How does healing change on a weekly basis? It's going to continue to change throughout the healing process from day to day. No, it's not going to change a great deal in one day, but it's going to change a lot in a week, and it's going to change a whole lot more in two weeks. Everything's getting stronger: your muscles, your tendons, your bones, your ligaments, everything. You're getting stronger and stronger the whole time you're training and the whole time you're healing. Today on the Doc On Th...
Jan 21, 2019•9 min•Ep. 108
Why do runners heal faster? Simple...You are not a normal patient if you're a runner. Not only do you exercise more, you eat better, you sleep better. You as a runner are a well-primed healing machine and this is the bottom line. If you think about it, if you've been a lifelong runner, what have you been doing? You go out and you train. You do tissue damage and then your body rebuilds it. So you have been teaching your body, physiologically priming that system, to heal. Your body knows how to he...
Jan 18, 2019•6 min•Ep. 107
Today on the Doc on the Run podcast, we're talking about the number one book every runner should read in 2019. I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm going to recommend the number one book you need to read if you are a runner. I think this is going to be the best book for runners in 2019. And truthfully, it's not actually just a running book. The book is David Goggins', "Can't Hurt Me." I actually met David Goggins about 10 years ago or so. And he probably won't remember me because I'm just ...
Jan 17, 2019•4 min•Ep. 104
Today we're talking about whether or not you should run when you have pain about 10 days out from a marathon. This morning I got a call from Amy in Houston, and she's running a marathon in 10 days. She's doing the Houston Marathon. Today is Thursday, so a week from Sunday she is running the marathon. She has pain, and she's 10 days out, and wants to know if she can run now. That's the thing. She says, "I got this new pain, and I wanna run and finish my training." She admits that she didn't reall...
Jan 16, 2019•17 min•Ep. 106
Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we're talking about whether or not you should taper or just continue training when you have soreness right before your marathon. The purpose of a taper, is to really get prepared physically to do your best, actually perform your best, on race day. You should always taper if you have been sticking to your marathon plan, if you're fully trained, if you're fit, if you've really got all of your training in, then you can taper with confidence. But if you've done l...
Jan 14, 2019•8 min•Ep. 105
I’m recording this episode right around the start of the New Year, and this time of year everybody starts talking about their goals. Most people talk about where they want to be. What they want to accomplish, where they want to be, but I what I really think you have to think about is who are you going to be. Who are you going to be in one year, because … You know, it’s interesting. You would never expect your son to go into third grade and come out of third grade without having changed tremendou...
Jan 07, 2019•5 min•Ep. 103
The idea that one given treatment will work for one condition, when the people are different is absurd. Runners are different than normal people. Risks of certain treatments are much higher for runners then they are for other people. Some treatments that are not risky at all for a runner, might be very risky for the average non-runner. Today on the Doc on the Run Podcast, we're talking about if a treatment is best for most people, is it best for a runner?
Jan 06, 2019•5 min•Ep. 256
This question comes up a lot for runners with Achilles tendon injuries. But it can happen with any kind of tendon. The difference between an injury to a tendon which has been labeled "tendonitis" versus "tendinosis" is really a difference in the amount of time that you have the condition and the amount of damage to the tendon itself. There’s been a long running debate about this. I was lecturing at a medical conference in Iceland this the summer. Specifically, it was a lecture on tendon injuries...
Jan 02, 2019•7 min•Ep. 101
Let me ask you a question. Do you set goals when you are training for a race? What about when you are injured? I mean let’s face it, if you are training for a marathon you probably have a really specific goal right? You want to do a specific race on a specific day. You want to start at a specific time and you want to end at a specific time. So then you have a whole bunch of goals to try to get you to that particular outcome. But how about when you get injured? I see runners all the time and they...
Dec 26, 2018•8 min•Ep. 100
The number one question I get from runners is "How long is it going to take me to heal this injury?" It could be a metatarsal stress fracture, it could be plantar fasciitis, it could be an Achilles tendon injury. Then the follow-up question is always "How soon will I be back to running?" The whole underlying premise of those questions is completely absurd. All of us want to believe it takes some certain given timeline for every given injury to resolve. And that’s just crazy! I get this question ...
