not a great day for the Aussie. I managed to fall over walking down the stairs and I've broken the metatarsal attached to the little toe in my left foot.

Clean break and only one break are the two pieces of good news but I need to get another x ray and see a surgeon in 7 days time to see how it's healing and decide if they need to put a pin in it.

which isn't great as I had an indoor rowing competition in 12 days time and the State Champs in 40 days time which...looking at the last 2 years times and the improvement I've been making, I'd have had a decent chance of winning.

I'm still holding out hope that if it heals well and doesn't need surgery, that I might be able to re-start training in a few weeks and give myself half a chance but obviously that will depend on a load of things going right.

for the time being, I need to think through ways to maintain my cardio fitness with no gym and no ability to walk, cycle or row. IDK.

thoughts?

Ugh, damn man, that sucks. No thoughts immediately spring to mine other than pool work, unfortunately, though I'd imagine surgery would push even that back a bit while it heals.

Bummer. Hope that you heal up quickly.

I dont see how one useless broken little toe affects rowing, cycling, and elliptical. I would talk to the doctor, put some kind of splint, remove the top front of my shoe and be back at in a couple of days.

Boooooo

Sucks, sorry man. Perhaps feet out rowing where you don't put any pressure on the toe?

It’s a broken foot - the metatarsals are the long foot bones that attach to each of the toes. This one is the one on the far left that attaches to the little toe

RIP. Game Over.

Maybe get on the battle rope.

my 2 cents

i have broken that same bone in each foot...the right one when i was 26, the left one when i was mid 30's. got x-rays each time and docs just told me to stay off of it as much as possible, and that was about it. no boot, cast, or surgery required, and haven't had any problems since. healed fine both times, although i have a bit of a protruding bump on the left one. competition in 12 days would seem impossible. 40 days may still be doable if you heal quickly and can find some way to maintain fitness. shouldn't lose too much in the first week or so.

best of luck

Thanks mate and that makes sense.

Yep, I’m not even thinking about 12 days time but I’m holding out hope for 40 days.

Plan is to stay off my feet and do no cardio at all for a week until I see the surgeon. So long as he doesn’t want to operate, I’ll then trial gradually doing some very light rowing or cycling if the pain allows it and see what happens from there.

Not ideal at all because so much of the power output on the erg comes through the feet but we’ll see

4x6 Bench 80kg
3x15 DB Bench 22.5kg DBs
3x10/12 close grip bench 70kg/Hammer Curl 12.5kg

Managed a light session in the home gym. I’m wary of putting too much weight on the bar til I work through how much pressure I push through my feet while benching.

Nice to do something though.

Plan is to keep working through what weight training stuff I can do and do something every day.

I have my appointment with the surgeon next Mon. The foot is really swollen - quite uncomfortable and a little painful when I sit with the boot on and then more painful whenever I hobble around

another light session while staying off my feet

3x5 Seated Press - 45kg
2x8 Seated Press - 40kg
3x12 Front Raise 12.5kg DB
3x12 Lateral Raise 12.5kg DB
3x12 Bent Over DB Row - 22.5kg DB
3x12 seated hammer curl - 12.5kg DB

foot felt a little better today...perhaps because I kept it in the boot all day. Massive pain in the ass walking sideways up and down stairs, one step at a time though. Also the leg with the boot on is approx 1 inch higher than the other leg even with my biggest soled sneaker on, so there's a sideways lean as well as the limp

Really happy I can still do some weights so that I can keep the body moving a little and get a few endorphins rushing around. Will go round one more time with the weight i'm using to get used to lifting without the stability of my foot on the floor, then I might try to add a little

only other thing of note is that I've cut my calorie intake right down given the lack of walking and hard exercising.

6x6 Bench - 80kg
3x8/8 DB Flye/Bench - 22.5kg
3x12/12 Close Grip Bench 60/Bench Dips

Keeping the benching light while I get used to not using my foot during the lift. Happy to be doing something.

Spoke to a good friend of mine about training/competing through injuries and sharing war stories from the past and it’s fair to say that some of my extremely risky/silly moments from the past were put to shame by his. He was a world class speed skier and broke his national record with a ruptured ACL on one leg and a torn Achilles on the other.

Either way, I’m gonna stick to my plan of doing nothing on the foot til after my surgeon appointment on Monday but …assuming no operation, after then I’m gonna play around with a few different ways to attempt to start rowing again

6x7 Seated barbell Press (backless bench) 45kg
4x12 DB Bent over row 22.5kg
3x12 Hammer Curl 12.5kg

****, that sucks man. I hope it heals quickly.

I'd be very careful with a broken bone in the foot. I know a little bit about hand fractures and I assume feet are somewhat similar. A friend of mine took his cast off his broken hand too soon and tried to use it more than he should because it did not hurt very much. That ended in disaster. His hand was never the same as before the break happened. I would try to avoid causing any additional pain in the area of the break if I were you.

