Foot Injury Update & My Favorite At-Home Exercises That Put No/Low Pressure on the Feet

Happy, happy weekend everyone!

It’s been a low-key Saturday for me so far – sleeping in, eating delicious whole wheat oatmeal blueberry banana pancakes (They are seriously the only pancakes I’ve made recently!), taking Harley for a long walk, and now here I am. Adam got an awesome hiking backpack for his birthday that he wanted to try out, so he went for a hike and I’m here sulking because I can’t hike and blogging to you all. Since I’m laying on the couch icing my foot, I figured this is a good time for an injury update.

As I briefly mentioned last week, I have been wearing a soft cast on my foot. When I went to the podiatrist, he confirmed that I have sesamoiditis (further explanation of that here), and that one of my sesamoid bones looks a lot worse than the other and is probably fractured. He gave me the cast to wear for at least a month and crutches (which have been used a total of 2 minutes), and told me to rest, rest, rest!

Surprisingly, he didn’t try to get me on meds or tell me to take pain killers to help reduce the inflammation and achiness or anything (fine by me). He really didn’t give me much direction besides staying off of it and allowing it time to heal, but there have been a couple of other things I’ve been doing a lot of it, including icing it a couple of times a day and using my Tiger Tail to sort of massage the area around my foot.

The doc said that sesamoiditis is really hard to get rid of because it’s most common in young, super active people who don’t want to rest it, and because the blood flow to the foot is not so great. The Tiger Tail is meant to increase blood flow to a given area, which is why I roll it around on my calf often too. I figure it can only help!

When I left the doctor, I felt a bit bummed. I knew that my foot was going to need time to heal, but a cast? What a pain in the butt! I needed a night to digest what this meant for me for the next month or two, and I woke up the next morning with some clarity.

Yes, I need to let my foot heal and rest, but I also would go a little nuts if I just sat on my butt all day without any exercise whatsoever. I’m used to those feel-good endorphins flowing through my body, and I dread the thought of being a bump on a log nonstop. It makes it worse knowing that I’ve been doing tough workouts with this foot injury bugging me for awhile now, and it’s not like I’m incapable of doing high-impact exercise… but, I know that it just isn’t smart to do so right now if I want it to heal.  Taking it easy means different things to different people, and this has been my low-key daily exercise as of late:

• At least 30 minutes of walking Harley (with the boot on!)
• 30-45 minutes of arm and ab exercises, stretching and foam rolling

Using a pair of just 5-pound dumbbells, I’ve been doing my light workout in my living room as I catch up on mostly trashy TV and my DVR list of Chelsea Lately episodes. It’s a bit tough because I’m so tempted to just start busting out some burpies and lunges, but I’ve been diligent about not putting a lot of pressure on my foot. With that being said, here’s a list of current my favorite exercises:

 Thus far, this has been a good balance of making me feel like I’m still breaking a sweat and moving, but also allowing myself time to rest.

This kind of workout is also good to remember the next time you miss the gym or hit the snooze button and skip your pre-work run. An easy alternative to still getting some movement into your day is to do some of these moves and whatever other ones pop into your head as your watch television. Do it for 15 minutes or an hour – every little bit counts!

And if you’re not familiar with all of these, here are explanations of some of the moves mentioned above:

• Supermans 
• Dumbbell Shoulder Press
• Dumbbell Flies
• Tricep Kickbacks
• Standing Overhead Tricep Extension
• Side Kicks
• Donkey Kicks
• Bicycle Crunches
• Scissor Kicks
• Russian Twists

Speaking of which, I’m off to do a light living room workout!