My Tendon Injury

Firstly, again, apologies for the lack of posts, it's a really busy time of my life at the moment, sorting out finances and a place to rent when I'm hundreds of miles away from where I'll be renting is proving to be challenging. When things settle down I hope to get back to a more consistent posting routine.

Anyway, this post is just going to speak about my foot injury, something that has impacted my life in a huge way and I've finally bitten the bullet and saw a physiotherapist to get a professional opinion.

It started when I was prepping for my bodybuilding competition, the combination of a vigorous weightlifting regime, a large calorific deficit and a sudden increase of cardio, to which at my peak I was doing relatively high-intensity training for hours and hours each day, resulting in an aching pain in my feet, most predominantly in my left foot.

This would be triggered by lifting weights, running and even walking when it was at its worst, so I decided to cut out the exercises that made it worse. Firstly I stopped training legs, then I stopped doing compound movements in general, but it got to a stage where I couldn't even walk the dogs without limping.

I decided to cut out exercise completely, in the hope that this would provide an opportunity for rest and recovery of the injury. Due to having a scientific background, I was confident that it was a tendon issue, and specifically looked into tendons like the extensor digitorum longus as the probable cause. Turns out it is most likely the EDL, although it could be the retinaculum, but I'm hoping it's the EDL tendons as they're easier to treat.

The above image shows a diagram of the tendons in the foot. The extensor digitorum longus tendons are involved in the extension (pulling back towards you) of the 3 toes in the middle of your foot, excluding the big and small toe. They're involved in stability and extension and therefore any kind of exercise will have some effect on them. I found that even carrying dumbbells around was causing pain, due to my feet having intense pressure on them to stabilize my body.

Due to this, going forward I will be conducting isometric extensor exercises everyday to hopefully strengthen the tendons, alongside standing on a stability board to increase overall activation in a range of motions.

In regards to the gym, as I'm soon to start work and will be in a place where a gym will be more accessible, I do aim to get back into the gym, but I will probably have to stick to machines for the most part for now, so I don't aggravate the tendons too much.

I really hope this gets fixed, after 8 months or so of not going to the gym for the greater good of me thinking it'd heal itself, and it to still be the same has been really demoralizing and I wish I was like how I used to be. I miss working out and being super strong, it gave me so much confidence and I just loved every second of it, I feel pretty crap knowing that I'm a shadow of my former self, I'd do anything to get back to being where I was. It's crazy to think I was on stage of a national physique show last year and now I struggle to do push-ups haha.

But I will get back to where I was. I can't, and won't let this injury stop me.

Have any of you had any injuries that have set you back? How did you go about overcoming them?

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Sapientia Ianua Vitae

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