Continuing on from yesterday’s stress fracture information, today we look at what to do and what to avoid with a stress fracture.

Relative rest is a good way to protect your bone against further damage. Initially, limiting pain-provoking activities is necessary. Then, progressive return to weight-bearing during your activities of daily living, non-painful light cardiovascular exercises and therapeutic exercises will allow better recovery.

In the presence of a stress fracture, it’s important that physical activities, such as training, for example, are performed below the pain threshold.

Follow your practitioner’s advice. It will help you manage the different phases of the recovery process and will increase the likelihood of successful rehabilitation. Your practitioner will assist you during your rehabilitation program in order to regain your normal range of motion, strength and endurance, balance and pre-fracture functional status.

As per the principles of rehabilitation for stress fractures, reducing impacts is one of the main elements of functional recovery. In most cases, temporarily modifying training to focus on non-weight-bearing activities such as biking or swimming can help maintain your training level while allowing optimal bone recovery.

Avoid returning too quickly to running or activities that caused the fracture. A stress fracture can lead to a more important fracture if pain signals are ignored. People that reduce the volume of high-impact activities typically recover faster.