. . . no, I’ve already broken it thanks.

Luckily no surgery required but they put my leg in an airboot cast until early October. So no mountain biking in the Surrey Hills for a while, but at least I can walk on it a bit.

The advice I am looking for from anybody with experience of this is:
– anything I can do to keep reasonably fit for cycling
– what to expect in terms of mobility and strength when the cast comes off
– what time and rehab it takes once the cast is off before I can ride again.

Thanks – JR

Hand cranked bike?

You shouldn’t have too much wastage in 6weeks, but for rehab, little and very often is best. Don’t take on too much at once.

My fib is broken in two places, and wasn’t reduced or repaired at the time as the tibia was the main cause for concern. It therefore still is in three pieces, with a floating section. The point is that the fib is pretty much useless. It stabilises the ankle a bit, but you can live without it. I tire after long walks, but cycling doesn’t bother it. If I do something really daft like playing soccer or whatever, anything that requires a lot of direction change, it gets very sore the next day. So, nothing major. About 8 weeks to knit properly if they’ve reduced it, and it’ll need a bit of building back up, but you should be good to go in a couple of months. Heal well

I think it depends where in the fibula the break is.. I’ve got a fracture in mine at the moment, at the top, just behind my knee…did it in Alps 4 weeks ago, no cast on it, no treatment at all just use crutches when necessary and take painkillers. So, I am going for easy rides already. Riding actually less painful than walking. Doctor said swimming would be fine. Can you take boot off? Are you ok to weight bear on it? To be honest, a brisk walk on crutches is damn good exercise!!

Good luck

Kath

fibula takes approx 40% of the weightbearing through the lower leg.

Fracture will take about 4-6 weeks to heal and will continue to heal and remodel the bone for up to 12 months after that.

Dependent on if you can take the boot off or not you may have a very stiff ankle after 4-6 weeks in the boot.

If all goes well you should be able to recover fairly quickly when the boot come off, I would guestimate approx 4 weeks to get back to normal activity and expect it to be feeling pretty much normal at 12 weeks post fracture.

You can expect to have aches and pain from it for up to 12 months though.

fibula takes approx 40% of the weightbearing through the lower leg.

Not even close, Doctor Nick. Don’t spout medical advice when you have no clues.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6705357

The fibula’s role is largely to contribute to ankle motion but I would be skeptical of any study assessing weight bearing of the fibula- main thing is the tibia is the main weight bearing bone.

No-one can properly advise you as fractures/ people are often not straight forward even if they appear so. I broke my fibula and tibia with nice clean breaks and had 3 months in a full leg cast yet my GF’s grandmother smashed her arm to bits and was fine in 2 weeks (bad examples but you get the point!)

Standard advice with anything like this is to take it easy. You have more chance of doing harm by trying to rush things than of losing a huge amount of fitness/ muscle mass with a few weeks off.

Expect to be weak/ sore/ miserable for a few weeks after the boot is off and most likely be pleasantly surprised when that is not the case 🙂

Remember also that when a doctor mentions “getting back to activities or sport” their definition of this isn’t as demanding as you would probably hope for. Most people want to sit at their desk at work comfortably not crank out the miles in the middle of nowhere 🙂 Take it easy and be patient! Don’t be disappointed if it is still sore after a year or so as kjrogers says.

Best of luck and heal well!

If you are in boot and weightbearing it is by definition a stable fracture. If they are happy for you to do so doing range of motion exercises out of boot when seated will help hugely.

If you have a turbo you can get axles to put pedals outboard so you can pedal in an aircast boot – have had patients do this previously.

Long term should be fine and shouldn’t be that sore when you get back to riding. That said everyone recovers differently and it is a bit of a suck it and see.

James (orthopod)

have had patients do this previously.

I have cycled on flats with an aircast before with a stress-fractured fibula. I was in it approx 8-9 weeks and had noticable reduction in muscle size that still exists 8 months later.

My son broke his tib and fib a couple of years ago; crutches for 4 months and then many months to recover strength. And he was in 6-form and they wouldn’t let him attend while on crutches as he was a ‘Fire Risk’…

Or as he told his Head of Year, “I’m a damn site more mobile than those (pointing at a couple of ‘ladies’) fat tarts”!

kjrogers – Member
fibula takes approx 40% of the weightbearing through the lower leg.

How come 15 years years later I don’t keep falling over then? Mine is still in three pieces!

Thanks for the comments, all.

It is apparently a sprial fracture an inch or so above the ankle (just the fib, not the tib). It seems to be heeling pretty well at the mo – now 2 weeks since the original break and I can comfortably get around in the air boot with just 1 crutch – makes life a lot easier being able to carry things.

Whilst I take the ariboot off for a bath and to change trousers, I never flex my foot – I am always worried that may affect the break.

Walk to the fridge twice daily for ben n jerrys for the next 6 weeks then get on your bike to lose recently aquired winter ballast

fibula takes approx 40% of the weightbearing through the lower leg.
Not even close, Doctor Nick. Don’t spout medical advice when you have no clues.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6705357

Ok, I got that figure wrong. However you’ll find the rest of the advice sound as I rehab people for a living so I do have a clue.

As a quick update – I’ve had the boot off for nearly 4 weeks now.

First 2 weeks werey very still, and painful around the toes if I did too much walking, so was advised to wear the boot part time. I did a bit of riding on the turbo trainer, but had to take it easy or else the whole lower leg would swell up.

Since then its improved a lot from some physio and just walking around on it. The last 2 weeks I’ve quickly gone from being able to do 20 mins on the turbo trainer with flat pedals to happily getting out on the road and even easy off road for 90 mins with SPDs – all with just a few aches and slight swelling.

I can see where I’ve lost fitness over the last 8 weeks, such as about 25% extra on my times up Box Hill – but now I can see myself getting out and making some improvements.

So I’ll try and get in some more road work over the next week or two before returning to the more technical trails.