Avoiding Winter Sports Injuries

Whether you exercise in the summer or winter, healthy feet keep you active. Most people associate many foot problems with summer. But foot problems can also arise in the winter if the feet are not properly cared for. Winter sports injuries can include blisters, strains, sprains, calluses, athlete’s foot, frostbite and even fractures.

Hitting The Slopes

One of the most exhilarating winter sports is skiing. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned skier, it’s important to make sure you are in good shape for the sport. This means that you will need to train properly before you hit the slopes. To get in shape, and to prevent winter sports injuries, experts recommend strength training. Focus on your quads, glutes, hip muscles, back, neck, and core. It’s also essential to stretch right before any type of physical activity.  In cold weather, muscles take longer to warm up.

It’s important to wear properly fitted ski boots and adding insoles for support.  The right footwear will also ward off a host of other foot problems such as blisters and calluses. The warm, moist environment of ski boots is the perfect breeding ground for athlete’s foot too. Make sure you invest in a few pairs of thick nylon, acrylic, polyester or even merino wool socks like Smartwool. They will keep your feet at the right temperature. Also, moisturize your skin regularly, because dry, cracked skin, will lead to painful heel cracks and calluses.

Winter Appropriate Gear

If you not a skier, and just enjoy taking long walks in the winter, it’s also important to dress appropriately. Wear properly-fitted footwear that will keep you from falling.  You may want to use ice grips or traction devices that easily attach to the bottoms of shoes or boots to help prevent slipping on icy surfaces. If you go ice skating and are wearing rental ice skates, it’s important to get fitted and wear thick padded socks to prevent rubbing, and to lace the skates up tightly around the ankle to prevent sprains.

Also, the right socks, boots, and shoes will make all the difference in not only your level of enjoyment and your workout, but your safety. Boots and shoes that are too tight or too loose can cause calluses or blisters as your feet are exposed to repeated friction or pressure as you move.  A good way to prevent or avoid foot problems such as blisters is to make sure you wash your feet every day and dry them thoroughly after you exercise. If you have diabetes or peripheral arterial disease you are also at higher risk for frostbite because the circulation to your legs and feet may be compromised.

Knee and Ankle Injuries

Winter sports can also be hard on your ankles and knees. Your ankles and knees act as both your shock absorbers and your brakes as you ski, skate, or snowboard, and they also help you steer and accelerate when whizzing down the slopes or circling an ice-skating rink, so they must be protected.  It is recommended to use knee braces for winter sports such as skiing and snowboarding.

To reduce your chance of suffering a knee inquiry, always make sure your ski bindings are property adjusted for your skill level. The higher your ability, the tighter your bindings should be.  And, if possible, work on falling to the side instead of backwards or forwards because this is less traumatic for your knees. Ankle sprains and fractures are more common in snowboarders because they do more twisting. A good way to avoid ankle injuries is to work on your balance proprioception with a wobble board. Wearing sports insoles, and/or ankle tape can also help prevent winter sports injuries as well.

Protect Yourself

We’ve talked about protection and touched on prevention. But one of the one of the most important things you need to do is to wear a helmet. A minor fall can turn into a major injury when your head is involved. And, if you are injured, don’t let it go. Follow up and visit your doctor as soon as possible. Because a minor pain can turn into something bigger if it’s not addressed.

Calluses

Most of us can remember running around barefoot when we were young. Shoes seemed like such a hindrance! As we get older though, shoes are a necessity for overall health and mobility. And while good fitting shoes are important, many foot maladies are often caused by boney prominences consistent with underlying foot deformities.  These deformities along with thinning skin layers can increase the risk and frequency of calluses.

What Are Calluses And What Causes Them?

Calluses are thick, hardened layers of skin that develop when the skin tries to protect itself against friction and pressure. Your skin will develop a thick rough patch first and then become a hardened bump which can vary in size. It may become tender or painful to touch and your skin may be flaky or dry.

Underlying foot deformities such as hammertoes, bunions, or plantarflexed metatarsals can increase the risk of developing calluses. When you have an underlying problem, simply scraping the callus away doesn’t solve the problem. The callus will return because of the constant pressure and friction associated with the deformity. Also, as we age, our skin can become thinner. Diabetes or other health conditions can also cause poor blood flow to your feet and put you at greater risk for calluses.

