Stress Fracture - Mid Shaft/2nd Metatarsal - Regardless if you have a stress fracture or not, you have too much stress on the second metatarsal. That is why its called a stress fracture.
That's why you have a stress fracture of the second metatarsal, if in fact you really have a stress fracture. That has not been determined yet.
The key to this is not whether or not you have a stress fracture but why you have a stress fracture or too much stress in this area. That's what we have to figure out and eliminate so that you can go back to running barefoot for life.
The body and specifically the foot has ingenious ways of absorbing or springing off stressful impacts. Stress is actually good for the body because stress allows the body to be stimulated to adapt to get stronger. It’s just when stress is abnormally applied to joints from poor form and technique or if joints are locked not allowing the impact to be absorbed into a movable joint or if the muscles that attach on this particular joint are not strong enough to absorb the negative impact loading from that impact landing.
Just like a plane, the human body has a landing gear, spring-loaded shock absorbing mechanism built into the arch complex as well as the muscles that allow the dissent of the foot during impact like descending weights during a bench press or curl.
The human foot has 33 joints that allow 26 bones to move freely during impacts such as walking and running and other activities. The reason why it has 33 joints is because when you impact with the earth that impact can be spread across these 33 joints lessening the overall impact on any one area.
So why do you have more stress on the second metatarsal ban on the other 26 bones of your foot?
If all joints are moving the way they should then like I said the stress will be distributed amongst the joints smoothly and you should be able to run without any problem. Obviously there's a problem with the distribution of stress otherwise you wouldn't have a stress fracture or too much stress on the area.
Here's what I see happen over and over again clinically in my practice that can help you understand what might be happening. When the human body impacts the ground the entire human spring mechanism absorbs the impact through the floors of the entire body, the foot, the ankle, knee, hip, spine etc. Specifically the initial impact at the foot is absorbed through two mechanisms:
The foot rolls from the outside to the inside. This is the rolling from supination to pronation. This rolling occurs as the force of the impact is gradually loaded into the foot along a particular path that loads it the safest. It obviously loads differently for all kinds of impacts. For instance if you're doing a side shuffle drill, zigzag runs, hops skips lunges etc. It cannot routinely roll out of the safe range because being in the safe range causes stress on muscles and joints.
However, the foot has loading muscles, which are like loading the impact of the weight of the dumbbells as a negative in the bench press. The
spring suspension system muscles, or what I call the landing muscles of the foot stretch and load the impact into them and win the foot hits the bottom point and goes into toe off they snap the foot back into its original position.
This is what I call human spring.
The ability to load this impact follows the laws of physics in particular Hookes law
Certain activities can sabotage this event. For instance if you are holding a book and your hand with your arm in a 90° angle for 30 minutes (like a curl) the bicep muscle tightened stiffen and you will not be able to hold it very much longer perhaps because of the pain and stiffness in the joint of the elbow. You might have to do deep tissue work around the muscles of the elbow to get the elbow joint to free itself up again.
Foot Lock (link) - The same thing happens to the spring suspension system muscles, the negative loading muscles of the foot spring suspension system. It might not find this lingo and books because I made it up to be able to explain this in easier terms for the public to understand. I explain it to you and my mechanics/medical terms you'd stop reading long time ago.
So if you stand on your feet for a long period of time or on that particular foot for longer than you should any one of the muscles such as the tibialis posterior, anterior or peroneal muscles get tired, fatigued causing the complex to drop in the mid-arch complex to lock. What I have found clinically is it locks the majority of the time at the second metatarsal-cunieform joints and sometimes the third metatarsal-cunieform joints.
To check for this we do what we call motion palpation of the joint play in that joint complex which is around your mid arch. A more fun way of describing it is called the wiggle test. Get a grip on your midfoot and a grip on your second metatarsal, the second long ball of your foot and wiggle those two back and forth to see if there's good joint play. What you might find is that it's stiff as if it's been in the freezer for a while similar to what it chicken feels like when you're pulling it out of the freezer the joints are its frozen.
If you exceed the maximum amount of force that the spring mechanism can load its called failure strength and that’s how you got the stress fracture. (link)
If we release as many joints in your foot as we can and we can spread the force out across all the other joints and keep the stress off your second metatarsal in the future. After you do that you can take your thumb and what the pad stick it into the ace of the second metatarsal joint at the soul of your foot and see if there's pain there. A stress fracture isn't a fracture that's broken through. So you can push on the bone and it won't fracture further. If you can run on it, that's about 300 pounds of force on the foot. You can't possibly develop the kind of force with your thumb print into that area. Also the doctor said it wasn't fractured through so I would not be afraid to do this.
By applying the pressure to this muscle you can release the spasm that restricts the movement of that joint. If you start at the base of the heel and apply these deep tissue pressure points one thumbprint at a time to the knuckle of the second metatarsal you can release the muscle spasm that is restricting the second metatarsal cuneiform joint for moving.
Deep Tissue Treatment Under The Big Toe And Second Toe
Deep Tissue Treatment Above The Big Toe And Second Toe
Stretching Great For Mortons Neuromas And Narrow Heels
Scissor Stretching Of The Feet
Throughout this entire rehab process you should be spending about a half hour to 40 minutes (or more) a day doing your own deep tissue on your foot, which includes your second metatarsal third metatarsal first metatarsal sub scale or joint ankle mortise and the tibialis posterior muscle.
Check for Sub-Clinical Shin Splints too (link)
Also the second metatarsal cuneiform joint is locked in your impacts are going to be more of a bang than a spring. That can cause shin splints. Check for shin splints! Like I said if that joint is locked then it can't flex two load the impact into the joint comfortably so that's why you have a stress fracture or stress, causing pain. So if you can't load the impact into that joint you might not be able to load the impact and to the entire land is the majority of the weight is held by the first and second metatarsal's. The third fourth and fifth just guide the foot while absorbing a minimal amount of impact force. In order for you to get this second and third metatarsal cunieform joint to be the least you really have to wiggle it pretty good. You may hear a click when the joint releases. Just keep it loose and wiggle it back and forth to wiggle it lose.
I'm going to give you some more deep tissue techniques that you can use to release this complex of 33 joints so that your stress of the impacts can be absorbed more comfortably across these joints rather than the majority of it through that second metatarsal. Hopefully you will get back to running again without pain and this should help you with that.
How to Self Adjust Your Toes
Deep Tissue Treatment Of The Subtalar Joint Of The Ankle On The Inside
Deep Tissue Treatment Of The Ankle (Subtalar Joint Outside)
Deep Tissue Of The Ankle Mortise
Stretching Of The Foot While Sitting At Your Chair
A Stretch To Increase The Flexibility Of The Arch Of Your Foot
