Subject: RE: Foot and hip injury Sounds like you should get in the swimming pool and start working on your swim. You might be able to do some bike work after some time recovering swimming and working on core strength. Wish you well in your recovery. A few lessons learned I hope and one is over-training/under-training, weak core strength and possibly ill fitting shoes. I myself suffered some soft tissue injuries in my early days when I started increasing distance. Core strength and proper shoes helped immediately, with a few months of proper fitting shoes and some yoga to help stretch and strengthen the core I was able to run 2 marathons injury free. Swimming is a total core workout, biking requires core strength but does not build core strength so you will have to get the core in shape swimming to be an effective cyclist/runner. A note on shoes, one problem is Toe Box Width. Most of us men do not have princess toes, most commercial shoes cram your toes together not letting them splay out and stabilize the foot. Your feet end up just plodding along for the ride and all the extra stress is place on the legs which have to compensate, thus leading to soft tissue injuries. Another common trait among commercial shoes is large heel to toe drops, this helps take the stress off the achilles tendon, it also makes it weak and can contribute to injury (achilles/planter) over time when increasing distances as in marathon training. I will not get into any shoe unless it is 5mm or less of heel/toe drop and a wide open toe box. No exceptions. I might also recommend a book called 'Born to Run' you will find the information inside well worth your reading time. Best wishes on your recovery. |