So what exactly is a stress fracture?
A stress fracture is a small break in the bone caused by repetitive action; it can not occur on one occasion. Although it sounds a bit unnatural, your bones deform in every day life. According to Newton's third law "for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction", just standing creates some force on your body because the earth is "pushing" back up. Your body can take most of it since your bones are slightly elastic meaning they bend a small amount, and your muscles also absorb some of the shock/forces. However, when a muscle is strained or overworked, it stops taking the shocks and your bones' force intake increases. Think about a car going over a speed bump: the shocks make it where you can't feel the bump, but if your shocks stop working correctly, the bump is more apparent.
Bones have a threshold with the forces they can withstand. If you don't allow enough resting time after your body is overworked, the bones will not fully return to their original state. This means the next time you work out, your bones start closer to the maximum force limit. Once the threshold is hit, your bones snap. It acts just like a tipping point. The snap usually is too minute to break the bone, which leads to a small "hairline" fracture. Stress fractures typically occur in the lower leg (tibia or fibula) or in the feet (metatarsal). They are also known to occur in ribs of golfers and in the lower back for tennis ad basketball players. Since numerous people take up running for fitness, they expose themselves to high chances of stress fractures.
Even though this sounds elementary, the best way to avoid a stress fracture is to make sure your body gets the rest and nutrients that it needs. It will save you pain and 6 to 8 weeks of recovery time!
3 comments:
Nice link to the article, beautiful illustrations, clear writing! And I like the final paragraph, which connects to health (which most readers will connect to). You could expand on this sort of interaction more to enhance engagement.
This is really interesting to see what the actual cause is. Growing up running and doing gymnastics we'd always hear about stress fractures but I never really knew what exactly they were other than something to avoid.
Do you know if they are most common in bones in the legs? Or do can they occur in other areas of the body as well?
I love this article. Mostly because this is exactly my field of study. My favorite class here was musculoskeletal biomechanics where you learn about the mechanical properties of bones, muscles, and tendons. It was really interesting and I think I will probably do a post about osteoarthritis in older women and our body's ability to help prevent it. I hope you do more posts like this
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