Dec 19, 2018•10 min•Ep. 99
Today on the Doc On The Run podcast we’re talking about the 5 causes of big toe joint pain in runners. If you are a runner and you have pain in the big toe joint, the first step in treating it is figuring out what is actually causing the problem. There are lots of different causes of pain in the big toe joint, but there are really five that affect runners most often. These are the most common that I see in runners, so I’m going to explain all 5 of the conditions to you. But not all these conditi...
Dec 12, 2018•7 min•Ep. 98
I know I talk about this a lot but collagen is one of the most critical things when you’re healing any running injury. If you have a tendon, ligament, fascia that’s injured. All that stuff is made of collagen. If you get an ankle sprain, you get an Achilles tendon tissue, you get a peroneal tendon tissue, you get plantar fasciitis. Any of those things, it’s all an issue with collagen and all of those structures have to heal. If you think all you need to do is form collagen, that’s not really the...
Dec 05, 2018•7 min•Ep. 97
In an ideal world, we would have research that actually studies everything, every variable, every possible scenario and then helps you know conclusively what will work and what will definitely not work. The problem is that research studies really don’t work out that way. There’s almost never a study that shows that something is 100% effective for everybody, all of the time, given all of the variables that can go into a patient’s given circumstances. When you’re a runner, that’s even way more com...
Nov 28, 2018•11 min•Ep. 96
You’re never staying the same. You’re never the same person. You’re not the same person you were a year ago, and you’re not the same person now. You’re certainly not the same person you were 10 years ago either. And what you’re doing professionally, you’re probably not the same sort of person you were a year ago or 10 years ago with that either. The truth is pretty much nothing stays the same in life. And running injuries, they have a life of their own. But they’re never staying the same either....
Nov 21, 2018•10 min•Ep. 95
Can I run with a split peroneal tendon? Well, yes. There are two cases in which you can run with a split peroneal tendon. Number one. If you’re certain running will not make the peroneal tendons worse or if you can accept that you may make the injury worse and it’s worth the risk to you, given your specific goals. Today, we’re going talk about what all that means if you’re a runner with a longitudinal tear or a split in the peroneal tendons. This whole episode is basically based on a couple of q...
Nov 14, 2018•20 min•Ep. 94
Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast, we’re talking about the seven steps a runner should take when you’re not healing. You’re probably a runner and you’ve probably been injured for some time. You probably just didn’t get injured last week when you were running a race, but you probably got injured a while back, and then a lot of things happened. You probably took a little bit of time and kind of took care of yourself, took off a few days from running. Maybe you iced it. Maybe you changed your rou...
Nov 07, 2018•13 min•Ep. 93
Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we’re talking about the top 10 myths about plantar fasciitis in runners. There are a lot of myths surrounding plantar fasciitis, and plantar fasciitis is common, but you have to understand when you’re a runner that not all the stuff you read is true. You can check out the course on runner’s heel pain if you’re really worried about this or you really want to keep running, you really want to figure out how to take care of it, everything’s in there. We created t...
Oct 31, 2018•21 min•Ep. 92
I recently went to pick up my 10 year son Alex from an after school program. He and all his classmates were playing on the playground. The camp administrator that runs the program actually approached me as I was walking across the playground. He said, “Alex doesn’t make good decisions for his safety.” I looked over and Alex who was standing up on the tire swing. He was swinging so high that he was almost horizontal at the top of the arc. I looked at the Camp instructor and said, “That may be tru...
Oct 24, 2018•12 min•Ep. 91
I recently got a great question from a runner in San Francisco. “I just want to make sure that I’m not heading for an over training injury and want to make sure to reduce the inflammation. When I have soreness following a hard workout, should I apply ice?” Overtraining injuries happen because you have too much tissue damage, and not enough healing of that injured tissue before your next workout. If you want to make sure you never get an over training injury all you have to do is make sure that a...
Oct 17, 2018•12 min•Ep. 90
Today we’re talking about how inflammation management can make you slower. After giving my lecture in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago I’ve had so many different questions about inflammation that I thought we should doing an entire series of episodes about inflammation management in runners and other athletes. There are lots of things you think about inflammation and one of the things you have to understand first and foremost is that you don’t always have to prevent inflammation. Runners think th...