As far as putting off surgery, I dont know if that's a good idea or not - ask your doc what he thinks about that. I know putting off torn tendon or torn muscle surgery is a very bad idea because if you get those types of things fixed quickly, they heal way faster than if you put them off. I'm not sure about bones - again, ask your doc and follow his advice.

thanks for the feels and for the advice

I'm seeing the surgeon in a few hours and I'm really hoping that he's happy with what he sees on the new x rays and that the bone can heal without surgery to insert a pin.

it's always a balance...surgeons make money by performing surgery and my perception is that they're always going to lean towards that solution...even if it's a 50:50 situation. But to your point, there's potentially more risk involved with leaving it to heal itself and definitely more risk involved with training earlier than recommended.

idk - I do know surgery will be a huge PITA - I live in a house with 3 flights of stairs and it's already difficult to navigate with a boot on. Plus I'll be gutted to miss out on the competition season and....we're 10 weeks into a lockdown that is likely to last 17/18 weeks and I'm going crazy without the ability to do some cardio

we'll see what the surgeon says

surgeon visit started badly when the x ray woman said 'oh my, that's a big break'!

I then waited an hour to see the Orthopedic surgeon. He was surprised how well I was walking in the boot and said that was a really good sign. Then he took me through the x ray and it is indeed a clean break through the bone but told me that there's a 95% chance that it while it'll grow back in a slightly different way/shape, it should grow back fine on it's own. Basically, because the length of the bone hasn't been affected...it's just split in two, there shouldn't be a need to insert a pin. So I have an appointment to see him in 5 more weeks to check on how the bone is rebuilding.

he then also told me that rowing really shouldn't make the injury worse...if I can handle the pain, I should be able to train without impacting the break.

so...all in all, a really good result. I'm going to go and sit on the erg in a little while for a light paddle to see how it feels

5005m in 22.00.9, 2.12/500m, hr 128, drag 117

took it super easy, had the drag really low and really just lightly rowed without looking at the screen

tbh, the foot felt fine. it was difficult getting my sneaker on because the foot's still quite swollen but there wasn't much pain at all during the session, including when I twice did 'fast fives' and ramped the pace up. it's hurting a fair amount now, but it's an ache and nothing bad/structural.

actually the toughest thing was the tightness I felt in my Achilles tendon after a week limping with the boot on and I'm gonna have to be careful about that moving forward and I'm going to think about whether I wear the boot at all. I certainly won't be wearing it as much

either way...so incredibly happy with the way today has gone, both getting the thumbs up from the surgeon and then being able to row again relatively painlessly. I'm gonna take it easy this week, take every day as it comes and then slowly ramp up the distance and pace if my foot allows

Great news! Take it relatively easy, though; I was glad to hear you recognized that the Achilles could be an issue. Aidan tore his a few years back and it sounded rough for a late 20s breaux; for old dudes like us obviously even worse.

yep, the Achilles tightness was noticable and prevented full range of motion at the catch. it got a little better as the row went on

I'm going to limit wearing the boot to when I leave the house (2x a day max as we're in lockdown still) and hopefully this will ease the tightness on the Achilles naturally.

also bumped into a PT from my gym and he told me that he'd taken his boot off after a week too post breaking a metatarsal. he also gave me a few other tips that I'll prolly try too.

4x6 Bench 85kg
3x8/8 DB Flye/Bench 22.5kg
3.x8 Bent over Barbell Row 70kg
3x10 DB row 22.5kg

Foot feels ok. Achilles still tight. Im gonna stop wearing the boot because I think it’ll help relax the tightness in my heel.

Also gonna book some physio to help loosen the Achilles

Glad things are coming along! Sounds like you'll have a good recovery.

thanks Rich! I've definitely been pleasantly surprised how mobile I've been able to be and making the decision to take the boot off is increasing my life EV too. I'm going to take the rowing slowly to protect my Achilles but I'm hopeful I can get back to 'proper' training in a week or so

went and saw a physio today who confirmed some tightness in the Achilles and a small amount of calf muscle wastage caused by being in the boot for 8 days.

she confirmed what the surgeon had said that some firm soled shoes will do the same job as the boot so...I've said goodbye to the boot now and the calf already feels better

did a slightly longer, slightly more intense session today but still really easy going and just nice to be moving again. the physio definitely helped and the Achilles and calf were way looser and allowed a far better range of motion

30 mins 7210m at 2.04.9/500m stroke rate 19, drag 113, ave heart rate 140

I get occasional shots of pain through my foot but nothing sustained. I don't feel quite as powerful as usual but maybe that's pyschological

my plan is to do two more rows at about this pace...but probably 50 and 60 mins for
on Thurs and Sat, then rest up Sun and attempt a normal program this week with a couple of interval sessions and a harder long row