to look up treatment for the insertional form, and I will try what I found, which involves eccentric exercise without ankle dorsiflexion. (I'm going off the info on the page
https://runningwritings.com/2011/09/injury-series-flat-eccentric-heel-drops.html.)
This morning I walked 4 miles (8k steps) outside (in the 80s, so not too cold) using a metronome to keep my cadence down (to 125) (67-year-old body over type A mind instead of the usual vice versa), and was doing about 15 minute miles, so I wasn't too bad.
Hope this wasn't too long; I just really needed to unburden, and thanks for asking.
Tri or tri not; this is no du. (--- with apologies to Yoda.) Slow triathlete who survived Huntsville, Lelystadt, Colmar, Fontanil, and
Szekesfehervar/Lake Velence. Arbor hydration specialist in a kid's park in Monterrey 4 times in the 1990s (and in the pits in 1994).