Oct 10, 2018•21 min•Ep. 89
Just about a week ago I was giving a lecture in Las Vegas at the 24th Annual Scientific Program of the International Foot and Ankle Foundation and this is a medical conference where podiatrists, foot and ankle surgeons, sports medicine doctors go to get their continuing medical education credits. One of the lectures I was asked to give there was entitled “Inflammation in athletes – The good, the bad and ugly” and in that talk I was trying to go through and explain to doctors what really happens ...
Oct 03, 2018•21 min•Ep. 88
Today I was out on a run and it was a great day. I was running in the sun and I was just trying to think about like what are the things that really slow runners down in terms of healing because the whole key with training efficiently is to avoid an overtraining injury and to really train as hard as possible, to do as much tissue damage as possible and then rebuild that tissue before you do your next hard workout so that you can actually increase your fitness, increase your strength, increase you...
Sep 26, 2018•19 min•Ep. 87
An MRI is an interesting diagnostic tool and we often think that an MRI is the best thing to show you what’s going on inside your body when we suspect you have some kind of injury and your doctors have a difficult time making a diagnosis. But the truth is there are two really good reasons runners shouldn’t just jump to an MRI and try to get an answer when they’re injured we’re going to talk about that today. Today we’re talking about 2 reasons you may not want to get an MRI if you’re a runner....
Sep 19, 2018•12 min•Ep. 86
In this podcast episode we’re talking about sub-fibular impingement syndrome. Why do runners get sub-fibular impingement syndrome? How can you tell if you have sub-fibular impingement syndrome? That may sound confusing to you but I am going to explain it. I’m going to talk about what this condition is, the signs and symptoms, what you can do about it.
Sep 12, 2018•12 min•Ep. 85
What is sinus tarsi syndrome? I mean it sounds like a complicated name but it’s not really a complicated condition. The “sinus” means basically like a tube or a passageway and “tarsi” refers to the rear foot bones in your foot. So the tarsal bones are the big bone in your rear foot like the calcaneus heel bone or the talus that sits on top of the heel bone and sits underneath your tibia and your ankle joint. Those are the greater tarsal bones. Sinus Tarsi is actually a tunnel that runs between t...
Sep 05, 2018•16 min•Ep. 84
Why runners get extensor tenosynovitis? Basically what happens is that you get this problem from a number of things. The most common thing is overuse. When you get inflammation of the tendon sheath injury it’s usually because you work the tendons too hard. But with the extensor tendons, it really doesn't happen that much unless you do a lot to hill repeats. But it’s not the tendons that get injured, it’s the inside of the tendon sheath that becomes inflamed and that's what causes pain. The first...
Aug 29, 2018•33 min•Ep. 83
Today on the Doc On The Run podcast we’re talking about why doctors misdiagnose runners. All I do is talk to runners who are injured and want to run and ninety nine percent of the time when a runner calls me for advice is because they aren’t getting better and they want a second opinion. Well much of the time the runner has been misdiagnosed. If you don't have the right diagnosis, you will be doing the right treatment for the wrong problem and you're not going to get better. In this session we’r...
Aug 22, 2018•25 min•Ep. 82
I spend a lot of time talking to runners who have metatarsal stress fractures. Let’s face it, they’re common. And a metatarsal stress fracture may be one of the most disruptive injuries to you as a runner can encounter. The reason metatarsal stress fractures are so worrisome to you is that most doctors will tell you it takes six weeks for bone to heal. And whether or not that’s actually true is entirely different episode. I was recently in Reykjavik Iceland giving a talk on stress fracture heali...
Aug 15, 2018•19 min•Ep. 81
Let’s Face it…Crutches Suck! It’s still hard for me to believe that the same crutches, the same design that doctors hand out to patients today are more or less the same kind of crutches handed out to injured soldiers during the Civil War. And although crutches are truly terrible, they can be a useful treatment to help any injured runner heal faster. But you as a runner have to understand there’s a very high price to pay for using crutches. With one week of immobilization and non-weight-bearing o...
Aug 08, 2018•10 min•Ep. 80
Yesterday I was talking to my sister, who is of course, also a marathon runner. She has been running marathons way longer than me and she is always fit. She runs in the morning and then swims later in the day. Swimming is a great way to cross train, supplement your aerobic fitness, strengthen your core fitness and frankly stay cool and relax in the summer. But I got an email from a runner who had a bout of toenail fungus that was severe enough to need laser treatment to kill the fungus in the to...
Aug 01, 2018•12 min•Ep. 79