Calluses most often happen on the feet, but they can also occur on the hands, elbows, or knees. Most health problems don’t have any advantages. Athletes will tell you that calluses do protect and make their feet less sensitive during sports. If you still go barefoot a lot, you have an even greater chance of developing calluses because of the constant bare contact with the ground and the weight you put on your feet (1.5 times your body weight when walking, 7.5 times your body weight when running).

Home Treatment Options

Once you get a callus, there are many at-home treatment options available, including:

• Keeping your feet clean and using a scrub brush to get rid of any excess skin

• Use a moisturizer designed for feet

• Use a pumice stone or a file for your feet to remove harder skin deposits

• Wear socks that fit well

• Use toe separators, felt pads and non-medicated pads or bandages over areas that rub

• Wear properly fitted footwear

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It cannot be overstated that wearing ill-fitting shoes when you have underlying foot deformities will cause and exacerbate the formation of calluses and other foot maladies. Shoes that are too tight or too loose, high heels and even seams inside your shoe can cause rubbing and friction leading to foot problems.

In Office Treatment

It’s important that you not try to treat a callus if you have diabetes or other arterial disease. For patients without diabetes, most calluses are unsightly and can lead to a lot of discomfort, but by eliminating the source of friction that causes the callus, the callus can be treated. Often, patients can come in to the office and have their callus debrided (or removed) every six weeks to bring relief.  Custom made orthotics with customized depressions or cut outs can redistribute pressure on the feet and can also provide relief, and in-office acid treatments may also be a consideration if patients do not have health issues that make this type of therapy too risky.

Please call Dr. Sara Shirazi if you would like further assessment of your calluses and foot/ankle pain. 626-517-0022.

Shin Splints

Many of us remember shin splints from our childhood after a day spent in the park, playing tennis on asphalt courts with thin soled rubber tennis shoes or after running for hours through the neighborhood with our friends. Once we got home, our shins were on fire and we didn’t know why. As we got older, we were more careful before physical activities, taking time to stretch before we exercised. Yet, shin splints still occur and are one of the most common complaints we hear from our patients.

What Causes Shin Splints?

Also known as Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome, shin splints are a common injury affecting athletes and runners. Shin splints are characterized by pain in the lower region of the leg between the knee and ankle. Or in the middle to lower portion of the lateral part of the tibia, the larger of the two bones of the lower leg. They are caused by several overlapping factors such as weak core muscles, running uphill, downhill or on uneven terrain or on hard surfaces. If your gait is off, shin splints can occur when the front of the shin gets overstressed and overused from lifting the toes during walking or running.

Improper footwear and worn-out shoes can also cause shin splints. As you repeatedly hit a hard surface without the proper support, the stress on the bones cannot absorb the impact forces as the foot repeatedly hits the ground. Your tibia will actually bend or bow from the pressure causing shin splints.

Prevention

To prevent shin splints, it’s important to do conditioning before you start any new activities. Training is essential, and you will need to strengthen the larger muscle groups like hips and knees. Yet you must also be flexible in the opposing muscle groups. Warm up exercises are crucial as well. Exercises such as the runners stretch, heel/toe raises, and regular squats will help ward off shin splints. As stated before, we can’t stress enough the importance of the proper footwear.

If you get shin splints, you will develop a recurring dull or razor-like ache along the inner part of the tibia or shin. This pain will occur during all exercise or physical activity and touching the sore spot can aggravate the pain. You might notice tenderness, soreness or pain along the inner side of your shinbone and mild swelling. At first, the pain might stop when you stop exercising. Eventually, however, the pain can be continuous and might progress to a stress reaction or stress fracture if not treated.

Treatment Options

It’s important to treat shin splints immediately. Typical home treatments include rest, ice, and strengthening exercises before you return to any strenuous activities. I cannot stress proper footwear enough. Pre-fabricated or Custom Insoles may be recommended if your arches collapse or flatten when you stand. If you don’t get better, the next step is physical therapy sessions where you will do strengthening exercises to improve foot strike and body mechanics.

We also recommend foam rolls to loosen the tight fascia (the material that wraps most of our muscles) and manual massage. Kinesio taping is another successful way to treat shin splints. The Kinesio tape such as Rocktape is used by physical therapists to change muscle tone, move lymphatic fluids, correct movement patterns, and improve posture. When applied correctly, it lifts the skin to create a small space between the muscle and dermis layers. That space takes the pressure off swelling or injured muscles, allows smooth muscle movement and makes space for drainage and blood flow.

Please feel free to make an appointment with our specialist, Dr. Sara Shirazi, at 626-517-0022.